Day 13 - Unlucky For Some

Day 13 of the Rio games saw Australia win yet more minor medals. But The Falcon does not GAF about silver and bronze when Gold is trading at $1350/oz.


Let's start with the main highlight - which was Usain Bolt completing the triple-double by taking the 100m/200m double for the third straight Olympics - the first man in history to do so. Rain just before the event meant it wasn't the most dynamic Olympic gold we've seen from Bolt. But after running a dominant first 100m he was never going to be beaten and cruised home to win his 8th Olympic gold. Given the Swimming gold deflator is generally thought to be in the realms of 1.5-2 per athletics gold, he'll have to go to another Olympics to challenge Michael Phelps for the title of greatest every Olympian. Still - he is by far and away the greatest track athlete the world has ever seen.


Today's masters of being near enough without being good enough in the Aussie team were our sailors - who took silver in both the 470 and the 49er classes, and our Kayakers. Wallace and Tame took bronze in the Men's K2 1000 - even this was an underperformance as they had finished behind ze-gold winning Germans in the last two World Champs but here were beaten by the Serbs for silver. Turns out heat form is in fact meaningful and this was always on the cards after they dogged it in the heat. In the diving, Michelle Wu could only manage 5th in the Women's 10m Springboard which unsurprisingly saw a Chinese quinella. Say what you want about Communism but it does help your diving ability!


At the BMX we qualified both 2 men and 2 women through to the Semi's. In the Men's the French World Cup leader crashed out leaving Australia's Sam Willoughby as the new gold medal favourite - that usually means a 4th! A shoutout is also due to Ryan Gregson who became the first Australian male to qualify for the Men's 1500m final on the track for over 40 years.


The track descended into farce in the heats of the Women's 4x100m relay, with the US allowed to re-run their heat in isolate after the baton was 'knocked out of their hands by an opponent' in their heat. FFS - harden up athletic officials. Most of the US runners will just be happy they are out of their home country and therefore don't face the risk of being shot on sight by their domestic police force.


Social Media Call of The Day


I wanna see the Shot Putters do the high jump and the High Jumpers to do the shot put.


Medal Tally


1 - US - 35-33-32
2 - GB - 22-21-13
3 - China - 20-16-22
10 - Australia 7-10-10*


*Of the top 10 on the Medal tally, only 25% of Choketralia's medals are gold - the only country with a worse gold to total medals ratio in the top 10 are the cheese eating surrender monkey's.






Kitty Chiller Bullshitmetre


If there has been an individual embarrass themselves more than Kitty Chiller this Olympics I'd like to see it. She has been nothing more than a national disgrace and banning Emma McKeon from the Closing Ceremony just because she didn't call to say she was staying is absolutely unacceptable by any metric. As far as I'm concerned KC can GAGF.

Day 12: The Great White Hope

The Boomers!!!! So long the whipping boys of Men's Basketball the Boomers now have two shots at a medal after destroying bogey team Lithuania 90-64 in their Quarter Final overnight. They will now play the winner of the Yugoslav Derby in the semi's (Croatia or Serbia) to earn the right to most likely face the United States in the gold medal match. Now some might think they are a legit threat of taking the US for gold given the result of their pool game but that is completely taking the piss - they won't beat the yanks - still they now have 2 shots at getting Australia's first medal in Men's basketball.


Our other medal threats in the BMX both finished high up in their seeding time trials and should have no excuses with prime position in their quarter finals- so let's see how they go in what has to be the greatest lottery sport in the Olympics. There was no change in our medal tally on the day and as a result we are dangerously close of dropping out of the top 10 in the medal tally.


Also - not sure if anyone saw the 200m events in the Kayaking and Canoeing last night but what a joke - it would be like having a 20m running race on the track! In the C1 200 there where 4 heats of 6 and the top FIVE in each heat got through to the semi's alongside the fastest 6th placed finished - now that's the type of event The Falcon could compete in at the Olympics!


On a quieter day overall at the Olympics, the highlight was Elaine Thompson doing a 'Usain' in taking the Women's 100/200 double at the track. How she started $3 is beyond me and the Falcon is shattered he didn't participate in this generous offer. The favourite was Dutch woman Dafne Schippers who try as she might couldn't run down the 100m champ after conceding her a start around the bend. She had to settle for silver.


Social Media Call Of The Day


Doing a 1st aid course today,had to write down signs and symptoms of choking.I wrote Olympic finals,wrong answer apparently.




Medal Tally


1 - US - 30-32-31
2 - GB - 19-19-12
3 - China - 19-15-20
10 - Australia 7-8-9

Day 11 - Advance Australia Mare

Well all I can say is - thank fkn Christ for sailors! Australia's medal tally finally gained a bit more forward momentum after our water walkers took gold and silver on Day 11. Tom Burton took gold for Australia in the Men's laser, while Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin in the Nacra 17s. I'm going to put my hand up straight away and say I know SFA about sailing and haven't watched a second of it so all I can add is - GO YOU GOOD THINGS!!!!! However, I think our performance of the day has to go to starlet sprinter Ella Nelson - the 22yo who tore her harmstring back in April missed out on the final of the Womens 200m by just 1 hundredth of a second!!! She produced a stirring performance in her semi-final to smash her PB and finish third in a scoching 22.50.


