Head-to-head individual competition is 5 sets (2 games per set, and 3 arrows per game). Tiebreakers go arrow for arrow, which is exactly how Canadian Crispin Duenas prevailed over Italian Galiazzo. Duenas defeated Galiazzo with a bullseye to move onto the Round of 16, but lost to American Zach Garrett. Back to the piano, Crispin 🙂 (in case you missed a previous post, Crispin is your typical asian: played piano and practiced practiced practiced while his parents listened from the kitchen and demanded perfection)
BEACH VOLLEYBALL
Binstock and Schachter are up against Austria (Doppler and Horst), currently down one set, but leading the second set by 4 points….and now they have won the set. It’s 1-1!
How many times have I heard the commentator say “Doppler Effect”…Edit: Schachter and Binstock lost and have been knocked out. They lost all three prelim matches but it sure doesn’t feel like it! They put up a valiant effort!
CYCLING
Men’s and Women’s Time Trials took place today in wet conditions.Women’s Time Trials – Netherlands Van Der Breggen, winner of the road race, took the bronze, Russia silver, and USA’s Kristin Armstrong took the women’s time trial title for her third consecutive Olympic gold in cycling time trials; Canada’s Tara Whitten finished 7th and Karol-Ann Canuel finish 13th. Both cyclists had suffered serious injuries recently. Whitten fractured her occipital bone in March, requiring her to wear a neck brace for nine weeks. Two years ago, Canuel suffered a broken bone in her neck and a broken pelvis in two separate crashes.Men’s Time Trials – Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara took the gold, 47s ahead of the Netherlands’ Tom Dumoulin and GBR’s Christopher Froome. Canadian Hugo Houle finished 21st. Cancellara was the winner in Beijing 2008, and Froome was this year’s Tour de France winner.
DIVING – Men’s Synchronized 3m Springboard
After much controversy about distractions, redives, no redives, China’s goal to sweep all diving events was shattered by GBR today. China’s Cao and Qin finished in Bronze, 11 points behind Gold. USA took Silver.
KAYAK – Men’s Single Slalom:
(Whitewater) kayaking started and ended today with 21 paddlers taking to the person-made Whitewater Stadium. Paddlers have to navigate forward/downriver through the green posts, and upriver through the red posts. They get two runs to post their best time. Canada’s Michael Tayler improved on his second run by 12 second and finished 16th, but unfortunately missed the semifinals by only 1 ranking. Semifinal of 15 paddlers was cut to 10 for the final. Brazilian homeboy Pedro Da Silva just got in there and boy was he so happy, even cheering on other riders. GBR took gold, followed by Slovakia and Czech Republic.
GYMNASTICS
Men’s Individual All-Around Final
Who else? Kohei Uchimura of Japan won the Gold Medal in back to back Olympics, becoming the first person in 44 years to do so!
It was close, though! Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev, a guy who trains in lackluster facilities, was neck and neck with Kohei when he took a step on the landing from the horizontal bar event. That was enough to separate Gold (92.365) from Silver (92.266) as Kohei posted a 15.8/16 on the horizontal bar. GBR’s Max Whitlock won Bronze (90.641).
TABLE TENNIS – Women’s Singles
China took Gold and Silver in a tight final match that went to 4-3 (best of 7), North Korea Bronze over Japan.
RUGBY – MEN’S SEVENS:
The preliminary round wrapped up today and then straight into the quarterfinals. South Africa lost to Australia in the prelim earlier in the morning, but came back with avengence 22-5 in the quarterfinal against the Aussies again.
GBR took on powerhouse Argentina and crushed their souls with a golden try to win 5-0 in the quarterfinals.
New Zealand lost both prelim and quarterfinals today – I’m not vaguely recalling my cousins telling me that NZ is not so great at sevens, but fifteens is where they shine.
The tourney wraps up tomorrow with Fiji vs. Japan and GBR vs. South Africa in the semis. Let’s go South Africa!
BASKETBALL
Canadian Women are still undefeated! They had a tight game with Senegal but prevailed 68-58.
On the men’s side, France defeated Serbia 76-75! USA did not break 100, defeated Australia 98-88.
Canada plays USA on Friday at 2:30pm
SWIMMING
Women’s 200m Breaststroke –
Yvo and I have been focusing on the technique of the stroke and where and how to recover. Friends, we’ve been doing it all wrong! So much less drag now!
Also, we learned that your elbow must stay in the water for the breaststroke or you will be disqualified.
Kierra Smith of Canada won her heat to qualify for the semi-finals, and subsequently came 8th in the semis to qualify for the Final tomorrow night.
Turkish swimmer, Viktoria Zeynep Gunes grew up in Ukraine and swam for them until her family fled to Turkey in 2014. She changed her name and her life, went to the World Juniors last year for Turkey and is now representing them in Rio. She missed the final by about 0.5s.
Men’s 200m Breaststroke:
Kazakhstan’s Balandin came from behind to steal the gold from American Prenot with 0.07s to spare. Russia came third.
Women’s 100m Freestyle
Our latest swimming prodigy Penny Oleksiak qualified for the semis where she came second to Aussie Cate Campbell (who set a new Olympic Record). Cate: 52.71, Penny: 52.72 (an America’s Record). The finals are tomorrow.
Women’s 200m Butterfly
The top three spots of this final were spread by 0.35s. Spain took gold, the Aussie touched 0.03s later, and Japan took Bronze.
Men’s 100m Freestyle
Our Japanese, Canadian American Santo Condorelli – missed the podium by 0.03s! Santo was off to a huge start but couldn’t quite hold on. Aussie Chalmers took Gold, followed by Belgium and USA.
Women’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay
As if Penny wasn’t busy enough, she helped Canada to its 6th medal, its 4th in swimming, and her own 3rd medal!
Team Canada’s plan in the relay was to keep it close and Penny would crush it in the anchor position – and that she did. Canada was sitting just off the podium, then rivaled for bronze position, then left China in their wake (except that China was several lanes over) and went on to chase Australia, falling short of a silver by only 0.52s! Elsewhere in the race, Australia was leading for much of it, with USA breathing down their necks. Ledecky blew it out of the water on her leg with an extra burst on the final length to ensure the Gold medal.
Canada’s medal is a first for this women’s event! (Note: all 6 relay team members will receive medals)
MEDAL UPDATE
1. USA – 32
2. China – 23
3. Japan – 18
12. Canada – 6
LEGO Credit:Â Yvo
Favourite Quote of the Night: “We need to go to the LEGO store to buy more ponytail hair, because the women are killing it!”
(we frequently run out of the appropriate hair and uniform colours, but that just makes everything more interesting).