At the team level, Great Britain has various successes in some sports, but as some of those team sports left the Olympic scene, the level of team sports in the Olympics for Great Britain seemed to dwindle.
Case in point, at Paris 1900, won gold over the 'Mixed' team in the final of the cricket. The Great Britain side and the 'Mixed' team were the only sides that competed in the cricket at those Paris games.
In addition, Great Britain had a podium sweep of the polo at London 1908 and a podium sweep of tug-of-war, also at London 1908. Polo and tug-of-war, along with cricket are long gone from the Olympic lineup.
Then there's the early successes of the football (soccer) program, where they won gold at Paris 1900 (defeated France in the final) and at London 1908 (defeated Denmark in the final). British football at the summer Games haven't been the same since then.
Water polo won gold at London 1908, defeating Belgium in the final. Only water polo gold to date, in a sport dominated in the Olympics within the last 60 years by Hungary.
And then there's (field) hockey. The Brits first won gold at London 1908, in a podium sweep. At Seoul 1988, their eighty year drought came to an end after their win over West Germany in the final.
To this day, this was the last team medal for Great Britain in the summer Olympics.
As of now, since this year's summer games is in their own backyard, every sport must have at least one competitor representing Great Britain (IOC and the respective sports' sanctioning bodies standard procedure for the host country). Therefore, 506 Brits will compete at this year's games.
London is the only city in the UK to host the summer Olympics. This year will be the third time they will do so. London previously hosted the summer games in 1908 and again in 1948.
Thus ends the parade of nations. The next focus on the countdown series will be on the other countries that will also send (or slating) to send athletes to London.
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