The medal rush in the water masked another horror day for the rest of the Australian team. The lowlight was the Opals - perennial medal contenders in the Women's basketball, who become the 4th team in three days to crash out at the Quarter Final stage of their competition. In true Aussie fashion they had been undefeated in the group stage but when it got to the game that mattered they absolutely dogged it. Pathetic.


#Chokefest2016 continued over at the kayaking where Murray Stewart could only finish 4th in the Men's K1 1000, having entered the final as the fastest qualifier. That wasn't our only 4th for the day as Dani Samuel's grabbed the potato medal in the Women's discus - however that was actually a quality performance and she deserves a commendation - the rest of the team deserves extradition to Nauru - ASAP. That includes Annette Edmonson, who was seen as an outside chance of a gold medal in the Women's Omnium in the track cycling. But as we know by Australian standards - outside chance of gold means missing the podium completely. Jarrod Poort went out to a huge lead in the Men's 10k marathon swim, getting ahead by over a minute at one stage. However, he 'did a Mack' in the back half of the race and collapsed horrifically to completely miss the medals. At least he had a fair dinkum crack I guess.


Finally, the Mountain Goat has been in touch suggesting Usain Bolt is a greater athlete than Michael Phelps. This is the worst call since Jeff Buckley thought it would be a good idea to take a midnight swim. Phelps has a shedload more medals over a much greater time period and doesn't come from a country that has basically ignored drug testing for the last 12 years.


Medal Tally


1 - US - 28-28-28
2 - GB - 19-19-12
3 - China - 17-15-19
9 - Australia - 7-8-9

Day 10 - You Suck McBain!!!

Yeah, Moe, that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked. I've seen teams suck before but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.


For team - see Australia. Two more of our teams crashed out of the Olympics on Day 10 in what is quickly becoming every big a failure as the disaster of London 4 years ago. The Hockeyroos ended a horrible tournament without a medal after being bundled out in the Quarter Finals 4-2 by New Zealand. For the first time since 1984 neither our men or women will win a hockey medal. Our Women's water polo team were also eliminated from competition. In true Australian fashion they blew a 5-1 lead against Hungary, eventually losing in a shootout - one of the better efforts in #chokefest2016.


Our mediocrity at the cycling continued in perpetuity with flag bearer and defending champion Anna Mears failing to get through to the medal rounds in the Women's sprint, and Glenn O'Shea - viewed as a great medal prospect, finishing a disappointing 7th in the Men's Omnium. Our swimmer in the Women's 10k marathon was hunting for medals for the first 2-3km, but faded over the second half of the race to finish 16th. She doesn't deserve to be named.


The one highlight was Ella Nelson who put in a huge effort to finish 2nd in her heat of the Women's 200m at the track - and will move on to the Semi Finals tomorrow night. Hopefully she has an outside hope of making the final. Only Raylene Boyle, Melinda GT, and Cathy Freeman have run faster 200s for Australia at the Olympics. Things were not so good for Discus thrower Dani Samuels who was so professional she dumped her first throw into the net! However, she did recover to be one of only 4 athletes to auto qualify for the final. Australia may have another chance at gold in the Men's K1 1000 in the kayaking, with Murray Stewart (who win gold in the K4 in London) through to tonight's final as the fastest qualifier.


Outside of the choking Aussies the highlight of the day had to be the Men's 800m with David Rudisha becoming the first man to defend the gold medal for over 50 years with a stunning display in the last 300m. His Kenyan teammate, Alfred Kipketer set a cracking pace earlier, before Rudisha overtook him in the back straight on the second lap. 1500m champion Taoufik Makhlouti (Algeria) looked the only danger in the home straight but couldn't get near Rushida who won easily to write his name into Olympic history.


Medal Tally


1 - US - 26-23-25
2 - GB - 16-17-8
3 - China - 15-14-17
9 - Australia - 6-7-9

Day 9 - Good vs Evil

And good wins!!! It was all about the track on Day 9 of the games. And the highlight, in what is likely to be the highlight of the entire games, was Usain Bolt making Olympic history - becoming the first male track athlete to win the same event at three consecutive Olympic games in taking the blue ribbon event of any Olympics - the Men's 100m. Bolt looked to be struggling at halfway after a tardy start, but he soon clicked in to gear and mowed down two-time convicted doper Justin Gatlin (USA) in the back half of the race to win comfortably in 9.81. He looks almost certain to go on and do the 100/200 double for the third straight Olympics.


In an even more stunning result, South Africa's Wayde Van Nierkek broke one of the long standing world records of the track in taking the gold in the Men's 400m. He improved his PB by half a second running a stunning 43.03 to win the race by absolute panels, and take Michael Johnson's iconic record in the process.


Australia continued to be the masters of mediocrity. The highlight was our world champion and hot pre-Games favourites for gold in the Men's hockey - the Kookaburras. They lost 4-0 to the Dutch in the quarters :). These guys are the ultimate factory of sadness - having been expected to win Gold at basically every games since Barcelona, they've only managed it once - in Athens. They are then grand daddies of them all when it comes to choking - good riddance you hacks. To be fair - it wasn't as big a choke as the Kiwi's - who were up 2-0 against the Germans with 5 minutes to go and managed to LOSE 3-2 in normal time!!!! Fair effort that! Our Men's Water Polo team is also out.


