Day 14 Review
ATHLETICS MORNING: Australian race walker Jared Tallent has delivered an exceptional performance in the 50km walk at the Rio Olympic Games to win silver in the dramatic and gruelling race. Tallent took the lead at the 39km mark and led by as much as 24 seconds with five kilometres to walk, and it looked like he could defend his crown from London 2012. The gold eventually went to Slovakian Matej Toth who overtook him with four kilometres to go.
While in the women's 20km walk Regan Lamble has achieved a top-10 finish to record the third best performance by an Australian in the event’s history. Fellow Aussies Tanya Holliday was 26th in 1:34.22 while Rachel Tallent was 40th in 1:37.08. Read more...
ATHLETICS EVENING: Alana Boyd has finished fourth on a countback in a thrilling women’s pole vault final at Rio’s Olympic Stadium. Boyd cleared 4.80m, just one centimetre below her personal best, to be in the final five competitors but couldn’t successfully clear 4.85m, which would have placed her in the medals. Read more...
BASKETBALL: Australia’s men’s team will have to win a play-off for bronze against Spain on Sunday if it is gain its first medal at the Olympic Games after being outclassed by a physical Serbian team in tonight’s semi-final. Read more..
BMX: Finals day at the Olympic BMX Centre in Deodoro promised so much for the Australian Team but ended in bitter disappointment. Caroline Buchanan and Lauren Reynolds didn’t progress to the medal race after crashes in their semi-final runs left them without the points required. In the men’s semi-finals Sam Willoughby and Anthony Dean won all six races between them and seemed destined for success and better luck, but it wasn’t to be in a sport were anything can happen. Willoughby finishing sixth and Dean was ranked eighth, after he failed to finish, as the impressive Connor Fields of the USA won gold. Read more...
CANOE/KAYAK SPRINT: Stephen Bird flew into the decider of the men’s K1 200m with a second place in the semi-finals to reach the first individual A-Final of his career. Australia, looking to defend its title in the men’s K4 1000m, also had a thrilling semi-final win to secure a berth in tomorrow’s A-Final, while the C2 1000m duo of Martin Marinov and Ferenc Szekszardi finished fifth in their semi-final, progressing to the B-Final. Read more...
DIVING: Australian divers James Connor and Dominic Bedggood have qualified in 9th and 17th respectively for the men's 10m platform semi-final after the preliminary round at the Maria Lenk Aquatic Centre in Rio. Read more..
EQUESTRIAN: Edwina Tops-Alexander has finished equal ninth at the individual show jumping after knocking one rail in the final round of competition at the Olympic Equestrian Centre. The 42 year-old triple Olympian and her 13 year-old mare Lintea Tequila, were looking good until they knocked the rail at fence 9A – just two fences from the finish. It was Tops-Alexander’s equal best Olympic result after also finishing ninth in Beijing. She finished 20th in London. Read more.
GOLF: Su Oh carded an impressive 66 to keep Australia’s hopes of a first Olympic golf medal alive, joining compatriot Minjee Lee five shots off bronze going into the final round. In increasingly gusty conditions at the Olympic Golf Course in Barra de Tijuca, the 20-year-old holed six birdies in the first half of the third round on Friday to rocket up the women’s leaderboard before playing solidly in the back nine to register seven consecutive pars. Read more...
RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS: In her Olympic debut Danielle Prince overcame a nervous start in the morning session with a small fumble at the start of her hoop routine which saw her score 14.5 (Difficulty 6.9, Execution 7.6) to back up with a solid ball routine and a score of 15.25 (D 7.35, E 7.9). She saved her best for the last two routines in the afternoon session with scores of 15.716 (D 7.65 , E 8.066) in the clubs and 15.55 (D 7.55 , E 8.0) in ribbon. She is not in contention for finals.
MODERN PENTATHLON: Chloe Esposito has stormed past her rivals in the final event of the modern pentathlon to win gold in Rio. Starting the combined running/shooting discipline in seventh place and 45 seconds behind it seemed like the gap would be too great for the top of the podium. Read more...
WRESTLING: Australia’s Talgat Ilyasov has had to withdraw injured from the men’s 74kg freestyle wrestling elimination rounds after facing off against Japan’s Sohsuke Takatani. After missing out on a match at the Athens Olympics in 2004 due to injury, it was a tough blow for Ilyasov. Read more...
