Success for Somerset-based stars hasn’t just been confined to football this week as our locally-based Olympic athletes have risen to their challenge.

Sherborne shooter Peter Wilson, whose father Charles farms at Glanvilles Wootton near Sherborne, won a double trap shooting gold medal at the London Games, scoring a whopping 188 out of 200 in his specific event.

And Yeovil-born rower Heather Stanning, together with partner Helen Glover, triumphed yesterday morning with Team GB’s first gold medal of the Games in the women’s coxless pairs rowing event. Both girls trained at Bath University in the build up to the first home Olympics since 1948.

Congratulations to all of them from everyone at Huish Park but don’t forget there are several more local athletes set to appear over the next few days. Sam Weale, identical twin brother of former Glovers keeper Chris, makes his second appearance at an Olympics when he kicks off his modern pentathlon medal challenge on Saturday 11th August.

And if you’ve been impressed by history’s greatest ever Olympian, US swimmer Michael Phelps, he too has a Somerset connection. Genealogy website Ancestry.co.uk have done some digging and gone back seven generations to find out his roots are in the small village of Chew Magna, near Bristol.