We were average at the velodrome as well - Matthew Glaetzer lost the bronze medal in the Men's sprint. At the golf - Marcus Fraser, who had been in the gold medal position after the first two rounds and the bronze after round 3 - also dogged it - collapsing on the last day to fall from 3rd to 45th - L O fkn L. It feels like we are the stage where the only golds we are going to get any more are from the sailing.


Social Media Call of The Day


After South Africa Wayde van Niekerk took the gold and broke Michael Johnston's 400m WR:


As long as he doesn't shoot his partner he's set for life


Medal Tally


1 - US - 26-21-22
2 - GB - 15-16-7
3 - China - 15-13-17
9 - Australia 6-7-9


Further Reading


Thanks to The Alchemist for pointing out 538s excellent article on the world record performance of Almaz Ayana in the Women's 10,000 over the weekend. Worth a read - http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/did-almaz-ayana-break-the-world-record-by-too-much/

Day 8 - Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Kim Brennan won Australia's 6th gold of the Rio Olympics with a dominant display to take the Women's Single Sculls in the rowing. Having been unbeaten for 2 years, Brennan's games looked to be in tatters after being beaten in her heat in extremely rough conditions on Day 1. She also looked as if she had to pull out all stops in the semi-final to hold off her main rival Emily Twigg from New Zealand. However the final was a different matter. Brennan raced to the front inside the first 250m and was never headed - holding on for a dominant victory.

Brennan's gold was a shining light on yet another disappointing day for Australia. Flag bearer Anna Meares took the Bronze in the Kieren in the Cycling - a race she easily could have taken gold in. Our male sprinters also disappointed, and the best we can now hope for is Bronze from Matthew Glaetzer. In the athletics, Fabrice Lapierre - who had looked a great shot at the medal, choked big time in the final, fouling twice and putting in a sub standard effort in his one legal jump to fail to go through to the top 8 stage in the Men's long jump final.

#chokefest2016 continued in the pool. The Campbell sisters dogged it in a second straight final, finishing 5th and 7th in the Women's 50m Freestyle in a race Cate was expected to win. In the Men's 1500m, so long owned by Australian, Mack Horton basically died at halfway. Having been in second for a few laps, he completely collapsed in the back half of the race to finish 5th - miles outside his personal best. They say you're only as good as your last race - and your last race was pathetic. In the Medlay relays our Women took silver while our Men took Bronze - it was hilarious to see C-bomb and Cate Campbell put in their best performances of the meeting when all the pressure was off. It just goes to show its all in the mind when it comes to Australian swimming and 95% of them are mentally shot. It was at least good to see them finally admit it, with Cate calling her performance in the 100m the greatest choke of all time. She is right. Thankfully the swimming is now over and we won't be have to put up with any more of their garbage for the rest of the games.

The highlights of the day came on the track, where Mo Farrah recovered from a mid-race fall to defend his gold medal in the Mens 10,000m in a heroic display. In the blue riband for the Women - the 100m, Shelly Anne-Fraser was denied a three peat by fellow Jamaican Emma Thompson. However Fraser managed to go out with her head held high taking the bronze.

Channel 7 Bullshitmeter

Missed the key moment in the Mens 10,000 (Farah falling) as they were showing the long jump. Then after the Aussies were out of contention they just completely ignored the long jump anyway.

Medal Tally
1 - US - 24-18-18
2 - China - 13-11-17
3 - Great Britian - 10-12-7
7 - Australia - 6-7-9

Day 7 - Soccerwhos?

Day 7 was probably the quietest for Australia so far. However, it ended in tragedy with the Matilda's losing their soccer quarter final to the mighty Brazil on penalties. It all looked so good after Brazil missed their 5th penalty. The Albatross had already declared victory - but the Falcon has seen many a choke worse than this and the Aussies also miss their 5th penalty eventually going on to lose in sudden death.

It was another day of minor medals for Australia - largely at the hands of the old enemy. As a result we have plummeted to 9th in the medal standings (London anyone?) Our Men's cyclists were beaten by team GB in the final of the team pursuit, taking silver. Our women lost the bronze medal race in the Women's team sprint. Our Men's fours in the rowing also took the silver behind team GB, while Kim Brennan progressed to the final in the Women's single sculls.

There were more minor medals at the track with Australia taking a bronze in the Men's 20km walk behind a Chinese pair. Dane-Bird smith can always hope they are both suspended for doping and he later takes the gold. The highlight on the track came in the Women's 10,000m where Ethiopian Almaz Ayanna obliterated the world record in a truly stunning performance. Given the record was previously held by a Chinese woman busted for doping questions are already being asked.

It was a quieter day in the pool for Australia - the Campbell sisters both finished second in their semis in their Womens 50m Freestyle semis and qualified for the final. The way our meet is going they'll finish 4th and 5th in the final. Mack Horton qualified 4th fastest for the Men's 1500m final tomorrow morning. The big shock was defending champion Sun Yang bombing out and failing to qualify. Apparently he was 'sick'. The bigger shock was Michael Phelps being beaten in an individual event - he finished in a 3-way tie for silver (yes that's right a triple dead heat for second!!!) behind a Singaporean swimmer of all things.

The Boomers bounced back from the loss against the USA to flog China.

