The first Rio medal was handed out this morning in Women’s 10m air rifle:
Gold – Virginia Thrasher (USA); Silver – Li Du (China); Bronze – Siling Yi (China)
And, Canada won their first medal today in the Women’s 4x100m swimming relay! (more below)
MEN’S ROAD RACE – A couple crashes, some bumpy road sections (strategy: what’s your tire pressure?), Belgium’s Greg van Avermaet took the Gold in the 6-hour race, Denmark and Poland followed. Poland’s Rafal Majka lead the race for a bit after narrowly escaping death (a downhill crash) with around 12km left.
MEN’S BEACH VBALL – Richmond Hill natives Binstock (London 2012) and Schachter (Oympic rookie) were last to qualify for the Olympics and took on the world champions Brazil in their first match. Great tips, blocks, and digs – both sets were close, with the Canada in a good position to win the second one, but a net violation by Binstock and a mis-bump by Schachter sealed the Brazil sweep. Canada takes on Italy on Monday in their 2nd of 3 guaranteed matches.
MEN’S ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS – QUALIFICATION:
All gymnasts compete on each apparatus as a separate event. Top 8 gymnasts in each event move on to the final. The biggest shock was Japan’s Kohei Ichimura fell from the horizontal bar. Ichimura, who racked up a $5000 cellphone bill playing Pokemon Go in Rio, is a 7 time world all-round champion (including the 2012 Olympics).
France’s Samir Ait Said suffered a horrific broken leg on the vault.
Canada’s lone gymnast is Scott Morgan.
WOMEN’S RUGBY SEVENS:
Doesn’t matter how many times my cousins have tried to explain the different types of Rugby to me, it took this week to understand Sevens: 7 per side, 7 minutes per half, don’t blink it’s over.
Brazil pleased their fans despite losing their first match to England (although, it felt like Brazil had their hands on the ball more)
In its first match, Canada had a commanding win over Japan 45-0. The first try was scored in the first minute. In the second game vs. Brazil, Canada, again, scored within 30 seconds which was only the start of the 38-0 win.
USA split their games today with a loss to Fiji and a win over Colombia. The USA team includes their Captain Jillion Potter who recovered from a broken neck and is also a cancer survivor. It also includes multisport athlete Alev Kelter, a U-18 IIHF gold medallist who just missed the cut for Team USA’s Sochi 2014 delegation.
Powerhouses include Australia, New Zealand and GBR.
Canada takes on GBR SUNDAY at 11:30am.
Some Rugby Traditions:
Canada runs out and grabs the ball as soon as they hit the pitch, every single time.
Australia carries out their Boxing Kangaroo
ROWING:
There are a number of events with some differences.
Sculls = a person has two oars. So, you’ll hear about single sculls, double sculls (4 oars on the boat).
Lightweight = literally, lighter people. At international level the limits are Men: Crew average 70 kg (154 lb) – no rower over 72.5 kg (160 lb); Women: Crew average 57 kilograms (125 lb) – no rower over 59 kg (130 lb); the category was created to encourage rowers of different nations (i.e. with smaller people) to participate (Source: Wikipedia).
If you don’t hear ‘lightweight,’ then it’s “open” or heavyweight, and if you don’t hear ‘sculls’ then each rower has only one oar.
(Any rowers reading, please feel free to correct me, I tried to generalize a bit).
Qualifying heats were today for a number of events.
There were crazy winds that caused delays, and you can even see rowers rowing at a 45 degree angle! No world records today, that’s for sure!
Serbia Men’s Pairs capsized.
Canadians: Women’s single scull’er Carline Zeeman qualified directly for the quarterfinals after blowing away her heat (finished 6th overall); Men’s Lightweight Four and Quad sculls: Each of the Canadian men’s teams will row the repechage to move on.
WOMEN’S SOCCER:
Canada won 3-1, however all three goals came early in the first half (one on a penalty shot by Sinclair, and two from the future of soccer, Janine Beckie). Zimbabwe played hard and forced a defensive lapse in the second to break the shutout. Canada attracted several yellow cards, including Kadeisha Buchanan who was penalized with a yellow card after standing in front too close to a free kick and not promptly moving back after a warning. As this is her second yellow in the tournament, she will sit the next game against Germany. Yellow cards are cumulative and are wiped at the semi-final stage.
SWIMMING!! (It’s always an exciting evening! Can’t imagine an 11pm final to swim in!):
After the much-talked about disqualification at Pan Am 2015, Emily Overholt was rearing to go for the Women’s 400 Individual Medley (2 lengths per stroke). She blasted off the blocks in the final and was in third place until the breaststroke and backstroke eventually dropped her to 7th. She fought back hard and passed two swimmers in the last ten metres to finish fifth. Hungarian Katinka Hosszu blew away the competition (and the world record by 2s) to win gold.
Women’s Relay 4x100m – USA led most of the race, but by the fourth swimmer, Australia had pulled ahead, then pulled away and set a world record. The Canadians, Sandrine Mainville, Chantal van Landeghem, Taylor Ruck (16 yrs old) and Penny Oleksiak (16 yrs old), remained in Bronze position for nearly the final race and broke national records in the qualification and the final as they went. Michelle Williams helped Canada qualify for the Finals but made way for anchor Oleksiak in the final. Mark Tewksbury’s reaction to Canada’s first medal of the games race was priceless!
In the Men’s 400 IM final, it was a USA sandwich with Japan as the bread slices, breaking the USA’s 5 year streak of winning gold.
Men’s 400m Freestyle – unfortunately, Ryan Cochrane finished 11th overall (outside of the top 8 that go to the final). An Australian, Chinese and Italian took the podium.
Other hardware/things that happened today:
– Fencing (Women’s Individual Epee) – Canada’s Leonora Mackinnon made it to the Round of 32 before losing to the eventual Italian Silver Medallist, Rosella Fiamongo. Hungarian Emesse Szasz took Gold.
– Judo – Men’s 60kg (Russia, Kaz, Japan) and Women’s 48kg (Arg, S. Kor, Japan) medal events took place. Canadian man Pessoa made it to the second round, but was subject to some penalties,
– Archery Team Event – As predicted, South Korea continued their domination, defeating USA for Gold. Aussies took home the Bronze.
– Shooting – Men’s 10m Air Pistol title went to Vietnam, followed by Brazil and China
– Bouchard defeated USA’s Stephens (6-3, 6-3)in the first round to move on in women’s tennis. Genie has said she’s here so she has no regrets and wants to enjoy the moment, I think after her first game, she has any jitters out and has decided that she is going for the first place ribbon, not the participant ribbon.
– Pospisil was ousted in Men’s tennis.
– Canadian women off to a great start in Basketball! They defeated China 90-68.
Photo of the Day (Lego credit: Yvonne Tsang):
Can you guess each of the events? (Leave a comment).
Also, we took two photos. Can you name the difference and guess why we retook?