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
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