Medal Tally

1- United States - 20-13-17
2 - China - 13-10-14
3- Great Britain - 7-9-6
9-Australia - 5-6-7

Day 6 - Car Crash

OMFG - after a golden night in the pool last night, Day 6 in Rio will go down as one of the darkest days in the history of Australia swimming as the Australian swim team put in possibly the greatest collective chokefest in the history of human Civilisation. It was capped off by the Campbell sisters. Cate Campbell - world record holder - and fastest qualifier for the final - an unbackable favourite - led to the 15m mark before absolutely collapsing in the last 15m to miss the medals completely. She was even over taken by little sister Bronte who was second for most of the race before tiring to finish 4th. I'm so mad I don't even know who got medals. While it had been Chokedy McChokfeind in the earlier races I thought Cate Campbell actually had some substance about her and wouldn't get sucked in. She would save the day. Our great white hope. I WAS WRONG! In a race we were hoping to quinella -  WE GOT ABSOLUTE NOTHING. F M L. The Falcon's pre-games medal estimates are now in complete tatters.



If that wasn't bad enough Cam Hackevoy did the unthinkable - he has actually performed worst than James Stillnox Magnussen did in London. Expected to win up to 3 gold - Hackevoy couldn't even get through to the final of the Men's 50 freestyle, crashing out by finishing 7th in his semi final. He'll go home with just a bronze which he won in the relay. Taylor McKeon, who had qualified fastest for the Women's 200m breastroke, was a shadow of herself in the final, fading over the final 100m to miss the medals completely. Luckily The Falcon predicted this and had a little something on the winner, Japan's Rie Kaneto, at $3. Mitch Larkin saved some face taking silver in the Men's 200m backstroke. He was expected to win double gold in Rio but will go home with just a silver after the US's Ryan Murphy instead did the double - once again the Americans just know how to get the job done when it matters most. Australia doesn't. His girlfriend, Em C-Bomb, who was also fancied to do the double - did even worse - missing the final of the Women's 200m backstroke in what has been a horrible meet for her. Perhaps the only thing more horrible is the ridiculous gangsta jackets the US team walks out in before each race. Seriously, is the pool in Rio or Green Bay?


The highlight in the pool was Michael Phelps recording his 22nd gold medal winner, breaking a 2000 year-old record by winning his 13th individual gold medal in one of the all time great swimming performances - destroying the field in the Men's 200 IM. He becomes only the third athlete in Olympic history to win an individual event at 4 consecutive Olympics. He is quite simply the greatest Olympian in the history of human civilisation.


For Australia - #chokefest2016 wasn't just confined to the pool.Australian's Men's quad sculls, favoured to win gold, were roughed up by the Germans - who stormed to an earlier lead which they held for the remainder of the race. Try as they might, the Aussies couldn't peg them back and finished with silver. Australia's Jessica Fox, favoured to win gold in the Women's K1 slalom, copped a penalty for hitting a gate, and instead finished with shameful bronze.


Our Australian cyclists also disappointed, expected to challenge the mighty Team GB in the Men's and Women's team pursuits - neither did so, and finished a long way behind their Commonwealth rivals in qualifying. Our Men's Team Sprint team were also defeated in the Bronze medal race, but this was largely in line with expectations.


The Opals remain undefeated in group play, thanks to a big comeback against Japan, while the Hockeyroos continued to get their campaign back on track with a tight fought 1-0 win over Argentina. There was also good news for Australia at the golf, with Marcus Fraser leading the field by 3 shots after shooting a 63 in the first round.


The highlight of the day was Fiji getting their first ever Olympic medal, a gold in the Men's Rugby 7s. And it was made all the more enjoyable as they won it by hammering Team GB 43-7! The US continued their domination in the Women's Gymnastics collecting gold and silver in the Women's individual all around final having easily won the teams event earlier in the week. They were only denied a clean sweep by rules which limit 2 athletes to each country in the final.


Channel 7 Bullshit Metre


A couple of points - if you watched Channel 7 you'd think the Gymnastics had been removed from the Olympics? They have completely ignored it for pretty much all off week one. Second - a good start in the swimming according to Basil Zemplis must mean that you managed to get into the water. EVERY Aussie swimmer in EVERY race this Olympics has had a good or great start. Now this is either a once in a universe type statistical anomaly or Basil has NFI - I'm guessing it's the latter.


Social Media Call Of The Day


Get these ******* Swisse add off my TV. I'm never going to take your vitamins, I'm scared I will choke on one.


The problem with the Aussie swimmers Is they all seem to be doing law/pharmacy/engineering degrees.  I don't think Phelps and Lochte can even read.


Medal Tally


1 - United States - 16-12-10
2 - China - 11-8-11
3 - Japan - 7-2-13
4 - Australia 5-4-6

Day 5 - Super Nintendo Chalmers!!!!!



OH MY!!!!!!!! Have you ever seen anything like it!?!?! Kyle Chalmers ended a 50 year drought for Australia in the Men's 100m Freestyle taking Gold with one of the best Olympic swims ever seen. The boy with a finish faster than Bernborough was only 7th after the first lap, before storming over the top of his rivals in the last 25m to snatch Gold from Belgium's Pieter Timmers and the USA's Nathan Adrian. It was an amazing win and one of the best Australian gold's The Falcon can remember - perhaps since Ian Thorpe mowed down Gary Hall Jr in Sydney. The gold helped us maintain our 4th position in the medal tally.


