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