Epic Failure

Wiffen was ready for Finke.

Considering how often and loudly you have been voicing your opinion about how badly things have been going, I'm surprised that you would need to ask that. And the answer is, no, obviously. Even if we limit medal hopeful to people who have won recently at global level (so ignoring Greenbank's Olympic bronze), we have the 2023 bronze and silver in the men's 200m IM from the World Champs.

Canada should be proud of that silver. Taking down the Aussies and then running the Kiwis that close is a hard double any time, any place, let alone at the business end of the Olympics. USA with a fine bronze as well.

Womens 7s finish on a high note, with a 28-12 win over Ireland for 7th place.

The inner 10 is there as a tiebreaker if needed, I believe.

So, I just went to catch up on the SFs after being distracted by the shooting. Presuming I would be watching serene Aussie progress... It seems that my neighbours to the north had other ideas. Well done Canada!!

another sport saved from the inevitable chopping block. Thank the stars!

Pressure is off the relay now to extend the daily medal streak. Before that from Hales, it was our only likely medal today with the postponement of the swimbikerun.

Yesssss Hales.

Nooooo Brol. Almost more invested in him than Hales. Almost.

Yes Brol! Twice in a row he's held his nerve brilliantly.

Yup. Just a question of colour...

It's the fifth penalty in a penalty shoot out. So much added pressure.

I'm reminded how tense watching shooting makes me. It's like a large scale penalty shoot out. Just nerve wracking.

Women's rugby lose a late one to China 19-15 in the placing SF. Will play loser of France vs Ireland later on for 7th/8th.

If it is the same as the World Cups and WCs, the first elimination is after 25. Then every 5, until the last 10 shots. Not sure about the tie procedures.

A large part of it can be explained just by the difference in strength and speed between men and women, rather than skill. The men can physically do more complicated tricks whereas the women have to focus more on the execution of tricks. It's slightly different from gymnastics because there's an outside variable (the bike!) that isn't there in gymnastics!

In fairness we're probably lucky to have Charlotte competing at all. She's been fairly open about not really enjoying the sport after Tokyo as much. I think at times we forget that sportsmen and women are humans too. They can suffer from the same problems anyone else can. Going back to the dressage, it's worth noting that Hester's score was higher than any of the scores from group 2. So he's looking like a solid bet for a spot in the individual final at least.

We strike late at the hockey again, and get our second successive 2-2 draw. This one against the Dutch slightly better than the one against South Africa.

Normally that would be true of the US men as well. But Fritz is having a really good clay court season.

Oh, I agree. Unless one of the big 4 is ill, I would be surprised to see a change from the Tokyo lineup. But McMillan did all that he could be asked to - it was the 8th fastest split over the 64 swimmers in the two heats. But you would imagine that Dean was given the freedom in advance to back off to save it for later. Better to do that now and hopefully save a bit more for the final if needed.

Both Guy and Macmillan put themselves forward for a final swim. Dean didn't, although it is hard to work out how much he was pushing himself, so wouldn't necessarily say too much about it. Richards and Scott both locks, assuming fitness (honestly my biggest worry). Kieran Bird, bless him, is on track to be one of the luckier medalists I can think of. But he did the job he was asked to.

Gah, results system crashes as Hales was finishing his last round.

Hales update - he's still waiting to shoot his last round but other results have cleared things already slightly - a 25 would definitely get him into the final. A 24 would guarantee at least a shoot off. A 23 potentially could be enough but that window is likely to be closed by the time he shoots.

Bob Bowman. I'm only half joking, they changed the schedule to allow certain swimmers (coughcoughMarchand) more rest time between events.