Perhaps the best day for Australia at these Olympic Games
Gold, Australia!! Day Ten delivered Australia it's second gold medal - and the first individual one - of the 2012 campaign. It took a while to happen, a lifetime, it seems, after the women of the 4x100m freestyle relay won gold on night one of competition, but a second gold has been added to Australia's tally. It was awarded to Tom Slingsby from Gosford on the New South Wales Central Coast, and he won it in the Laser class of single dinghies at the seaside town of Weymouth. Not only London 2012 history for Slingsby, but Australian Olympic sailing history for he becomes the first individual gold medal winner in sailing since our country first sent a sailing team to the Olympics in 1948. Congratulations, Australia's newest sporting hero!!
It gets better on the water off of Weymouth for our sailors, where Australia’s pairing of Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen secured an unassailable lead in the 49er skiff class. Another gold medal for Australia coming up tomorrow. Haven't our sailing team, unheralded at the start of these Olympics, really come up big and pulled it out of the fire for Australia? Nice to see some gold in the water, even if it's not in the pool, as we'd expected, but on the ocean instead.
The Boomers are into the quarter finals with a death match against Team USA to come. But it was their final pool game against the previously-undefeated Russians that provided perhaps the highlight of the tournament for Australia's men. Down by two points with 4.1 seconds to go, our NBA star Patty Mills stepped up to the plate, draining a three-pointer that, honestly, never looked like missing, to give the Boomers an 82-80 win. The result, either way, would have made no difference to the make-up of the playoff rounds, but this was a famous victory and there's nothing like a good win to take int your next game, especially if your next game is against the might of the United States of America.
Australia's men's volleyball team, the Volleyroos, had a similarly epic win, defeating, rather comfortably, the third best team in the world, the Polish outfit, in what's already being called the best win in Australian volleyball history. The Poles, on the way to the medal rounds, you'd think, were beaten by our boys, who will now need to rely on other results to determine if they'll make it through to the quarter final round. Even if they don't, this was famous win, and coming just after the Boomers win vs. Russia, it made it into a pretty solid day on the team sports front for Australia.
Alos making it a good day was Sally Pearson's performance (12.58 seconds) in the heats of the 100m hurdles. She ran the fastest time ever in the heats at an Olympic games over that distance, and looked easily the best runner in the field, despite her saying in later interviews that it wasn't as good as she had hoped. Devastating scenes for Pearson's rival from Jamaica, the 37-year-old Brigitte Foster-Hylton, who hit the third hurdle in a later heat, thus taking her out of the running for the final and the medals. The Jamaican threw herself down onto the track in agony, and was just about inconsolable. That's the tough, heart-breaking side of Olympic competition. On the up side, Pearson is looking good. Jane Fleming said she thought Sally might break a World Record in the final. Personally, I'll settle for a gold medal. As I'm sure most Australians, and Pearson herself, will. Anything above and beyond that is just icing on the cake. Go Sally!!
Commiserations to Australia's Michael Diamond. Our shooter cumbled in the most tragic of ways, giving up a lead with five shots remaining in the men's trap final to finish in fourth place. Making the fourth place finish harder to stomach for Diamond, a two-time Olympic gold meadallist, was the fact that he shot a flawless and world record equalling 125-from-125 clay targets in the qualifying rounds. But consecutive mis-shoots in the closing stages of the final unfortunately sealed his fate. Hopefully Diamond will be back in Rio 2014.
Australia's medal tally: 2 Gold, 12 Silver, 8 Bronze. Total: 22. Rank: 19
The Boomers are into the quarter finals with a death match against Team USA to come. But it was their final pool game against the previously-undefeated Russians that provided perhaps the highlight of the tournament for Australia's men. Down by two points with 4.1 seconds to go, our NBA star Patty Mills stepped up to the plate, draining a three-pointer that, honestly, never looked like missing, to give the Boomers an 82-80 win. The result, either way, would have made no difference to the make-up of the playoff rounds, but this was a famous victory and there's nothing like a good win to take int your next game, especially if your next game is against the might of the United States of America.
Australia's men's volleyball team, the Volleyroos, had a similarly epic win, defeating, rather comfortably, the third best team in the world, the Polish outfit, in what's already being called the best win in Australian volleyball history. The Poles, on the way to the medal rounds, you'd think, were beaten by our boys, who will now need to rely on other results to determine if they'll make it through to the quarter final round. Even if they don't, this was famous win, and coming just after the Boomers win vs. Russia, it made it into a pretty solid day on the team sports front for Australia.
Alos making it a good day was Sally Pearson's performance (12.58 seconds) in the heats of the 100m hurdles. She ran the fastest time ever in the heats at an Olympic games over that distance, and looked easily the best runner in the field, despite her saying in later interviews that it wasn't as good as she had hoped. Devastating scenes for Pearson's rival from Jamaica, the 37-year-old Brigitte Foster-Hylton, who hit the third hurdle in a later heat, thus taking her out of the running for the final and the medals. The Jamaican threw herself down onto the track in agony, and was just about inconsolable. That's the tough, heart-breaking side of Olympic competition. On the up side, Pearson is looking good. Jane Fleming said she thought Sally might break a World Record in the final. Personally, I'll settle for a gold medal. As I'm sure most Australians, and Pearson herself, will. Anything above and beyond that is just icing on the cake. Go Sally!!
Commiserations to Australia's Michael Diamond. Our shooter cumbled in the most tragic of ways, giving up a lead with five shots remaining in the men's trap final to finish in fourth place. Making the fourth place finish harder to stomach for Diamond, a two-time Olympic gold meadallist, was the fact that he shot a flawless and world record equalling 125-from-125 clay targets in the qualifying rounds. But consecutive mis-shoots in the closing stages of the final unfortunately sealed his fate. Hopefully Diamond will be back in Rio 2014.
Australia's medal tally: 2 Gold, 12 Silver, 8 Bronze. Total: 22. Rank: 19
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