In what was a good night in the pool for Australia, we were unlucky not to make it two gold as Maddi Groves was beaten by just 3/100ths of a second in the Women's 200m butterfly having gone in as the fastest qualifier (classic Straya). Luckily the Falcon had a little something on Belmonte Garica (Spain) who took the Gold at the juicy price of $3. The Womne's 4 x 200m Freestyle relay team also put in a huge performance to take silver behind the dominant American team. The Campbell sisters both qualified for tomorrow nights Women's 100m freestyle final with Cate looking much more promising than Bronte. The concern was the performance of 16yo Canadian Penny Oleksiak who smashed her PB by over half a second to almost touch out Cate in the semi final. Still Cate is an unbackable favourite for gold. Taylor McKeown was, perhaps surprisingly, also the fastest qualifier through to tomorrow nights Women's 200m Breastroke final. Backstroke 'King' Mitch Larkin continued to do his best to abdicate, after being beaten into second in his semi final in the 200m. There must be huge doubts as to whether he can take gold in the final tomorrow night. I certainly wouldn't be backing him. He has massively underperformed at these games. Speaking of underperforming, how about Cam 'Not sure if James Magnussen' McEvoy who dogged it in the Mens 100m final and could only finish 7th behind the amazing Chalmers. Let's not forget McEvoy had the fast time in about 7 years heading into the event and pulled out of the Mens 4x200 freestyle relay to focus on tonight. Terrible.


Elsewhere, it was a day of 5ths for Australia on Day 5 with our trap shooter James Willett also finishing 5th despite shooting an Olympic record in the qualifying round. The Men's Rugby 7 team is out of medal contention. They managed to lose to South Africa in the Quarter Finals having previously beaten them just that morning in the pool round (#chokefest2016!). The Hockeyroos finally found their offence in the hockey smashing India 6-1 to move up to 3rd in Pool B (the top 4 from each pool qualify for the quarters). The Kookaburra's also got back on track with a 2-1 win against Great Britain in a game they absolutely dominated (in the end it took a last minute goal line save just to maintain the win!).


Outside of Australia the highlight of the day had to be Fabian Cancellara's (Switzerland) Gold in the Men's Time Trial on the bike. The Swiss is a legend of the sport, who was tragically denied a gold in the road race in London when crashing out inside the final 10 km. This time around there was no such disappointment as Spartacus crushed the field by almost 45 seconds. There was disappointment for Australia, with Rohan Dennis leading for much of the trial before a mechanical failure forced him to change bikes costing valuable time. Given he finished just 8 seconds from the Dark Side's Chris Froome (GB) for the Bronze it looks like another medal that Australia has coughed up.


On a final note, while some people will think the highlight of the day will be the Boomers pushing the US all the way in the Men's basketball - the fact is they lost, basketball shouldn't be in the Olympics and I couldn't GAF. Deal with it.


Social Media Call Of The Day


We would have won against Team USA if we didn't have to burn so much energy assembling shower curtains.

**** you Kitty Chiller.


Medal Tally


1 - USA - 10-11-10
2 - China - 10-5-8
3 - Japan - 6-1-11
4 - Australia - 5- 2 - 5

Day 4 - Ghosts of Games Past

Ok - the Falcon is declaring it. THE CHOKE IS BACK ON!!!!! While Day 1 of the Rio Olympics suggested the Australian Olympic team had buried its London demons - oh how wrong we were! A pair of bronze were not enough to stop Australia slipping to fourth on the medal tally, behind Hungary!


After our swimmers gassed it on Day 3, on Day 4 it was the turn of our equestrian riders to snatch shameful bronze from the jaws of gold. Sitting in the gold medal position with just the show jumping to come, the Aussie riders knocked off a handful of posts in the final jumping rounds to drop from Gold to Bronze. The agony was doubled as Chris Burton, who led the individual standings - knocked off enough posts himself to slip from Gold to 5th. He was so bad he was over taken by his team mate Sam Griffiths, who finished 4th. In the teams events France and Germany took the gold and silver respectively.


It was a mixed night for Australia in the pool. Hot favourite, Cam McEvoy qualified for the Mens 100m final but was beaten by defending Olympic Champion, Nathan Adrian, in his semi final in a time almost a second slower than what McEvoy swam at the Australian trials. Things look more promising for Kyle Chalmers who recovered from a slow start to storm home and win the 2nd semi - unlike a lot of the Aussie swimmers he looks like a real racer who shouldn't fold under pressure. Maddie Groves also qualified as the fastest swimmer for the Women's 200m Butterfly final tomorrow. Speaking of racers, Emma McKeon put in a huge swim in the Women's 200m freestyle. She exploded out of the gates, leading through the first 100m and holding on to Bronze behind superstars Katie Ledecky (gold - USA) and Sarah Sjostrom (silver - Sweden). But the highlight had to be the GOAT, Michael Phelps won his 20th gold medal in heart stopping fashion taking the Men's 200m Butterfly by just 4 100s of a second. He later added a 21st as the yanks took the Men's 4 x 200m Freestyle relay. Australian missed bronze by half a second after pulling Cam McEvoy out of the race to save him for tomorrow night's 100 - he better bloody win now as it has otherwise cost us a medal!


