For all intents and purposes, Day One was a better one for Australia than Day Two.
New Zealand scored a nice goal inside the first two minutes of their clash with Australia's Hockeyroos and the Aussie girls, who always seemed one nice pass away from really threatening the New Zealand goal, succumbed to our cousins from across the Tasman for the first time in Olympic competition. It might've been much worse for Australia had their goalie, Toni Croft, not made a number of brilliant saves to keep the final score to a more flattering 1-0 defeat. The blue turf and pink sidelines with yellow hockey ball was certainly an interesting look.
It wasn't much better for the Australian men's basketball team, with the Boomers falling to Brazil 75-71 in their opening game. That first-up loss may well mean a quarter final contest with the formidable and daunting Team USA, and it was a loss very much brought about by turnovers and execution issues, particularly in a disastrous third quarter. The last-gasp comeback, spearheaded by NBA star Patty Mills and Joe Ingles wasn't quite enough, and next up, medal contenders Spain. Really would've loved to have seen Andrew Bogut out there. He might've been the difference between a narrow loss and a narrow win. Even so, the Boomers campaign is not, as has been suggested in some circles, "in tatters.". That's just defeatism. Considering Australia has but one NBA player on it's roster - Mills - we punch above our weight.
Finally, the Team USA Men's Basketball team got into action, taking on France - it seems quite a day for USA vs. France contests - and the not-quite Dream Team did it in style, easily besting the tricolour nation 98-71 after a stop-start first half. Kevin Durant led all scorers with 22, while Kobe Bryant started slowly, scoring only ten points. Probably a good game to shake off the cobwebs and get the tournament rolling. Make no mistake, this team will win the Gold medal. I honestly can't see anyone coming close, let alone beating them.
And the British complain about Australians being whingers and whiners? Well, Mark Cavendish, you might not have won the men's cycling road race on Day One, but you certainly excelled in the press afterward, blaming the Australians for stopping you from winning the host nation's first gold medal. Silly me, Mr Cavendish, I had no idea that it was the fault of the Australians. I figured that it was the Kazakh, Colombian and Norwegian riders who finished 1-2-3 who were actually the ones at fault for you not winning a medal. Shut up, man. Just shut up.
The Missile, James Magnussen, really had a misfire, and the Australians, red-hot favourites for gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay at the pool tonight, finished a very disappointing fourth. I suppose most of the country was entitled to think that we were, if not dead-set certainties, certainly reasonably good things after Magnussen's heat swim and the boys coming into the team for the finals, but it wasn't to be, with the French coming from nearly another postcode to beat America on a pulsating final leg that reminded me of the same event in Sydney. You know, when Garry Hall Jr. promised that he'd smash us like guitars. At least the Americans didn't get gold. Masterful last leg by the French, and a well-deserved medal. Magunssen was speechless after the race, and rightly so. It wasn't our finest moment.
Better news in the pool for Australia: Christian Sprenger, about to give swimming up eighteen months ago because he'd lost the drive to train, scored a surprise silver medal in the 100m breaststroke behind the flying South Africa, Cameron Van Der Burgh, who broke a world record in a time of 58:46. And Alicia Coutts came home for the bronze in the women's 100m butterfly behind gold medal winner Dan Vollmer of the United States, who also broke the World Record, swimming 55:98.
Australia's medal tally after Day Two: 1 Gold, one Silver, one Bronze. Total: 3. Rank: 8
No comments:
Post a Comment