Sailors Keep Medal Hopes Alive in Tricky Conditions

NSWIS sailors are well in contention for medals at the Rio Olympics following a strong day of results.

Lisa Darmanin and Jason Waterhouse were in action for their first day of competition in the Mixed Nacra 17 class and sit in fourth place overall.

On a day that saw some sections of the competition delayed due to the conditions, the Sydney-based cousins managed to avoid a pile-up at the bottom gate before going on to finish sixth in race one.

They backed that up with eighth in race two to find themselves well in the mix after day one.

Tom Burton continues to feature in the Laser class and despite dropping one place in the standings overnight still finds himself well placed in fifth overall.

He finished ninth in the day’s opening race before losing several places over the closing stages of the next to finish 14^th.

With just over half of the competition now complete, remains well poised to challenge for the medals over the coming days.

There was heartbreak for James Willett who narrowly missed out on a medal in the double trap shooting event.

Considered one of the leading chances to win the event after dominant lead-in form, which included an Olympic record in qualifying, Willett opened with a perfect, clean round of 30.

But crucial misses appeared to rattle the 20-year-old and he slipped from being a leading gold medal fancy to being a shoot-out for the bronze. He would finish fifth.

“I just missed. There was nothing really to blame, just me,” he said.

“It was tough today, conditions were tough but I wasn’t quite good enough to get in the gold medal match so not much I could do about it.

“I’m pretty happy with my first Olympics – 20 years old – it was a great experience today, I missed out on the medals but I will take it home and work on it for Tokyo.”

Daniel Repacholi was back in action in the 50m air pistol event.

He finished 28^th overall after scoring 545 on the range.

After being a part of the 4 x 200m freestyle team which qualified Australia sixth fastest for the final, Jacob Hansford was left out of the line-up which contested the medal race. Australia finished fourth in the final.

The Kookaburras are now in must win territory in the men’s hockey competition after suffering another shock loss, this time against Belgium.

The Kookaburras have now registered back-to-back 1-nil losses and take on Great Britain this morning, the team they beat to win bronze in London.