Short and Sweet Rio 2016 wrap: How Australian women are faring at the Olympic Games
IT was gruelling. It was epic. It was emotional. The Olympic Games are over. Our week two SHORT AND SWEET wrap of how our Aussie women fared in Rio.
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- How Aussie women fared in week one
IT’S all done and dusted.
The 2016 Olympic Games are over.
There were highlights, lowlights and some of the most extraoridinary moments.
Here we plot the course of women in Rio with our week two SHORT AND SWEET wrap of Australia’s women at the Olympics.
WEEK ONE WRAP ON HOW OUR AUSSIE WOMEN FARED HERE:
DAY 15 WRAP
TRIATHLON
They had plenty of experience but in the end not the legs to continue Australia’s extraordinary record in Olympic triathlon of having a woman podium at every Games.
Veterans Emma Moffatt finished 6th and Erin Densham 12th.
GOLF
Australia’s Minjee Lee finished in a tie for seventh in the women’s golf.
Lee carded a final-round 4-under-par 66 to end up on 8-under through 72 holes, deadlocked with Canada’s Brooke Henderson (67) and Briton Charley Hull (68).
MOUNTAIN BIKING
Rebecca Henderson was forced out of the women’s cross country final after just four laps due to a back injury. She had been in the twenty-fifth position at the halfway mark of the race.
DAY 14 WRAP
MODERN PENTATHLON
Chloe Esposito won gold after coming back in the final event.
Starting the combined running/shooting discipline in seventh place and 45 seconds behind it seemed like the gap would be too great for the top of the podium.
ATHLETICS
In the women’s 20km walk Regan Lamble achieved a top-10 finish to record the third best performance by an Australian in the event’s history. Tanya Holliday was 26th in 1:34.22 while Rachel Tallent was 40th in 1:37.08.
Alana Boyd finished fourth on a countback in the women’s pole vault final. Boyd cleared 4.80m, just one centimetre below her personal best, to be in the final five competitors but couldn’t successfully clear 4.85m, which would have placed her in the medals.
BMX
Caroline Buchanan crashed in her semi-final run. Teammate Lauren Reynolds also crashed out.
EQUESTRIAN
Edwina Tops-Alexander finished equal ninth at the individual show jumping after knocking one rail in the final round of competition. It was Tops-Alexander’s equal best Olympic result.
Day 13 wrap
DAY 13 WRAP
ATHLETICS
Kathryn Mitchell finished sixth in the final of the women’s javelin. Eleanor Patterson missed a place in the women’s high jump final. Patterson successfully cleared her first attempts at 1.85m and 1.89m before failing to clear 1.92m. The Australian finished in 22nd place.
DIVING
Melissa Wu finished fifth in the women’s 10 metre platform final at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in Rio with 368.30 points. The Beijing silver medallist was all smiles throughout the competition but found herself in a hotly contested final which was dominated by the Chinese.
MODERN PENTATHLON
On the opening day of the event Chloe Esposito finishing 13th with 19 victories and 16 defeats.
SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING
Australia kicked off its team competition in the technical event, with a strong performance finishing in eighth position ahead of tomorrow’s free event.
TAEKWONDO
Olympic debutant Caroline Marton went down 4-0 in the 57kg division to bow out of her debut Olympic campaign.
DAY 12 WRAP
EQUESTRIAN
Great news with Edwina Tops-Alexander and Matt Williams qualifying through to the individual show jumping final on Friday.
Tops-Alexander and her horse Lintea Tequila picked up four jumping penalties, bringing their qualifying total to nine and ranking to equal 23rd.
BMX
Caroline Buchanan began her quest for redemption in fine style.
Buchanan, who crashed out of the London Olympics, was second fastest in qualifying to easily advance in Rio.
DIVING
Veteran Melissa Wu and Brittany O’Brien have qualified in fourth and 17th place respectively for the semi-final of the women’s 10m platform.
Wu is a three-time Olympian and definite medal chance.
GOLF
A late flurry of three birdies on the last four holes lifted Minjee Lee within four shots of the lead after day one of the women’s gold.
Birdies on 15, 17 and 18 move Lee up in the four-round competition headed by clubhouse leader Ariya Jutanugarn (-6) from Thailand.
TRACK AND FIELD
There wasn’t the news we had hoped for from the track and field.
Brooke Stratton failed to crack the seven metre mark to finish seventh in the women’s long jump.
KAYAK
It was a huge battle to make it to Rio but Naomi Flood’s campaign is over.
The paddler failed to make the business end of the women’s K1 event.
DAY 11 WRAP
SAILING
Lisa Darmanin’s silver in the Nacra 17 with cousin Jason Waterhouse was the highlight of the day for women on day 11.
The pair won silver in the new mixed class in their first Olympic Games.
BASKETBALL
The Opals bowed out of the race for a medal when downed by Serbia in their quarterfinal matchup.
