Britain's Stephanie Houghton celebrates with her team mate Casey Stoney

BBC

The first event of the Olympics has taken place, ending in a win for Team GB in the women's football in Cardiff.

The home team kicked off 18 days of sport with a 1-0 victory over New Zealand at the Millennium Stadium, however, it was a bad start for one of Africa’s representatives, Cameroon, which was beaten 5-0 by Brazil.

In Group F action, Japan beat Canada 2-1, while in Group G, the United States came from two goals down to beat France 4-2.

Earlier, an RAF Typhoon was scrambled at about 11:30 BST after a commercial airliner lost contact with air traffic control near London, the MoD said.

The fighter was stood down after contact was restored. The MoD said it was not related to Olympic security.

It stressed the response was a standard procedure, although the plane flew out of Northolt where some Typhoons are based for the duration of the Olympics.

Meanwhile, thousands of Games spectators are been arriving in London, with Heathrow expected to have had its busiest day ever.

And a public sector strike by border staff, due to take place on the eve of the opening ceremony, has been called off by union officials.

The first event of the Games saw long queues outside the Millennium Stadium, even after kick-off at 16:00 BST, as several hundred spectators had their bags checked.

Stadium manager Gerry Toms apologised but said only spectators who had taken large bags had been delayed. He said every ticket-holder had been in the stadium by 16:04.

"The difficulty was that people didn't listen to the advice they were given on their tickets which said do not bring bags," he said.

"There were people bringing rucksacks, people bringing shopping from the city centre and that slowed the process down."

He agreed there had been "teething problems" and urged people to follow advice on what to bring.

Parts of the stadium were empty but the Games organisers said the number of tickets available for the event had been reduced from nearly 75,000 to 40,000 last week.

At Hampden Park, the North Korean women's football team has walked off the pitch in protest after the South Korean flag was displayed beside players' names on a screen. They were due to play Colombia.