The Men's sevens split their opening pool games - losing to France and beating Spain. With a match against South Africa to come, who we haven't beaten all year, they now face an uphill slog to try and qualify for the quarters. But at least they didn't lose to Japan like the kiwis did!!! Sam Stosur was knocked out of the Women's tennis by Germany's Angelique Kerber - but she has always been a specialist in failure so this is no surprise. The Kookaburra's continued our pathetic hockey performances - losing 1-0 to Belgium - again looking completely ineffective in the final third.  A rare bright spark were the Matilda's who thumped Zimbabwe 6-1 to qualify for the soccer quarterfinals as one of the two best third placed teams. While the Opals went to 3-0 in the Women's basketball with a win over France.


Out at the rowing - Australia's gold medal hope in the Women's Single Sculls, Kylie Brennan, bounced back from her shock heat defeat on Day 1 to qualify fastest for the semi-finals on Thursday. Still - the aura of invincibility that surrounded her heading into these Games has surely been broken.


In other news - I believe the diving pool is actually fermenting:

Social Media Call Of The Day


@FillWerrell
Just been watching Olympic Ladies Beach Volleyball and there's already been a wrist injury...but I should be ok by Monday.


Medal Tally
1 - United States - 9-8-9
2 - China 8-3-6
3 - Hungary 4-1-1
4 - Australia 4-0-5

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Day 3 - Seventh Heaven

Australia moved back to second in the medal tally this morning after Australia's Women's Rugby 7's team (the Pearls) ended their undefeated campaign with a 24-17 win over New Zealand in the gold medal match. The Kiwis had the best of a tight first half, however some generous refereeing decisions and a try right on half time saw Australia take a 10-5 lead. However the second half was all Australia, with the Pearls racing to a 24-5 lead to put the gold to bed, with a couple of late New Zealand try's after the match was all over having no impact.  The Pearls lit up the tournament and were a dominant force. They are deserved gold medallists. Having said that - Women's 7 has to be one of the more pathetic sports at the Games - there were two decent teams (they met in the final) and the rest of the field were complete garbage. As a result, there were only a handful of competitive matches and most games were complete blow outs.


Our swimmers reverted to their London stillnox form. World Champion Emily Seebohm continued her tradition of completely gassing it in major finals. Having led at the 50m mark she completely fell apart on the run home collapsing into 7th in an awful performance from lane 1. It turns out those who love together choke together as well. C-bomb's girlfriend Matt Larkin, also the world champion, also led at the 50m mark, completely f-ked up his turn and faded out of the medals. Both swimmers said they were happy with their performance - they need to take a serious spoonful of the cement. In two events were Australia was expecting gold - we failed to medal. It is truly stunning how many of our number 1 ranked swimmers go backwards when it matters most. I don't ever know or care who one the races. One positive was Sun Yang's return to form to take gold in the Men's 200m Freestyle in an epic race against South Africa's Chad Le Clos, setting up an epic clash with the Mack in the 1500m later in the week. It was a cold war battle in the Women's 100m breastroke - and it was a win for the good guys as the USA's Lillia King held off convicted Russian doper Yulia Efimova to take the gold.


News wasn't so good for the Hockeyroos who sunk to the bottom of the group stage table after going down to the USA 2-1. Having lost their opening game to Team GB they will now need everything to right to qualify for the quarters - a medal looks completely unattainable. In basketball the Boomers continued their great start to the campaign with a 95-80 win over Serbia - next up is Team USA (FYI in 4 matches so far the Yanks mens and womens team have won by a lazy 206 points combined)!


In one of the best sports of the games (in the Falcon's completely unbiased opinion), Chris Burton shot to the top of the 3-day eventing standings in the Equestrian with a clean round in the Cross Country. And what an eventful course it was with plenty of refusals and even a fall in the first hour alone!! He now leads Germany's Michael Jung by 3.3 points heading in to tonight's final show jumping round - where each knocked down fence will incur a 4 point penalty. As a result Australia also surged to the lead in the teams event - where they hold a 4 point lead over NZ. It could be a case of double gold for Australia at the equestrian tomorrow!!!!!


The horrific crashes in Rio also continued overnight with the Australian Women's pursuit team hitting the deck leaving Mel Hoskins to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance. This will be a bitter pill to swallow for a team that looked to be a huge chance of a medal, potentially even gold.


Social Media Call Of The Day


Falcon's housemate after hearing about the Dutch girl crashing out of the Women's road race while leading and breaking her spine:


So what you're saying is...she came last


Medal Tally


1- USA - 5-7-7
2 - China - 5-3-5
3 - Australia - 4-0-3

Day 2 - Don't You Go Through That Trap Door

First things first, if you haven't caught up on #apologizetosunyang gate then do yourself a favour and check it out - it is one of the all time examples of state sponsored social media terrorism. At one stage yesterday Mack Horton's IG account (mackhorton) had received over 270,000 comments on his gold medal photo - almost all from newly created accounts out of China that had all the hallmarks of being state creations (the Falcon finds the snake emoji exceptionally funny!).


Australian maintained its standing towards the top of the medal tally on Day 2 thanks to an unexpected gold medal from Catherine Skinner in the Women's Trap shooting (the Falcon's above market expectation gold forecast is looking pretty good so far!). In an all antipodean affair she defeated New Zealand's Natalie Rooney 12-11 to take gold in an event Australia has a long history in (both in terms of winning gold and sadly domestic violence).


