On Day 9 the women’s basketballers will be playing for gold after they knocked off the hotly favoured Team USA in overtime in today’s semi finals. The Aussies have been improving each match and will now take on the Chinese in the gold medal match at Scape Youth space.  

“It will be different to playing the US, so we will have to have a different strategy,” captain Olivia Bontempelli said. “They’re obviously very quick and good shooters so we’ll have to look out for that.” 

The Aussie hockey team will be looking for a clean sweep when they face Chile in their final round match before finals. They are sitting on four wins at the moment and will hope to continue the streak at the Sengtang Hockey Stadium. 

Young-gun Emily Esposito is revving up for the women’s 10m pistol shooting event at the Singapore Sports School. The 16-year-old Sydney based athlete is in form and will be aiming for a succession of clean rounds with the hope of progressing to the final for a shot at a medal. 

Meanwhile Hannah Thek will contest her second event in the diving competition, the 3m springboard.  

After a lack of winds forced Friday’s races to be abandoned, Aussie sailors Madison Kennedy and Mark Spearman will be back at it tomorrow as they both look to push into the top ten. 

The Aussie women’s handball team will be looking for their first win of the tournament as they take on Angola in the classification round at Singapore’s International Convention Hall. Following two very tough opponents in Denmark and Kazakhstan the Aussies will be doing their all to go home with a win under their belt. 

The athletics competition concludes on Monday with Australians featuring in two A Finals, two B Finals and the two medley relays. 

Jenny Blundell will race for a medal in the 1,000m on Monday morning at 10.15. She ran a very solid heat and is definitely one of the strongest runners in the 17-girl A Final. Her coach Valme Kruger believes she can get her PB of 2:45 down to 2:42 if the race goes to plan which will make her very competitive. 

Raheen Williams believes he can win a medal in the 400m hurdles at 7.40 pm. He has a tough draw running from lane 1 but if he can avoid the stutters he had in the third 100m in his heat he will be a threat for a minor medal. Barring incident the Cuban Norge Sotomayor sems to be a class above based on the heats and comparing personal bests. 

Brodie Cross is looking to make amends for his below par vaulting in qualification where nerves played a factor. If he can jump near his PB of 4.80m he will be hard to beat in the morning B final. 

Grant Gwynne also wants to leave Singapore with an improved performance in his 2000m steeplechase after being 20 seconds slower than where he wanted to be in the heat. 

The final two events of the meet are unique. The continental medley relay involves four runners competing over 100m, 200m, 300m and 400m. For Oceania boys Nick Hough will run the 300m and either Raheen Williams or Luke Greco the 400m. A Fijian and a Papa New Guinea sprinter will cover the shorter distances. 

For the girls event. Jenny Blundell will run the 400m, Monica Brennan the 200m, Michelle Jenneke the 100m and a New Zealand runner the 300m.