Rowing – Two gold, three silver and a bronze for rowers in Lausanne

A big finish to the Rowing World Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland for Team Australia saw the athletes come away with two gold, three silver and one bronze medal – including the first men’s eight gold in more than 35 years.

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The Australian men’s eight of Patrick Holt, Josh Hicks, Benjamin Canham, Timothy Masters, James Daniel Robertson, Joseph O’Brien, Angus Dawson, Angus Widdicombe and cox Kendall Brodie pulled out all the stops to beat Team GB to the gold. Finishing in a time of 5:23.92, they edged out Team GB by 0.61 seconds (5:24.53) with third (Romania) and fourth (the Netherlands) a second behind.

It’s the first men’s eight gold for Australia since 1986, a team which included Australian rowing greats including Andrew Cooper, Mike McKay and James Tomkins.

“It feels pretty good, we knew we had a quick last 500, we wanted to be in a good position at that part of the race. It’s going so fast, but it’s pretty good. We knew we had patches of speed here and there, now we need to go back to training,” Patrick said.

A big finish to the Rowing World Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland for Team Australia saw the athletes come away with two gold, three silver and one bronze medal.

It came as no surprise Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre walked away as gold medallists on the final day, their domination at the international level of the women’s pair competition has continued. They finished five seconds faster than all of their rivals in the A Final to backup the gold they won at World Cup II.

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“We knew that because it was a final, everyone was going to come out really hard and try to go with us. We stayed internal, focused on our race. If they were going to go with us, we were going to make them hurt for it. That was the plan,” Annabelle said.

Both the men’s four (Alex Purnell, Spencer Turrin, Jack Hargreaves, Alexander Hill) and women’s four (Lucy Stephan, Sarah Hawe, Katrina Werry and Giorgia Patten) earned silver medals for their performances.

Tara Rigney is getting closer to chasing down women’s single sculls world champion Karolien Florijn (NED), with Tara’s second-place finish for silver (7:29.77) just behind Florijn (7:27.15).

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The Australian Team overall ranked second in the 2023 World Cup rankings on 103 points, with Great Britain ahead (115 points) and Switzerland behind (95 points).

The results set up Australia’s Rowing World Championships campaign in September, and with it opportunities to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Athletics – Joseph Deng breaks Australian 800m Record

Joseph Deng is an Australian 800m Record holder once again after he became the first Australian to run sub 1:44.00 on the weekend.

Racing in Lyon, France, Joseph finished in a time of 1:43.99 to beat Peter Bol’s national record time of 1:44.00 from last year.

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Still in France, over at Sotteville, dual Olympian Kurtis Marschall set a Personal Best 5.95m in the men's pole vault, much higher than the 5.82m needed to qualify for Paris 2024.

In Spain, Peter Bol also took on the 800m and finished in second place with a time of 1:44.29 – the fifth fastest run of his career, which is also a world championships and Olympic qualifying time.

Over in Sweden, Matt Denny threw 66.01m in the men’s discus to win silver.

Cameron Myers has made setting the boy’s U18 & men’s U20 1500m Australian Record a habit, with the 17-year-old completing the race in a time of 3:35.01 – also in Lyon over the weekend to finish fourth. Peter Bol was in the same race and placed third with a Personal Best time (3:34.52).

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Golf – Cam Smith wins LIV London ahead of the Open Championship

Tokyo 2020 Olympian Cameron Smith has won the second LIV tournament of his career, doing so at the Centurian Club in London.

In the three-round competition Cam finished clear on 15-under, only one shot away from fellow Aussie Marc Leishman and Patrick Reed (USA) who shared second place.

It was Cam’s first tournament win since the Australian PGA Championship in November last year.

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Cycling – BMX Freestyle - Logan Martin wins bronze

Logan Martin has added another medal to his UCI BMX Freestyle collection in taking out the bronze in Brussels, Belgium. His score of 89.41 secured his podium spot alongside Anthony Jeanjean (FRA – 92.56) and Rimu Nakamura (JPN – 91.56).