TRACK AND FIELD
Kim Mickle’s calculated risk of rushing back from a shoulder reconstruction backfired with the javelin champion dislocating her shoulder and out of the Olympics.
DAY 10 WRAP
HOCKEY
The Australian women’s hockey team are out of the Olympics after losing to New Zealand 4-2 loss.
In the wake of the men also exiting, this is the first time in 32 years Australian men and women have failed to win an Olympic hockey medal.
The match is also expected to be the last international appearance of Australian captain Madonna Blyth.
WATER POLO
Another day another shoot out and again Australia was on the wrong end of it.
Our water polo women are out of the Olympics after Hungary claimed a spot in a medal match with a 13-11 victory in a shoot out after they were tied at 8-8 at the end of regular time.
It was the same way the Matildas left the Olympics on the weekend.
The Aussies now play two more games for classification from 5th to 8th.
CYCLING
Anna Meares finishes 10th in the sprint after bowing our of the competition in the quarters. It was her last event of the Games.
KAYAK
Finally some good news with K2 200m Olympic debutants Alyce Burnett and Alyssa Bull secured a spot in the final after a great opening day to their competition.
The pair finished third in their semi-final to make the medal race.
“It was all we could have hoped for, there are a lot of good crews out there and we’re pumped to be in the A-Final,’’ Bull said.
“That was our goal and we’ve done it so far. So anything from here on in is just a bonus.’’
TRACK AND FIELD
Triple Olympian Dani Samuels has made it to her third consecutive women’s discus Olympic final with a top throw of 64.46m.
OPEN WATER SWIM
Teenager Chelsea Gubecka, finished 15th in the 10km marathon swim. .
DAY NINE WRAP
TRACK CYCLING
Anna Meares survived a close call to ride her way out of the repechage and back on track for a medal in the sprint.
Meares will now meet Hong Kong’s Wai Sze Lee in the quarter-finals.
Meares lost her first-round clash against Simona Krupeckaite which had sent her to the repechage.
Sephanie Morton lost her repechage to end her medal hopes.
ATHLETICS
Australian marathon runners Milly Clark, Jess Trengove and Lisa Weightman had their day in the sun on day nine.
Clark, in only her second serious marathon, finished 18th in a time of two hours, 30 minutes and 53 seconds.
This was the fifth best placing by an Australian woman at the Games.
Trengove finished 22nd in 2:31.44.
Weightman, in her third Olympic marathon, was 31st in a time of 2:34.41.
SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING
Nikita Pablo and Rose Stackpole achieved a score of 74.7667 for their free routine, putting them in 24th position leading in to the technical routine of synchronised swimming competition.
EQUESTRIAN
Australian team captain Edwina Tops-Alexander made a mark in her first outing in Rio, producing a clear show jumping round.
On the mare Lintea Tequila, Tops-Alexander was one of only 24 in the field of 75 to produce a clear round.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL
Louse Bawden and Taliqua Clancy lost in the quarter-finals to American Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross. The Americans defeated the Australians 21-14 and 21-16.
DIVING
Maddison Keeney and Esther Qin finished fifth and sixth respectively in the women’s 3m springboard final.
DAY EIGHT WRAP
ROWING
Kim Brennan rowed away from the field and into all our hearts with her gold medal in the single scull.
She promised to deliver in lead-up events and produced on the day for rowing’s first gold of the meet.
It was one of the moments of the Games and a gold medal Australian sports fans will long remember.
CYCLING
Four time Olympian Anna Meares finished third in the keirin final to rewrite the sporting annals.
The popular cyclist became the most capped Australian rider and the first Australian athlete in history to claim four individual medals at four Olympic Games.
She is also now the only female track cyclist to have won Olympic medals in all four sprint events — keirin, sprint, team sprint and the 500m time trial (discontinued).
SWIMMING
Cate Campbell came up trumps to anchor Australia to relay silver.
Campbell combined with Emily Seebohm, Taylor McKeown and Emma McKeon to ensure the Dolphins ended their swimming campaign with reason to smile.
Campbell entered the water for the final leg in sixth place but then mowed down the field to just beat Denmark for the silver medal by 0.01s.
BASKETBALL
The Opals again came from behind to claim victory in Rio.
The Australians eventually defeated Belarus 74-66 to keep intact their winning run at the Games.
The win has set the Opals up with a quarter-final against Serbia.
SAILING
Sydney’s sailing cousins Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin continue to lead the Nacra 17 fleet despite an average day on the water.
Despite a 15th, 11th and 11th in the new mixed-class they remain in pole position for a gold medal later this week.
HOCKEY
Great result for the Hockeyroos who have beaten Japan 2-0 to keep alive their hopes of a medal in Rio.
WATER POLO
The women’s water polo team defeat the host nation 10-3 to advance into the quarter-finals where they will meet Hungary.
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