10:40 Men’s 200m Round 1 Heat 6
Paul Hession made the second round by finishing third behind American Wallace Spearman in his heat in a time of 20.59. The two men met against this evening in the second round and this time Hession produced a stunning run to win in a season’s best 20.32 just two hundredths outside his own Irish record.
In the first semi-final on Tuesday he has avoided Spearman and 100m winner Usain Bolt but has Walter Dix of America inside him. The first four will advance to the semi-final.
10:50 Women’s Hammer Qualifying
Eileen O’Keeffe defied her injury to take part in the qualifying and recorded a distance of 67.66. A brave effort but not enough to reach the final.
10:00 Women’s Triathlon
Emma Davis
<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; margin-top:0cm; margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} p.MsoNoSpacing, li.MsoNoSpacing, div.MsoNoSpacing {mso-style-priority:1; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> In temperatures that touched 90 degrees that made it difficult to stand up in for very long, Bangor’s Emma Davis finished 37th in the Olympic triathlon at the Ming Tombs Reservoir in the mountains outside Beijing.
To put her result in context, twelve months ago she was ranked 387th in the world.
“Very tough, it was the hardest race I’ve done in my career, albeit a short career so far, very tough,” she said afterwards.
The triathlon begins with a 1500m swim and Davis got off the pontoon fast and was the early leader but anything goes in the water.
“I was leading for the first 300m, up to the first buoy and then we all came together as a pack and it can get pretty rough so I just stayed my ground the best I could and came out just after a group of girls,” she explained.
“I wasn’t very happy, it was rough, it can get very catty.”
She was in 35th place, just over half a minute behind the leaders. They set of at a blistering pace in the 40km cycle leaving Davis in the chasing group.
“I’d been working on time trialling so I was ready for a fast ride but it’s difficult to play catch up, I worked really hard on the bike hence not having much left for the run but if you want to catch people that’s what you have to do.”
Davis left the second transition in 21st place but the 10km run was gruelling for many of the athletes. That included the world champion Helen Tucker who finished 21st and even for the winner Emma Snowsill from Australia who opened up a gap at the start of the final discipline but was holding on at the end. Davis crossed the line in 2:06.29, just over eight minutes behind Snowsill.
There were five triathletes who didn’t finish and a few at the end were in distress and had to be helped away.
Davis though recovered almost immediately.
“We expected it to be hot and humid and that’s what we tried to prepare the best we can for.”
This was the first year for Davis on the World Cup circuit. She had to criss-cross the globe to get enough points to qualify which was a tremendous achievement in itself and she became the first ever Irish triathlete to appear at an Olympic Games.
“I’ve only been in full time training for less than a year so I have a lot more to come and I’ve had to race a lot this year in order to qualify. I’m just surviving on adrenalin at the moment. I’m just happy to be here at the moment and I’ll have a sit down with my coach afterwards and have a look at how things went but it’s been a great experience.”
11:00 Sailing
Women’s Laser races 7, 8 and 9
Ciara Peelo
Star races 5, 6 and 7
Stephen Milne and Peter O’Leary
At the sailing regatta in Qingdao, Bangor’s Stephen Milne and Peter O’Leary in the Star class took 12th in Race 5, 13th in Race 6 and 7 and with three races remaining the duo lie 14th overall with 60 points, just 8 points behind Italy in 10th place. They need to be top ten to make the medal race. Sweden’s Fredrik Loof & Anders Ekstrom currently lead the fleet with 23 points just ahead of Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson of Great Britain.
Today was supposed to be a rest day but because of the disruption earlier in the week the eighth race will take place.
In the Laser Radial class Ciara Peelo took 25th in Race 5, 18th in Race 8 and 10th in Race 9 to finish 20th overall in the 2008 Olympic Regatta.
The Laser Radial Opening Series is concluded after just 9 races and only the top ten boats will compete in the Final Medal Race. Peelo at 20th therefore exits the competition at this stage. During the Opening Series Peelo counted 23th, 17th, 15th, 7th, 13th, 24th, 18th, 10th and discarded a 25th as her lowest result.
19:00 Showjumping Individual third qualifier
Denis Lynch and Flaminia Straumann’s gelding ‘Lantinus’ have qualified for the Olympic Individual Show Jumping Final on Thursday.
After yesterday’s third qualifying round Lynch had accumulated a total of eight faults, and is equal eighth in the points table. The top 35 riders went through to Thursday’s two-round final.
The points table after three qualifiers is headed today by Norway’s Tony Andre Hansen on three faults.
The Individual Final will begin at 12.15 Irish time on Thursday, with the top 20 riders from the first round then going forward to the medals round, which starts at 3.10pm. All riders in the Final start with a zero score.
