Short and Sweet: Super mum, Olympic rookies rule as women golfers and NSW Swifts prepare to shine
ROOKIES rule, golfers excited, a working mum excels, NSW Swifts soar and a legend misses the Games cut. All this and more women’s sport news in SHORT AND SWEET.
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ROOKIES rule, a working mum excels, NSW Swifts soar and a legend misses the Games cut.
The Australia team gets closer to being finalised with some very excited golfers named.
But there is also disappointment for a legend of sport and terrible news for gymnastics.
All this and more in SWEET AND SWEET.
BREAKING NEWS: GOLFER EXCITED ABOUT GOING TO RIO!
At least some golfers are excited about playing at the Rio Olympics.
While legend Karrie Webb has failed to make the cut there are two very excited Australian female golfers heading to Rio.
On the same day Rory McIlroy admitted he may not even watch golf at the Olympics — “Probably the events like track and field, swimming, diving … the stuff that matters’’ - Australia’s golf team was named.
“I can’t wait to represent Australia in the Olympics and think it is the highest honour that you can ever have,” said 20-year-old Su Oh.
“When my parents brought my big sister, my little brother and me to Australia when I was eight years old, I didn’t even play golf.
“They could never in their wildest dreams have imagined one of us would represent Australia in the Olympic Games. It’s a dream come true for my whole family.”
Oh will be joined in Rio by world No. 13 Minjee Lee, Scott Hend and Marcus Fraser.
Lee and Oh were part of the Australian team that won the World Amateur Championship in 2014.
AUSTRALIA’S SHOOTING STAR
Young Australian goal shooter Kristina Brice received one of the top accolades in netball when named the ANZ Championship Best New Talent for the 2016 season.
After playing just one quarter last year, the 191cm Adelaide Thunderbirds shooter filled in veteran shooter Carla Borrego in numerous matches this year.
And once on the court she starred, scoring 226 goals from 262 attempts at 86 per cent accuracy in her eight games.
Brice follows in the footsteps of formidable shooters Mwai Kumwenda and Jhaniele Fowler-Reid, who were named the Best New Talent in 2014 and 2013 respectively.
SUPER MUM MAKING A MARK IN RACING
First we had Michelle Payne. Now we have Emma Longmire and her sister ripping it up in racing
Trainer Longmire has three horses in work, has just given birth to her third child and on Saturday and matched her identical twin sister Lucy’s achievement to train a winner at Royal Randwick.
Emma’s horse Thunder Road, the $61 outsider, scored a shock win in the TAB Highway Handicap (1400m) $40,000 race.
According to our Racing Editor Ray Thomas, Emma, the oldest of the twins by eight minutes, has only been training for four years after spending a career in the Australian Army.
HISTORY FOR ROWERS
Dual World Champion Kim Brennan has nothing but praise for the rowing team heading to Rio.
Brennan is just one of a number of standout women in the team boasting five men’s events; single, double, and quadruple sculls, coxless fours and men’s pair, as well as three women’s boats, single, double and quadruple sculls.
With Brennan heading to her third Games, Kerry Hoare will enter history as Australia’s first four-time Olympic rower as she races alongside three Olympic rookies, Jessica Hall, Jennifer Clearly and Madeleine Edmunds in the women’s quadruple sculls.
Making her third Olympic appearance will be Sally Kehoe who has paired with Genevieve Horton in the women’s double scull.
THE NETBALL MATCH YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR
It could well be the game of the season — and fingers crossed, a preview o this years ANZ Championship decider.
The Queensland Firebirds will host the Australian Conference Final on Monday against the NSW Swifts.
The ledger this season is a win each with few game enough to predict the winner.
On offer is the chance to host an ANZ Championship semi final.
TERRIBLE NEWS FOR GYMNASTICS
A major blow for Gymnastics with news one of the nation’s premier training centres for elite gymnasts is to close.
The Perth based Women’s Artistic Gymnastics National Centre of Excellence, which has produced nine Olympians, 10 Commonwealth Games representatives and several world championship medals, will shut its doors in December.
“This is a very cruel and short sighted decision by WAIS that if not reversed will end the Olympic ambitions of many young women in one of Australia’s fastest growing sports. It was a decision made without warning and without consultation,” the President of Gymnastics Australia, Ms Jacqui Briggs-Weatherill said.
“Gymnastics provides the biggest catchment pool of young female athletes of any Olympic sport in Australia. Seventy-five per cent of the 180,000 registered members of our sport in Australia are women.”
AUSSIES SURFER RIPS IN SOUTH AFRICA
In surfing news, world qualifying series charger series Sky Burgess beat best mate to claim victory at the Ballito Pro in South Africa.
The south coast surfer defeated Durban surfer Sarah Baum in the final.
“It was like a normal free-surf for us out there, and I was just happy to be going right,” said Burgess.
The Port Kembla surfer said she and Baum will now resume working on a special project together.
‘”Sarah and I are making a little movie together, so it’s going to be great,” she said.
There will be eight rookies in the synchronised swimming team heading to Rio.
London 2012 Olympian Bianca Hammett will captain the new-look team which will perform routines honouring Australia’s native fauna, the crocodile and the Australian outback.
Originally published as Short and Sweet: Super mum, Olympic rookies rule as women golfers and NSW Swifts prepare to shine
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