In contrast, the golden sheen was wiped away in the pool, as our Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle relay time dogging it for a second straight games. Favourites to take the gold, the team never recovered from a pathetic first leg from James Roberts which left Australia dead last. A superb recovery from Kyl Chalmers was in vain as the most overrated swimmer in Olympic history, James Stillnox Magnuessen was again found gasping for oxygen in an Olympic final. The Missile was again a dud, dropping to 5th before a huge swim by Cam McEvoy salvaged a bronze. Gold went to the Americans with Michael Phelps gathering a completely unprecedented 19th gold medal. Our backstrokers, favourites for Gold heading into Rio, were ok with out being brilliant in the semis - but both men and women qualified for the final. While some may say they were saving themselves for the final - I don't buy it. Most gold medal winners put in dominant semi performances and go in as the fastest qualifier. In the other events, perhaps the greatest women's swimmer of all time, Katie Ledecky (USA) smashed the world record in winning the Women's 400m Freestyle by a mile. Sun Yang shook of yesterday's controversy to easily qualify for tomorrow night's final of the Men's 200m freestyle. However, Yulia Efimova (Russia) was roundly booed after taking her semi in the Women's 100m breastroke. She has twice been banned for use of performance enhancing drugs.


Our bronze medal tally was boosted further by our divers with Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith combing to medal in the Women's Synchronized 3m Springboard - unsurprisingly the Chinese won the gold medal (the Falcon is considering trolling their social media accounts in response). In Rugby 7's the Australian women's team eased into the medal rounds, with a dominant 24-0 win over Spain in the Quarter Finals. They'll meet Canada in the semis. The Opals found it tougher going but still managed to notch their second win in the Basketball, edging Turkey by 5 points.


News wasn't so good for the Kookaburras, world famous for their choking ability. The hot favourites for gold, who edged New Zealand 2-1 in their opening pool game, where not so lucky in their second. The offense continued to look impotent, and a 6th minute goal was enough to see Spain (ranked 11th in the world!!!!) eke out a 1-0 win. This will do anything but calm the nerves for an Olympic team who are historically a factory of sadness. They now lie third in their pool, with the top 4 qualifying for the Quarters.


In other news, Kosovo, at just their second Olympics since splitting from Serbia in a bitter struggle won their first gold medal in the Women's 52kg judo. While at the tennis there where tears of both happiness and sadness as Juan Martin del Potro (Argentina) shocked world #1 Novak Djokovic (Serbia) in a straight sets victory. Brazil's men's soccer team again failed to score - this time against lowly Iraq in another performance that must be driving the locals insane.


Social media comment of the day


I see Armitstead from Britain forgot to Medal in the Womens Road Race.

Just like she forgets to turn up to drug tests


Medal Tally


1 - USA - 3 - 5 - 4
2 - China - 3 - 2 - 3
3 - Australia - 3 - 0 - 3

Day 1 - Return of the Mack

Mack Horton and the Australian Women's 100m freestyle team took Australia to the top of the Olympic Games medal tally this morning, after the Australian men had won bronze in the team Archery overnight. Australia's 2 gold and a bronze leaves them one medal clear of Hungary, who also won 2 gold on the night.

But the highlight of the night had to be the return of the Mack, who ensured the sun set on Sun Yang's (China) Olympic reign in the Men's 400m Freestyle. Unperturbed by a hot opening 200m from Britain's James Guy, Horton sat in the middle of the field, just ahead of 400-1500m champion Yang. As Guy dropped away in the 3rd 100, Horton and Yang stormed to the lead together. With Yang, the stronger 1500m swimmer ranging up, it looked at a number of stages as if he would power over the top of Horton. But having turned in front with only 50m to go, Horton dug deep to hold off convicted doper Yang and take Australia's first gold medal in the pool.

A few hours later Australia's Women's 4 x 100m freestyle really team lived up to their hot favoritism with a dominant performance in breaking the world record to take the gold. The squad unexpectedly trailed at the half way mark, but with world champion and world record holders to come in the form of the Campbell sisters a half-body length deficit was easily erased, first by Bronte, and then extended by Cate as the sisters.

Australia also scored what could only be seen as a bonus bronze by defeating China 3 sets to 1 in the Bronze medal match in the Men's Teams Archery. This is Australia's first medal in teams archery, having previously recorded a gold and bronze in individual men's events. In other promising news, Australia's Christopher Burton sits in second position after the Day 1 (dressage) of the three-day eventing. Given the dressage is generally Australia's weakest discipline, that leaves Burton in great shape for a medal. The cross-country will be held on Day 2 and Australia also sits second overall in the teams event.

A golden morning for Australia overcome an extremely tepid start to the games. Australia's hot fancy for the Women's single sculls in the rowing barely scraped through her heat, falling into 3rd position in her race of 6 a monumental 11 seconds behind the heat winner.  The Hockeyroos remain a far cry from the dominant team of the 90s and naughties, going down 2-1 to Great Britain in their opening pool game in a match the Brits largely controlled. The Kookaburra's put in a much better performance, the gold medal favorites edging past New Zealand 2-1. 

Outside of Australia the highlight of Day 1 is always the Men's road race - this time won by classics's specialist Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium) in a hectic edition that saw two of the three breakaway leaders crash out in spectacular fashion on an extremely technical final descent. That allowed Van Avermaet to catch up to the remaining member of the break, Poland's Rafal Majka, who had to settle for Bronze after also being caught by Denmark's Jakob Fulsang. Simon Clarke was Australia's highest finished, placing 26th around 6 minutes from the winner.

