Sad news on and off the Eton Dorney course for Australia's rowers, the saddest being the arrest of rower Josh Booth. The rower from Melbourne University was apprehended by local law enforcement for allegedly damaging a storefront window in a village to the west of London. Frighteningly for the Australian, following his arrest, he was taken to a police station where he hit his head after fainting. That necessitated a trip to a local hospital where he was treated and then released into the care of Australian team staff. Not surprisingly, our team boss Nick Green will re-issue a stern warning to our athletes about the rights and wrongs, and of how best to represent their country, our country. This isn't a good look for Australia.
A better look for Australia is the performance of the men's coxless four, led by the legendary and evergreen superstar Drew Ginn, who went down to hosts Great Britain by barely a whisker in their greatly-anticipated semi final match-up at Eton Dorney. Both boats will progress to the final, and if you believe those in the know - certainly, I'm no rowing expert - Australia rowed the 2000m course with some sort of control, ensuring that they have plenty more in the tank to draw from when the final comes around. This was as good a race as expected. That British crew is going to be tough to beat, but what a win it would be if the Aussies could pull it off. Interesting stat: it's been all Australia and Great Britain in the men's coxless fours, the two countries combining to snare all the gold medals in this event since Barcelona 1992, back in the heyday of the Oarsome Foursome.
Congratulations to Michael Phelps, who won gold with a scintillating swim in the men's 200m Individual Medley final, narrowly missing out on the World Record, and beating home compatriot Ryan Lochte. As if it was ever in doubt, Phelps can now finally be feted as one of the greatest swimmers of all time - statistically, at least, the very best there ever was - and America can celebrate, too, the emergence of Lochte, who has had a very solid Olympic program. The future is bright for Team USA swimming. The interesting thing now will be what Phelps decides to do as far as his career is concerned. Retire? Push on to Rio 2016? Time will tell. He has 20 Olympic medals, 16 of the Gold, so is there really that much incentive to come back?
While not as surprising as missing out in the 100m freestyle final - by absolutely the smallest margin imaginable - The Missile, James Magnussen, has failed to qualify for the final of the men's 50m freestyle dash, to be run on the last night of swimming finals. In better news for Australia, Eamon Sullivan, a rather quiet figure in the lead-up to these Olympics as opposed to four years ago in Beijing, snuck in, tying for seventh fastest in a time of 21.88. He'll need to go substantially faster to medal, but he's in there with a shot.
Crazy first day at the track cycling competition, with the queen of British cycling Victoria Pendleton, whose battle with Australia's own Anna Meares, was tipped to be one of the hottest and most contested in Olympic history, disqualified from the women's team sprint final for an illegal changeover with a team-mate. As if that wasn't enough, in the final of the same event between China and Germany, China won but were later relegated for an illegal ride, giving Germany the Gold. Australia's Meares and Kaarle McCulloch beat the Ukrainian duo for a Bronze medal, but, much like in the pool, this wasn't the start we expected. A medal yes, but not the colour the nation had anticipated.
Better velodrome news for Great Britain on the men's side, with Sir Chris Hoy leading Team GB to gold and a new World Record in the men's team sprint, having also broken a WR in their semi final race. For Australia, so often the bridesmaid at these Olympics, the best our team of Shane Perkins, Scott Sunderland and Matthew Glaetzer, could manage was fourth, losing the ride-off for bronze to Germany. If Day One is but a sign of things to come at the velodrome, I can hardly wait for the rest of competition.
Australia's men's basketball team, the Boomers, finally got their first win of the London 2012 campaign, recording a comfortable 81-61 win over China after dropping contests vs. Brazil and Spain previously. As in those first two games, our lone NBA star Patty Mills led the way with 20 points, continuing a wonderful Olympics for the pint-sized rocket, and was in this game finally able to make those three-point shots sit and sink. Mills was ably assisted by David Anderson (17 points, and a masterful job shutting down the Chinese big man Jianlian Yi, the 212cm centre) and Joe Ingles, who netted 13 points to go with 7 rebounds and 7 assists. A much-needed win for Australia, who have Great Britain next. Hopefully we'll win that and even our record at 2-2. Win against Team GB and beat Russia in the final pool game and we should avoid a dreaded quarter final round date with the mighty Team USA.
The Hockeyroos took on Team USA and managed to squeeze out a hard-fought 1-0 win to keep their medal hopes well and truly alive as the pool games start to come to an end. The crucial score came in the shadows of half time, a laser of a shot by Anna Flanagan, and the defence stood up from there, another stand-out performance from Toni Cronk, who's been nothing short of stellar in goal this tournament.
Congratulations to Australia's Jessica Fox, who delivered us another Silver medal, in the women's K1 canoe slalom.
It's getting pretty rough being an Australian at these Games. After a slow start, Great Britain have 5 gold medals to their name and even our cousins from across the Tasman, the New Zealanders, struck gold today. Australia remains mired on one solitary gold, with more silver medals coming in this Olympics than I can remember.
Australia's medal tally: 1 Gold, 7 Silver, 3 Bronze. Total: 11. Rank: 16
No comments:
Post a Comment