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Natalya Diehm finished seventh in the women’s event while still on the comeback trail from injury.

Cycling – Road - Jai Hindley in Tour de France top three

Approaching the midway point of the Tour de France, Jai Hindley has maintained his podium position in the Tour’s general classification standings.

Currently sitting third overall after riding 1625.2 km across the first nine of the 21 stages, almost 39 hours of riding time, Jai is two minutes and 40 seconds behind race leader Jonas Vingegaard (DEN) and two minutes and 23 seconds behind Tadej Pogacar (SLO).

Bravo @JaiHindley! An incredible result in the #TourdeFrance to win stage 5 and take the overall race lead.

Jai's only the 8th Aussie ever to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France's 120-year history, and the first since Rohan Dennis (2015).@AusCycling | @AusCyclingTeam pic.twitter.com/qaWHfQYgFq
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) July 6, 2023

Last week after winning stage five, Jai became the eighth Aussie ever to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France's 120-year history and the first since Rohan Dennis in 2015.

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Sport Climbing – World Cup action in the 2024 Olympic host country

Australian sport climbers descended upon France over the weekend for the Chamonix Climbing World Cup.

Tokyo 2020 Olympian Oceania Mackenzie was the best of the national contingent, finishing 23rd in the lead discipline. In the men’s lead competition Campbell Harrison came in 41st.

In the women’s speed event Grace Crowley placed 39th and Chad Horton finished 62nd in the men’s division.

Tennis – Aussie Open doubles champs take on Wimbledon

Rinky Hijikta and Jason Kubler are through to the second round of their Wimbledon campaign after a 6-2 6-2 straight-sets win against Marco Cecchinato (ITA) and Thiago Monteiro (BRA).

They now face the men’s doubles top seeds Wesley Koolhof (NED) and Neal Skupski (GBR). Should Rinky and Jason cause an upset, Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson await in the third round after they knocked out the 14-seed Argentinian pair Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 6-4 5-7 6-4.

Still alive in the draw for Australia is Matt Ebden, the no.6 seed with doubles partner Rohan Bopanna (IND), with 16th seed duo John Peers and Marcelo Melo (BRA) also still in action.

Matt has also teamed up with Ellen Perez in the mixed doubles, as the lone all-Aussie pair left in the mixed draw.

Women's world no.7 doubles player Storm Hunter has joined forces with Elise Mertens (BEL) and have advanced to the third round after Irina-Camelia Begu (ROM) and Anhelina Kalinina (UKR) retired in the second set.

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Beach Volleyball – Olympic silver medallists in Switzerland for Elite 16

Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar took on the Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 in Gstaad, Switzerland.

Their run of Elite 16 podium placings (second in Brazil and third in Qater & Mexico) came to an end as the pair were knocked out in the quarter-finals 10-21 15-21 by Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss (USA).

Sailing – Hot start for Matt Wearn at Olympic Test Event

Olympic ILCA 7 champion Matt Wearn came out firing, securing a bullet (race win) in the first of the two races conducted on the opening day of competition.

He closed out his account for the day in third place overall.

Zoe Thomson sits in sixth place in the ILCA 6. The mixed 470 crew are in 14th place of their fleet, with Scott Whitehead in 19th place in the men’s formula kite.

Canoe – Sprint - two medals for Australia at Canoe Sprint World Champs

Claudia Bailey shined in the K1 500 at the 2023 ICF Junior & U23 Canoe Sprint World Champs in Italy, ending up as the silver medallist.

Her time, 1:53.56, was just 0.11 seconds behind the gold medallist.

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Jasmine Rayward collected the bronze medal in the K1 1000. The K4 team with Claudia, Jasmine, Samantha Lourey and Alyssa Bailey finished fourth.

Archery – Near-podium placing at World Youth Champs

16-year-old Branden Tse competed in the men’s U18 recurve at the World Archery Youth Championships in Ireland and finished fourth.

Weekend Wrap: Historic Rowing gold, Deng’s 800m delight and BMX podium