China has announced a team of 396 athletes for the London Olympics, a far smaller delegation than four years ago when it topped the gold medal table on home soil.
He'd prefer enlightenment to a medal, but when Japan's horse-riding Buddhist monk Kenki Sato saddles up for London 2012, he'll be representing one of the Olympics' more unusual families.
Church bells, bicycle bells, handbells, ship's bells, and even mobile phones will sound across Britain in a "cacophonous, amazing sound" to mark the start of the Olympics.
Russia is seeking to win a treasure trove of gold medals across a dozen sports at the Olympics to remind the world it remains a sporting superpower two decades after the USSR's collapse.
India used to be content with a steady stream of Olympic hockey titles, but a first individual win -- and millions of dollars in funding -- may have prodded the Asian giant from its slumbers.