On Day 12 of full competition at Tokyo 2020 Australian athletes will compete in 10 sports.
Highlights
- Mat Belcher and Will Ryan will sail in the medal race and barring disqualification they can’t lose their grip on the gold medal
- Australia’s Men’s Team Pursuit will race New Zealand for bronze
- Canoeing makes its Olympic debut for women with Bernadette Wallace and Josephine Bulmer representing Australia. Wallace is the sister of Ken, and she has a remarkable story having come back from a serious melanoma scare
- Melissa Wu dives into fourth Games
- Opals faces the United States in quarterfinal
- Poppy Starr Olsen to become first Aussie Olympic park skateboarder
- Marathon Swimming gets underway with Kareena Lee representing Australia
Athletics
A strong line up of Aussies will compete at the Olympic stadium on Wednesday, with Ash Moloney and Cedric Dubler leading the charge on the first day of the decathlon starting with the 100m at 10am AEST. Nick Hough will also race in the semi-finals of the 110m hurdles at midday. Two gold medals will be on offer for the Australians in the evening session from 7.30pm. Genevieve Gregson contests her third Olympic final in the 3000m Steeplechase and Peter Bol becomes the first Australian in 53 years to race an 800m final at the Olympics.
Basketball
Fresh off their thrilling Monday night 96-69 victory over Puerto Rico, the Opals are through to the quarterfinal. However, the Australians have their work cut out for them as they take on the United States at Saitama Arena. The Opals scraped through to the knockout stage with a one-win two-loss record. On the other hand, the United States are yet to drop a game in Olympic play beating Nigeria, Japan and France on route to finishing on top of Group B. The Australians take on the United States at 2:40pm AEST.
Canoe Sprint
Australian will have six boats on the third day of competition at the Sea Forest Waterway.
Aussie women canoeists Bernadette Wallace and Josephine Bulmer will be writing sporting history, when they kick off their first Olympic campaign. It is the first time women's canoeing has been added to the Olympic program. The Aussie women will race the C1 200m, before teaming up in the women's C2 500m on Friday. Wallace, who is the sister of champion kayaker Ken, was aiming to qualify for Rio 2016 in the kayak before a serious melanoma scare ended her campaign.
Also in action will be 2x men’s K2 crews and 2x women’s K1 crews. Action gets underway from 10.30am AEST.
Cycling Track
It has been a dramatic start to the track cycling competition. Day two was a strong day for the Australians but medals were just out of reach. The Australian Women’s Team Pursuit produced a powerful performance, finishing fifth. And the Men’s Sprint team just missed the bronze medal, in fourth place. On Wednesday, the Men’s Team Pursuit team will ride off for the bronze medal against New Zealand and try to leave the Games with a medal following the heavy fall on day one of competition. Australia will also be represented in the Women’s Kierin and Men’s Sprint. The session starts at 4.30pm AEST.
Diving
Melissa Wu will dive into her fourth Olympic Games for the green and gold, a feat only every achieved by two other Australian divers. Wu competes in the Women’s 10m preliminary set for a 4:00pm AEST start, alongside Olympic debutant and biomedical science student Nikita Hains. Divers will perform five dives from the 10m platform with the top 18 athletes progressing to Thursday morning’s semi-final. The top 12 divers from that competition will move through to the final in the afternoon and have a shot at the podium. The Aussies will face fierce competition from divers from China, Malysia and Canada.
Golf
We’re back on the course at Kasumigaseki Country Club with Hannah Green and Minjee Lee teeing off for Australia in the women’s tournament. This will be the second Olympic Games for Minjee Lee who places 7th shooting 276 in Rio. Green, the 2019 LPGA champion, will make her Olympic debut on Wednesday. Golfers will play four rounds over four days with the gold medallist determined from the combined score from each round. The first round will get underway at 8:30am AEST with Lee and Green schedule to start just after 11:00am.
Marathon Swimming
Joining an elite few Noosa’s Kareena Lee is set to become Australia’s third women to compete in marathon swimming at the Games. Taking place at Odaiba Marine Park the Australian Dolphin will make her Olympic debut diving into the 10km event. With just seconds often splitting the top competitors, despite almost two hours of racing, the Aussie is up against some tough competition with previous Olympic medallist Sharon Van Rouwendaal (Netherlands) and 2019 World Champion Xin Xin (China) in the mix. Lee will need to complete seven 1.435km laps before the typical open water fight to the finish. Racing gets underway 7:30am tomorrow.
Sailing
On the final day of sailing at Tokyo 2020, Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan only need to complete the 470 medal race on Wednesday to claim the gold medal. The Aussie pair have a 20 point lead going in to the 10-fleet race. This is redemption for the crew that won silver in Rio and this medal will make Belcher Australia’s most successful Olympic sailor as he won this event in 2012 with Malcome Page. The medal race starts at 3.30pm AEST.
Skateboarding
Poppy Starr Olsen will become the first woman to represent Australia in Park skateboarding when the event makes its Olympic debut at Ariake Urban Sports Park. Olsen, Australia’s top-ranked skater in Tokyo, faces a world class field in what is one of the most anticipated new events at the Games, with the field including 15-year-old world No.1 from Japan, Misugu Okamoto, and the 13-year-old world No.3 British sensation Sky Brown.
In the Park format, skaters perform three 45-second timed runs where they execute their best sequence of tricks on a course consisting of a traditional concrete skate bowl with features known as spines, gas, extensions, hips and banks. Judges score the competitors from 0-100. The women’s preliminary heats start at 10:00am AEST with the Final scheduled for 1.30pm AEST.
Sport Climbing
After its inaugural session at the Games, sports climbing is back for another day of qualifiers. 20 women will tackle the three disciplines, lead, bouldering and speed, with hopes of making a top eight place and securing a spot in Thursday’s final. Victorian teenager, Oceana Mackenzie, is set to face a stacked field and fierce competition, keep an eye out for Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret who holds six world cup titles. As the second Australian woman ever to make a World Cup final, the Australian green and gold is in safe hands with the 19-year-old. Hoping to improve upon the performance of her teammate, Tom O’Halloran, who placed 20th in the men’s qualifying round in Tuesday. Mackenzie will get her first look at the courses 6:00pm AEST tonight.
Andrew Reid & Matthew Barnard
