So the nation's sweetheart was not, this time, to get her fairytale ending. Rebecca Adlington secured for Britain its first medal of the pool, but for a nation greedy for gold, it was the wrong colour.
The defending Olympic champion ? whose twin victories in Beijing made her one of the superstars of London 2012 years before it actually took place ? could manage only bronze in the 400m freestyle, despite enormous roars of support that at felt at times that they might lift the temporary wings of the Aquatic Centre.
Adlington was not the favourite at her less favoured distance, and the race was to be won by the woman with the fastest time this year to her name.
France's Camille Muffat broke the Olympic record to win in 4min 1.45sec, narrowly beating Allison Schmitt into silver. Adlington, in sixth at the halfway mark, had to battle heroically in the final 100 metres to pull herself back to bronze.
But if four years of expectation may have lent the result a tinge of disappointment for some, Adlington insisted that she herself was delighted.
"We can only do our best and that's what I did tonight and that's why I'm pleased with a bronze. I'm happy to say I'm third in the world, it's unbelievable."
Those who had anticipated an easy victory had always been mistaken, she said. "Going in to that, I didn't expect ever to get a gold medal, it was never an expectation of mine, that was other people's. Your own goals are very different to what other people want to set for you.
"Everyone has been just saying to me, 'Hey are you going to get a gold?', like I'm just going to pick up my drink and it's so easy."
In the moments after stepping from the pool she was close to tears, she admitted, at the response from the audience, who in contrast to earlier scenes in the Aquatic Centre packed almost every seat, and roared to a deafening crescendo as the race progressed.
"The crowd, oh my God, was unbelieveable," she said, adding that in the last 100 metres of the race their cheers "inspired me, encouraged me, gave me that little bit extra."
Her bid had very nearly ended in disaster earlier in the day when, like Michael Phelps 24 hours previously, she only narrowly managed to squeak into the final in eighth place. Though she dominated her own heat, two extremely fast races that followed came close to edging her out of the final, and meant she was forced to seek to defend her title ? a feat no British swimmer has ever achieved ? from lane eight.
Adlington has swum well in outside lanes before ? she won silver at last year's world championships in Shanghai from lane one, after finishing seventh in the heats, and the year before won bronze from an outside lane.
But, away from the frenzied competitiveness of the centre lanes, where Schmitt stayed on the Frenchwoman's shoulder throughout the race, it was a lonely battle.
"I couldn't see much," she said. "To be honest I didn't have a clue where I was coming. I just had to swim my own race. I just put my head down and went for it.
Adlington had swum the second fastest time this year at 400m, but her favoured distance has always been the 800m freestyle, and Sunday's result will increase inevitably the pressure on her when she comes to contest that race on 3 August.
"The 800 is going to be a completely different race," she said. "It's my favourite event, it's always going to be the event I'm drawn to."
For the 23-year-old from Mansfield, the race was the culmination of a remarkable journey from the night at Beijing's Water Cube when she burst spectacularly into the national consciousness.
An overnight media darling who saw the Mansfield pool in which she had trained as a child promptly renamed in her honour, Adlington has admitted that her newfound celebrity status was a distraction.
Her form slumped after the last Games, and in her favoured distance of 800m she came 4th in the 2009 world championships, and a disappointing 7th at the European championships the following year. She has battled back to impressive form, however, and as world champion and world record holder at the 800m distance, she will start that race the clear favourite for gold, having swum the two fastest times this year.
Arriving, at last, at the Games had left her "so emotional" before the race, she said. "I think the whole event, the whole being here, overwhelms you at once. It's only sunk in today that I'm actually at the London Olympics. It's going to be an emotional week."
Elsewhere in the pool, American Ryan Lochte saw his dream of winning seven swimming golds crumble when the US 4x 100m freestyle team were narrowly beaten at the death by France.
The result gave team-mate and rival Michael Phelps his first medal of the Games and his 17th overall, but for Lochte, who beat Phelps in the 400m individual medley race on Saturday, the best he can now hope for is a modest six golds.
Earlier Briton Ellen Gandy finished in last place in the 100m butterfly final, in a race that saw American Dana Vollmer break the world record.
It was Gandy's first Olympic final, and there was little expectation that she would challenge for medals with the 200m her favoured event.
Gandy, too, paid tribute to the "amazing" crowd.
"I was the first swimmer out and it was so loud. You can also hear them on the second 50 which is unusual."
Vollmer's world record was the second of the meet after Ye Shiwen lowered the women's 400m individual medley on Saturday with a final 50m quicker than Ryan Lochte, winner of the men's equivalent.
South Africa's Cameron Van der Burgh also broke the world record in the men's 100m breastroke, finishing in 58.46.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/29/rebecca-adlington-bronze-medal-olympics
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