Hamish Bond and Eric Murray headlined a fine string of performances by New Zealanders at the Olympics today.
The peerless rowing pair won gold, as everyone had expected them to, and lifted themselves to among the legends of their sport.
They have now won 69 consecutive races and have never been beaten since teaming up in 2009.
They were an interesting study afterwards. Both expressed relief and indeed it must have been a heavy burden to carry such favouritism.
Bond was typically honest. Asked for the difference between himself and Murray, he hesitated momentarily in a “let me count the ways” sort of moment. Then he said: “Eric doesn’t ever think we can be beaten. I’m the one who does the worrying, always trying to think of ways to go faster.”
Apart from Bond and Murray it was a mixed day for New Zealand at the rowing. The men’s lightweight four finished fifth in their final, and the three crews in B finals all failed to fire. The men’s squad scullers were fourth, Zoe Stevenson and Eve Macfarlane in the women’s double sculls were sixth and Robbie Manson and Chris Harris in the men’s double sculls were fifth. However, In the lightweight women’s double sculls semi-finals, Sophie MacKenzie and Julia Edward progressed comfortably to the final, finishing second to South Africa.
Both the men’s and women’s eights also made the final, comfortably finishing in the top three in their repechages.
In one of the most heart-warming New Zealand Olympic stories, Luuka Jones won a silver medal in the K1 slalom today.
Jones has battled away for year after year well out of the sports media’s daily focus, and has been steadily building her experience and expertise.
She was just a teenager when she competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and failed to get past the qualifying round. In London four years later she improved to be a semi-finalist.
Even so, it was a quantum leap for her to get out there today and put together a superlative final run, earning her the silver medal ahead of some of the really big names of her sport.
No wonder she later described the feeling as surreal. It was a medal that was much celebrated in the New Zealand team.
The New Zealand track cycling men’s sprint team could hardly have done more today – three successive personal bests and an Olympic record – but they still had to bow to
Britain in the final. For Eddie Dawkins, Etham Mitchell and Sam Webster it was bitterly disappointing to ride so well and miss gold by only a tenth of a second. Still, they were rightly proud of their effort and silver is not to be sneezed at.
The New Zealand men’s and women’s team pursuit squads advanced through qualifying without any worries.
Golf made its long-awaited return to the Olympics. New Zealand’s representatives are Ryan Fox, who shot an opening round of 70, and Danny Lee, who shot a 72.
Women’s 470 sailors Polly Powrie and Jo Aleh put the disappointment of their opening day disqualification behind them and produced two fine races today, to take the overall lead in the competition.
Finn sailor John Junior, who has been struggling, came right with two top five finishes.
In the men’s 470, Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox struggled and could only manage 20th and 15th. That leaves them 11th overall on 27 points.
The other New Zealand sailors in action today were Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders in the nacre mixed. They were fourth and second and after six races find themselves in fourth overall, on 27 points, 10 behind the leaders.
The sevens rugby team completed their campaign by beating France and Argentina to claim fifth spot. It was a disappointing result. However, much of the sevens world seemed delighted to be able to salute the Fijians’ gold medal – it was that country’s first medal of any colour, let alone gold.
Lauren Boyle just missed a place in the women’s 800m freestyle final. Boyle, who has had a disrupted year because of illness, missed out by just 0.3s, a disappointment for her, but an illustration of how even the best have to be right at the top of their game at an Olympics. Without a disrupted preparation, she would have been a real medal contender.
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