Medal Tally

1 - Australia - 2-0-1

2 - Hungary - 1-0-0

3 - United States - 1-4-0

PS - for those who don't easily get queasy check out the YouTube footage of French gymnast Samir Ait Said snapping his leg in half attempting a vault landing. Christ!

 Samir Ait Said

Opening Ceremony

WHAT AN EPIC!! I have to admit about 3 hours in I was gagging for the torch lightning and the whole thing to be over. Surely this 3 and 3/4 hour sojourn set the record for longest Opening Ceremonies ever! The second test in Galle was almost decided in shorter time.

Having said that - as Opening Ceremonies go it was pretty good. I presume the opening origami with metallic boxes was some sort of ode to the Zika virus, but the historical story of Brazil and Rio was great and they certainly didn't overlook any controversial elements including the European invasion and subsequent transfer of African slaves to the continent.

The big plus point was the overt reference to global warming and just how many major cities on multiple continents would be affected by a rise in the sea level. The concentric circles showing the rise in global temperatures over the last century is one of the more compelling ways I've seen evidence of global warming presented. We've certainly come a long way from the uproar when Peter Garret wore a sorry t-shirt at the Sydney closing ceremony.

There were a staggering 205 nations that walked into the stadium - and it teams it felt like it would never end. I guess the one benefit of colonialism is that the march of the athletes was a lot more consolidated and a lot shorter! I also would have completely failed at my own trivia question as there is no way in hell I would have backed Saudi Arabia and South Africa to enter before Australia! For once the Australian outfits weren't totally offensive and where actually quiet tasteful.

The torch lightning was excellent and made up for the complete non-event that London's was. Guga carried the beacon into the stadium and was his usual emotive self before handing it over to some basketballer I've never heard of. Finally, she passed the torch to Vanderlei de Lima - who infamously was leading the Marathon in Athens before being attacked by that Irish serial pest who dresses up in St Patricks day gear. His momentum shattered de Lima managed to hold onto Bronze but broke down in tears after the race. His ability to overcome the shock of the attack and finish showed the true Olympic spirit, and there could be no one more deserving of lighting the Olympic torch.

So with that over let the games begin - and we'll have our usual Day 1 fair of rowing, equestrian and swimming to keep us occupied in the early hours of the morning and into Sunday brunch when the Australian swimmers will try to throw off the dreaded choking tag!

Finally, the Channel 7 bullshit meter kicked straight into gear. In a 4 hour ceremony held only every 4 years the 7 boffins couldn't even wait 10 minutes before cutting to an ad break. Dead set flogs.

The Prodigal Son Returns

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen,

After a 3-year hiatus from the Blogosphere, The Falcon has returned in order to oversee the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, like Cristo Redentor himself.

The whole thing kicked off overnight with the Women's Soccer preliminaries - and the Australian chokefest moved seamlessly on from London with the Matildas coughing up the fastest goal in Olympic soccer history, going 1-0 down to Canada inside 60 seconds. Not to be perturbed by going down to 10 players, the Canucks extended the lead in the second half to run out comfortable 2-0 winners. To sum up one Aussie tragics view of the Australian performance – ‘it looked like they didn’t even care’ (NB: not me – if you think I’m getting up at 4am to watch Olympic soccer preliminaries less than a year after watching English football at the likes of Emirates Stadium, Craven Cottage and Griffin Park you shouldn’t be reading this blog!). One thing the Australian team does seem to care about however, and the Falcon has much sympathy with this, is luxury accommodation. It appears Rio’s Olympic village is not up to the usual standards our athletes expect, with gas leaks, water leaks, and do-it-yourself shower curtains causing some athletes to wonder whether they’d actually been housed in Rio’s infamous favelas.  

But all will be forgotten when the Opening Ceremony kicks off at 9am Saturday morning Australian time. While Channel 7 have been flogging a 6am start, they are obviously planning on jamming 3 hours of utter garbage and cross promotion in beforehand – so there’s no need to set the alarm any earlier than 8:55. Anna Meares will carry the flag for Australia in her 4^th Olympic games (2 G, 1 S, 2 B) and Australia will be 15^th into the Stadium in alphabetical order (naming the 14 countries who will come out before us sounds like an all-time trivia question). As for who will light the torch I have NFI – the only member of the Brazilian Olympic team I think I could actually name right now is Neymar – but surely it wouldn’t be very Olympic to have a soccer player light the thing so we’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully it’s better than what London came up with when 7 no-name kids banded together as the final torch bearers. I demand celebrities!!!  

The other highlight of the lead up to the games has been a level of anti-Soviet propaganda not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yes the Russians ran a widespread, state-sponsored, doping program but it’s nothing that other states haven’t done in the past. The amount of US sprinters who will be running at the Olympics having previously faced drug bans is laughable (*cough* Justin Gatlin – TWICE! *cough*) and if you really think any of the athletes at the games are competing paniagua then I suggest you open your eyes a little.  

Anyway, enough of the widespread use of drugs by elite athletes – my predictions for Australia? 12 Gold – 16 Silver – 13 Bronze.  I’ll see you back here on Saturday for an Opening Ceremony review before the real action kicks off on Saturday night. 

Citius, Altius, Fortius, Falconius