The rowing finals are on
today. In the women’s lightweight double
sculls final, the Canadian team of
Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee, won a SILVER medal for Canada! What a beginning for Canada’s rowing
finals! And, I think there was another silver medal that was won by
Canadians in rowing, but I don’t remember in which event.
Athletics is beginning
today and the men’s 800 m heats are running.
Unfortun-ately, Canada’s Anthony Romanw was off the pace, as he was
recovering from an ankle injury and it was difficult to know how well he really
was. He came 6th in his heat, which I’m pretty sure is not
the result he would have wanted and I believe that he was eliminated from
further competition as a result. In
contrast, Brandon McBride of Canada made it into the semi-final by coming
second in his heat.
The women’s heptathlon
begins with the 100 m hurdles event, but I’ll have to check later on to see who
won that race. Heptathlon means the
women compete in seven specific track and field events and each athlete is
awarded points for each performance. The
winner is the one with the most points after all seven events have finished. There are other versions of this competition
– pentathlon is five events and decathlon is ten events. The Canadian favourite in the women’s heptathlon
is Brianne Theisen-Eaton. She is
currently a silver-medalist in this sport.
The women’s 10,000 m
event is coming up shortly. There are
thirty-seven athletes running in one single race, including one athlete from
Canada. In fact, there are so many
runners, they have to be double-staggered, that is, placed on two different
start lines. Fourteen and a half minutes
into this race, the Kenyan and Ethiopian racers are all running at the front as
a group and the race is not even halfway done.
This fact is not really surprising – the Kenyans and Ethiopians run long
distances on a regular basis. After the
halfway mark (5,000 m) was passed, the runners at the front started to spread
out. As it turns out, Almaz Ayana of
Kenya won, breaking the world record in 29:17.45! She was followed by two Ethiopians. Somehow, I am not surprised in the least at
the results.
In the meantime, Ron
MacLean interviewed Ellie Black of Canada who placed fifth overall in women’s
gymnastics. He showed the clips of her
performances again: first uneven bars,
second balance beam, then floor, and finishing with vault (which we saw after
the 10,000 m race finished). I liked
every one of her performances, but I think she herself believes that uneven bars
is the event she has to work at the hardest.
She was really pleased with her performance and result for that event. As a former gymnastics judge, I had to work
harder at judging uneven bars fairly because the moves on the bars are very
quick – but as long as you know the basic moves that can be performed, it
becomes easier over time with practice.
Women’s 50 m swimming
is now on. There are twelve heats with
three Canadians competing. This is
currently a new Olympic sporting event, covering only one length of the pool. The current world record is 23.73 and the
Olympic record is 24.58, so this race is extremely quick. So far, Chantal Van Landeghem of Canada will
advance to the final. I don’t know who
else made it to the final, so hopefully, I’ll discover that on Olympic Games Primetime tonight. In addition, Hilary Caldwell won a BRONZE medal for her third place in swimming the women’s
100 m backstroke final.
Women’s trampoline – an
entirely different gymnastics sport – features Canada’s Rosie (Rosannagh) MacLennan. This event will start today with the
qualification round. She was the only
athlete to earn a gold medal for Canada at the London 2012 Olympics, so everyone in Canada has great hopes for
her. Every gymnast will do two routines
to qualify: one compulsory and one
optional. Those who qualify will then
move on to the final round. Somehow, I
missed Rosie’s compulsory and optional routines, but she made the final, which
I did see and her routine was the same as her optional one. She concentrated on executing her final
routine as well as possible and, she won
a GOLD medal for Canada, as a result!
We are all so proud of her accomplishment! So, overall Canada now has nine medals: two
gold, two silver, and five bronze.
As for men’s
trampoline, Jason Barnett of Canada did his compulsory routine, but something
went wrong in his optional routine and he placed 14th, which meant
he did not advance to the final.
Today, Canada played
France in women’s football (soccer) and only one goal was scored – by a
Canadian – and that was enough to earn Canada a berth in the semi-final –
Canada now advances to play Australia.
Another sport that is
in the medal round is tennis. In men’s
tennis, Canada is currently playing the USA in men’s doubles for the bronze
medal, but I don’t know who won this match, but I do know that the Canadian
men’s doubles pair lost to the USA and came fourth, out of the medals.
copyright 2016 - Anne Shier
No comments:
Post a Comment