Medallist Zara makes mother proud

Zara Phillips has gone one better than her mother - by winning an Olympic silver medal with Britain's eventing team.

As the Princess Royal looked on proudly, Zara received a rapturous reception from the home crowd at Greenwich Park, which also included the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

The Princess Royal is an eventing Olympian, having competed in Montreal in 1976 where she did not win a medal.

But she will present the silver medals to her daughter and the rest of the eventing team, Nicola Wilson, Mary King and Kristina Cook and William Fox-Pitt.

The last time Team GB won an Olympic team eventing gold was in Munich 40 years ago, when Captain Mark Phillips - Zara's father - was a competitor.

In 1976, the Princess Royal came 24th in the individual eventing and the team came 9th. Zara's father - now coach of the US eventing team - won a team gold in 1972 and a silver in 1988.

The team's success came despite Zara admitting "I messed up" after a disappointing round in the showjumping - but her team-mates came to the rescue to ensure the silver medal.

Attention now turns to the individual competition, which could bring further British success.

Another slim Team GB medal hope later includes Beth Tweddle and the women's individual all-around gymnastic team, but there was disappointment in the canoe slalom for world number one and Beijing silver medallist David Florence, who crashed out.

As the rain fell on spectators, Games organiser Locog said more than two million people turned out to watch the first three days of competition.

Controversy continued to grow about 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen following doubts about her world record-breaking performance.

Critics of Ye, who will again go for gold in the 200m individual medley, should "get real", Mark Adams of the International Olympics Committee said.

He said London 2012 had a "very, very strong drug-testing programme" and added that any cheats would be caught.

But he said: "I think we need to get real here."

These are "the world's best athletes competing at the very highest level" and records are being broken "all over the place", he said.

His comments came after American coach John Leonard described Ye's performance as "disturbing".

China's appalling past record for their swimmers failing doping tests has led to inevitable suspicions over the teenager, who took five seconds off her personal best and more than a second off the world record in the 400m individual medley.

Ye Shiwen's swim was described as "insanely fast" by previous world record-holder Steph Rice - indeed, in the final 50m, Ye swam faster than the men's champion Ryan Lochte.

Meanwhile, a 17-year-old was arrested after malicious tweets were sent to Olympic diver Tom Daley.

In Dorset, police said a teenager was held at a guesthouse in Weymouth hours after 18-year-old Daley received the messages on social networking site Twitter.

Daley and his Team GB diving partner Pete Waterfield missed out on a medal when they finished fourth in the men's synchronised 10m platform diving event at the Olympics.

Shortly afterwards, Daley retweeted a message which said: "You let your dad down i hope you know that."

Daley responded by tweeting: "After giving it my all... you get idiots sending me this..."

Daley's father Rob died last year from brain cancer.

There were concerns about the effect the Olympics is having on London's economy, with a suggestion that an expected hotel booking bonanza has fallen flat and businesses claiming the Games has left the host city a "ghost town".

It appeared that tourists and residents were taking heed of messages from Transport for London to avoid the capital.

Theatre companies said they were seeing a "mixed picture", with many struggling due to the lack of footfall in the West End.

Mark Rubinstein, president of the Society of London Theatre, said: "Normally tourists will visit central London but they are mostly here to see the Games.

"The message about travel problems also seems to have kept people away. My experience is things are running smoothly and people should not be put off."

Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said cab drivers had been hit hard.

"I don't know where all these tourists are or how they're getting about but London is like a ghost town," he said.

Hotel provider JacTravel said bookings in London were "very substantially down" compared with the same period last year.