Excitement and bad luck on day three of London 2012
Equestrian team in medal hunt after strong day in cross-country. Follow the NZ Olympic Team on Facebook and Twitter for constant updates throughout the Games. Is this email not displaying correctly?
Equestrian team in medal hunt
The New Zealand three-day eventing team did their country proud at Greenwich Park.
After a day of drama and sensations in the cross-country section, New Zealand find themselves with a good chance of
scoring medals in both the individual and teams events.
Mark Todd, shrugging off his 56 years, was superb aboard the inexperienced Campino.
Going into the showjumping phase, he is third with 39.50 points.
Supporting Todd staunchly was his long-time team-mate Andrew Nicholson, who turned in a clear round inside the allotted
time on Nereo and moved up to ninth place on 45 points.
The third highest New Zealander – remembering the top three scores count in the team total – is Jock Paget, riding
Clifton Promise. In testing conditions, Paget rose to the occasion by producing a clear round and incurring just 4.80
penalty points. He is 14th at present, on 48.90 points.
In the teams event, New Zealand are fourth on 131.40 points, but are desperately close to second-placed Great Britain
(130.20 points) and third-placed Sweden (131.40 points).
Cruel luck for NZ rowers
New Zealand’s relentlessly impressive Olympic rowing campaign suffered a hitch at Eton Dorney when the women’s quadruple
sculls snapped an oar midway through their repechage and trailed in last.
Trappitt, in the No 2 seat, “caught a crab”, as rowers put it. Her oar dug into the water and broke.
The rest of the day's session went better for the New Zealanders.
The men’s quadruple sculls combination of John Storey, Michael Arms, Matthew Trott and Robert Manson cruised through
their repechage and easily qualified for the semi-finals.
Fi Paterson and Anna Reymer worked hard to progress directly to the final of the women’s double sculls.
The other New Zealanders in action were Tyson Williams, Jade Uru, Sean O’Neill and Chris Harris in the men’s four.
Finishing fourth they will now row in the repechage.
Race victories for sailors
New Zealand’s Olympic Sailors fared well on day two of the Olympic Sailing Competition in Weymouth as both Dan Slater in
the Finn, and Hamish Pepper and Jim Turner in the Star won a race each.
In his second race Dan Slater finished sixth, leaving him sixth overall after four races and with six races remain
before the top ten competitors progress to the medal round.
Hamish Pepper and Jim Turner’s win was much closer fought for; they only stole the lead on the final leg from the
Norwegian team.
They sailed to a 12th place finish in their second race of the day and are ranked tenth overall in these still early
stages of the regatta.
The NZ Women’s match racing crew continued steady form as they did yesterday with one race win and one loss. The are
approaching the half way point of the round robin and have two wins and two losses to their record.
Three other fleets made their 2012 Olympic debut today: the Laser (Andrew Murdoch), Laser Radial (Sara Winther) and
Men’s 49er (Peter Burling/Blair Tuke).
In the first 49er race Peter Burling and Blair Tuke were subject to an individual recall, but went back to clear their
penalty and did an amazing job to come back up through the fleet and finish 9th.
Jones paddles into semis
Luuka Jones squeezed into the semi-finals of the K1 canoe slalom.
Jones recorded a time of 109.23s, including six penalty seconds in the first of her two runs. Her speed was good, but
the penalty seconds pushed her back to 10th place, with 15 to qualify.
However, the 23-year-old, who has spent much of the past few years based in England, had a second run to forget. She
missed three gates and incurred 152 penalty seconds.
That meant she was left hoping her first-run performance held up well enough to qualify her for Thursday’s semi-finals.
As it turned out, she had done just enough.
Setback for men's hockey team
The New Zealand men’s hockey team suffered a 2-0 defeat by Korea in their first outing of the Olympics.
With the Koreans ranked sixth in the world and New Zealand seventh, it always loomed as a close match, and one the Black
Sticks were desperate to win.
New Zealand, hoping to emulate the Black Sticks women’s team’s success yesterday over Australia, were up against it
throughout.
Erakovic loses in first round
/Marina Erakovic’s Olympic tennis campaign ended abruptly when she lost her first round singles match to Canadian
Aleksandra Wozniak 6-2, 6-1.
Erakovic, 24, was New Zealand’s sole tennis representative in London.
Wiegersma misses out
Southlander Natalie Wiegersma had a disappointing swim in her heat of the women’s 200m individual medley.
Wiegersma, 22, clocked 2min 16.24s, more than four seconds outside her best, and placed 26th of the 34 starters in her
event.
ends