Short and Sweet: Netballers rock, Paralympians named and amazing feats on the water
WE have a comeback and a fightback to remember and the latest from a huge week of woman and sport in SHORT AND SWEET.
Women's sport
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- Old coach to head NSW's newest sport team
- Swifts man-up with Wright move
- Swim star pipped for Paralympic milestone
- How tough our surf stars really are
- Swifts, Firebirds on hit-list
THE Olympics haven’t even begun but our women are still rocking on both the domestic and international stages.
One of the greatest games of netball ever was played at the end of a competition era.
We have more athletes named to compete in Rio at the Paralympics.
And we have women dominating on the water in surfing, the gruelling Molokai to Oahu event at the Clipper round the world sailing odyssey.
Here’s this week’s wrap of woman and sport in SHORT AND SWEET.
WHAT A COMEBACK
Ellie Cole is excepted to make a big splash at the Rio Paralympic to complete a remarkable comeback from potentially career-ending injuries.
Cole, who lost her right leg to cancer, has overcome two shoulder reconstructions to make it onto the side having to Rio.
And she heads into the games with new world title in the S9 100m backstroke.
The 23-year-old, who won four gold at the London Paralympics, leads a swim team chasing multiple medals in Rio.
A MATCH — AND FIGHTBACK — TO REMEMBER
It was a game to remember and one the Swifts will be unlikely to forget for quite some time.
The best-ever decider of the nine-year ANZ Championship was won by the Queensland Firebirds in sudden-death.
It was the first time a game was decided this way with the Firebirds running out 69-67 winners after trailing the swifts nuemrous times in the game.
While the Swifts fell short of their goal of avenging their one-goss loss to the Firebirds in the 2015 decider, the Queenslanders created history as the first team to defend a title and the first to win three crows after wins in 2011 and 2015.
AUSSIE TEAM FULL OF OLYMPIANS
Australia will send a full-strength triathlon team to the World Series grand final in Mexico next month which will include all three of the women racing at the Olympics.
Australia has never left an Olympics without one of our female triathletes climbing onto the podium.
In Rio Emma Moffatt and Erin Densham, both Olympic bronze medallists, will be joined by former world junior champion Ashleigh Gentle.
The trio will then back up by heading to Mexico for the finale of he world triathlon series in September.
The women's team also includes former world under 23 champion Charlotte McShane, former world under 23 runner-up Gillian Backhouse, Emma Jackson and debutant Natalie Van Coevorden.
WRIGHT MOVE PUTS AUSSIE BACK ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Australian Tyler Wright is back where she belongs — at the top of the world women's surfing rankings.
A semi-final appearance at the US Open of Surfing was enough to see her vault over American Courtney Conlogue and into the No. 1 spot.
Wright is Australia’s best hope - male or female - of winning an elite world surfing crown this year.
WENDY SAILS INTO HISTORY
Sydney sailor Wendy Tuck has sailed into history as the first female Australian skipper to complete the Clipper round the world race.
During the 11 months, 40,000 nautical miles journey Tuick was in charge of numerous crews of sailors with various degrees of experience.
She skippered the yacht Da Nang Vietnam to victory in the Clipper division of the Sydney to Hobart.
NEW BOSS AT WNBL
Former player Sally Phillips has been appointed to head-up the WNBL ahead of the 2016/17 season.
“The WNBL is Australia’s longest running elite women’s national competition and the number two women’s league in the world,’’ Phillips said.
“It continues to churn out some of the world’s most talented players, it’s a world-class league and I plan on making sure everyone knows how great the WNBL is.”
A 193-game veteran of the WNBL, Phillips represented the AIS from 1990-91, Melbourne in 1992, Dandenong from 1993-99 and Adelaide in the 1999/2000 season.
She played in six finals games, amassing 1,865 points overall while also sitting 38th on the highest assists list with 524 and 29th on the highest steals list with 298.
THE LINE OF THE WEEK: ‘GET UP, YOU’RE GOING TO RIO’
BEING told you have made the Australian Olympic team is a pretty good reason to be woken up early on a Sunday morning.
That is exactly what happened to 18-year-old Brittany O’Brien yesterday when her father disturbed her sleep-in. MORE
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: THE GAME OF THE DECADE?
IT will be remembered as one of the greatest games of netball ever played but by the NSW Swifts as the one that got away.
A year after the Queensland Firebirds beat them by one goal for the 2015 ANZ Championship, the NSW club’s bid for revenge in Sunday’s season decider in Brisbane ended in frustrated tears. MORE
MORE FROM THE WORLD OF WOMEN AND SPORT
SYDNEY schoolgirl Tiffany Thomas Kane has been beaten to the punch once recently but she doesn’t plan on it happening in the pool at her first Paralympics. MORE
COACH Rob Wright says the Swifts grand final loss to the Queensland Firebirds hasn’t made him sad but proud to be given another chance to lead them to netball’s top domestic prize in 2017. MORE
IRONMAN Matt Pool has praised ironwoman Jordan Mercer and mate Matt Bevilacqua’s domination at the Molokai to Oahu paddle race as “extraordinary” but his own feat in going from a hospital bed to third place in the torturous event is equally hard core. MORE
AFTER a decade’s absence from the national team, Chelsea Forkin has returned to the Emeralds for the upcoming World Baseball Cup in South Korea. The top-level softballer, who has recently returned from a stint playing the game in the US, has been named in the new Australian women’s basketball team for the World Cup in Gijant, Korea. MORE
Originally published as Short and Sweet: Netballers rock, Paralympians named and amazing feats on the water
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