LONDON, July 28: Michael Phelps failed in his first medal bid at the London Olympics, shattering the overpowering mystique he created with his unprecedented eight gold medals at Beijing.

Phelps didn't even make it to the podium in the 400-metre individual medley at the Aquatics Centre on Saturday, the first full day of competition at the games. He was fourth behind winner and fellow American Ryan Lochte, who was ahead of the world record but faded on the final freestyle lap.

Lochte was more than three seconds ahead of Brazil's Thiago Pereira. Japan's Kosuke Hagino claimed the bronze.

There was other drama in the pool when Beijing 400-metre freestyle champion Park Tae-hwan of South Korea was reinstated after first being disqualified in the heats. Park touched the wall first in his 400 freestyle heat, but was thrown out for a false start.

South Korea filed a protest which was upheld by governing body FINA, and Park later led the final before finishing up with silver, more than two seconds behind gold medallist Sun Yang of China.

More than 10,000 athletes from 204 countries will compete in 26 sports over 17 days of competition in London, the only city to have staged the modern Summer Games three times.

Four-time world champion Wang Mingjuang of China extended a 10-year unbeaten international record to win gold in the first women's weightlifting event of the London Games, the 48-kg weight division.

South Korea’s men's archery team, who won gold at the last three Olympics and set new individual and team world records in an earlier round, could not keep up their magnificent scoring and finished behind third in the team competition behind Italy and the United States.

In judo, Sarah Menezes took Brazil's first Olympic gold in the sport, in the women's under-48kg by defeating reigning Olympic champion Romania's Alina Dumitru, while Russia's Arsen Galstyan won the men's -60kg.

But the story of the under-48kg was Hungary's Eva Csernoviczki, who bounced back from being strangled unconscious in the quarter-finals to claim an unlikely bronze.

At Wimbledon, where Roger Federer won his 17th Grand Slam earlier this month, the world No 1 survived a scare in his opening singles match against Colombia's Alejandro Falla before prevailing 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 to book a second-round place.

But US Open champion Samantha Stosur and Li Na, last year's French Open winner, were both rolled out of the All England Club with defeats to Carla Suarez Navarro and Daniela Hantuchova respectively.—Agencies

Medal table (At 12:30am PST on Sunday)

Country    G    S    B    T China    4    0    2    6 Italy    2    2    1    5 United States    1    2    1    4 Brazil    1    1    1    3 South Korea    1    1    1    3 Russia    1    0    0    1 Kazakhstan    1    0    0    1 Japan    0    2    1    3 Poland    0    1    0    1 Romania    0    1    0    1 Colombia    0    1    0    1 Hungary    0    0    1    1 Serbia    0    0    1    1 Belgium    0    0    1    1 Uzbekistan    0    0    1    1 North Korea    0    0    1    1 Norway    0    0    1    1