Simon Fairweather graduated from the University of South Australia with a degree in jewellery design three years before the Sydney Olympics and he collected his most precious gem when capturing Australia’s first ever archery gold medal in the men’s individual event.
A world champion in 1991, Fairweather was unplaced at the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games but produced a nerveless display to capture the gold medal before a loud parochial crowd.
After winning through to the semi-final round, Fairweather faced The Netherland’s Wietse Van Alten and the scores were locked with one arrow remaining. With pressure mounting, Fairweather pierced the centre ring with a score of 10 while Van Alten could only respond with an eight.
In the gold medal 12-arrow shoot-out against USA’s Vic Wunderle, Fairweather performed brilliantly to score 29 out of a possible 30 with his opening three arrows and then maintained his composure to score a comfortable 113-106 victory.
“When you are shooting well enough to win a big competition, you are having a day when you are focused. Today was a day like that. They don’t come along very often. I tried to focus, be aggressive and take it,” he said.
With Fairweather’s gold medal safely tucked away, high hopes for more medals were held at the Shooting and Aquatic Centres.
Russell Mark looked to defend his Atlanta Olympic double trap shooting gold medal but was runner-up to Great Britain’s Richard Faulds after a tense gold medal shoot-off.
Mark entered the final with a two shot advantage and held a three shot lead with five shots remaining. But the crowd groaned in anguish when Mark missed three of the next five targets while Faulds shot superbly to level the scores. With the momentum behind him and Mark having self-doubts, the Brit secured victory when Mark missed the third shoot-off target.
It was probably Mark’s act of sportsmanship, when motioning the crowd to remain quiet and not cheer Fauld’s missed shots, which contributed to his gold medal loss.
“I was doing it for Richard’s sake. I don’t think you should ever cheer when someone misses. But it was probably very hard for me to get focussed after that,” Mark said.
In the women’s 200m butterfly final, Susie O’Neill was focused on defending her Olympic title, but USA’s Misty Hyman cause a boilover to defeat O’Neill and her Australian team-mate Petria Thomas.
O’Neill was the favourite going into the race having lowered the 19-year world record held by the original Madame Butterfly, USA’s Mary T. Meagher, at the Australian team Olympic trials five month earlier.
Hyman opened a handy lead after 100m, and repelled O’Neill’s trademark strong finish to clinch the gold medal in a new Olympic record time of 2min 05.88sec – 0.70sec ahead of O’Neill.
“I just wanted to do the best I could. I was hoping for a win and I went as fast as I could have gone tonight. So, I have to be happy with second,” O’Neill said afterwards.
O’Neill and Thomas then teamed with Giaan Rooney and Kirsten Thomson when silver medallists behind the USA in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
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