Day 10 review
Day 10 saw a number of great individual performances for our Aussie athletes with personal best times on the athletics track and a fantastic 15th place finish in the women's 10km water swim for 17-year-old Olympic debutant Chelsea Lea Gubecka.
The canoe/kayack duo of Bull and Burnett booked their tickets to the K2 500m final and diver Grant Nel qualified for the men's 3m sprinboard final.
ATHLETICS: Ella Nelson won her way through to the semi-finals with a confidence-building run in her 200m heat. Competing in her first Olympics, Nelson ran a beautiful bend to come home second in her heat in a time of 22.66 seconds, behind Bulgaria’s Ivet Lalova-Collio in 22.61. It was a confidence-building run for the Australia, who had suffered two hamstring tears in the lead-up to Rio. Nelson is aiming to become the first Australian to reach the women’s 200m final since Melinda Gainsford-Taylor and Cathy Freeman at the Sydney 2000 Games.
Madeline Hills and Genevieve LaCaze set personal bests and recorded top-10 finishes in the women's 3000m steeplechase. Run in stifling conditions at the Olympic Stadium, the Aussie duo were the first two Australians to ever qualify for the women’s Olympic steeplechase final and they gave it their all to finish seventh and ninth respectively. Hills, 29, powered home over the final laps to clock nine minutes, 20.38 seconds, while LaCaze took almost two seconds off her PB to cross the line in 9:21.21. Ruth Jebet, the 19-year-old from Bahrain, won gold in a personal best time of 8:59.75, just missing out on the world record. Hyvin Jepkemoi won silver from Kenya won silver in 9:07.12 while Emma Coburn of the USA won bronze in 9:07.63.
CANOE/KAYAK: London 2012 Olympic gold medallist, Murray Stewart won his semi-final in the K1 1000m in sublime style. Meanwhile young guns Alyce Burnett and Alyssa Bull finished third in their K2 500m semi-final to book a place in their first ever Olympic final. Veteran canoeist Martin Marinov, finished seventh in his semi-final in the C1 1000m and will not contest the finals. He will race again later in the week, in the men’s C2 1000m, with Ferenc Szekszardi.
CYCLING: Glenn O'Shea had a strong performance in the time-trial and flying lap but a crash in the points race dashed all hope of a medal. O'Shea finished the omnium event in seventh position with 144 points. In the women’s omnium, 2012 London bronze medalist Annette Edmondson begun with sixth in a hotly contested scratch race, before a seventh place in the individual pursuit pushed her down one spot to seventh. The final three events will be held on Tuesday 16 August.
In the women's sprint Australian team captain and flag bearer Anna Meares finished tenth after competing in two repechage rounds. Meares was racing in the 9th-12th race while the medals for the event will be decided on Tuesday.
DIVING: In the 3metre springboard Grant Nel finished 16th in 3-metre prelim and moved into the final, but unfortunately Kevin Chavez has finished 26th.
HOCKEY: Following the men’s quarter-final exit yesterday, the women’s hockey team have also bowed out of the Rio 2016 competition. The Aussie side went down to Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand 4-2 at Deodoro. The Kiwis took a 2-0 lead into the half before Kathryn Slattery got the Aussies on the board. New Zealand then scored the next two to kill off the game with Slattery scoring a consolation goal late on.
OPEN WATER SWIMMING: Olympic debutant Chelsea Lea Gubecka finished a fantastic 15th in the 10km swim at Copacabana Beach. The 17-year-old recorded a time of 1h 58m 12.7s. The Netherland's Sharon van Rouwendaal claimed gold, Italy's Rachele Bruni won silver and hometown favourite Brazil's Poliana Okimoto took home bronze.
SAILING: Racing was postponed in all bar one class due to insufficient wind. The 49ers were sent out for three races on an offshore course and Australia’s 49er team of Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen revelled in today’s conditions. The Aussies put together a consistent day scoring 4, 5, 8 in today’s three races, moving them up into third overall.
SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING: Australians Nikita Pablo and Rose Stackpole scored a personal best in the duet, with a free and technical combined score of 148.4027. While it wasn't enough to make the final, the pair will be back in action in the team event on Day 14 and 18.
WATER POLO: The Australian women's water polo team had a heartbreaking loss to Hungary in the quarter-finals in a penalty shoot-out.
WRESTLING – GRECO-ROMAN: Ivan Popov went down in the opening round of the men’s 130kg Greco-Roman wrestling event at Carioca Arena 2. London 2012 bronze medallist Johan Magnus Euren of Sweden got the better of Popov, securing the victory by fall.
olympics.com.au
