The culminations of the Road Cycling World Championships in Wollongong and the Rowing World Championships in the Czech Republic have seen many Australians come away as medallists to highlight the weekend action in Olympic sports.
Rowing
Australia’s campaign at the 2022 Rowing World Championships included the men’s four securing silver, with three members of Australia’s Olympic Champion crew (Alex Purnell, Jack Hargreaves, Spencer Turrin) and Jack O’Brien, coming second best in a battle with eventual champions Great Britain.
“Today was a very good race,” Spencer said. “We got the most out of this and I am really proud of us.”
Bronze came in the men’s double (Caleb Antill and David Bartholot), women’s single (Tara Rigney), women’s four (Annabelle McIntyre, Bronwyn Cox, Katrina Werry, Lucy Stephan) and the men’s eight (Jackson Kench, William O’Shannessy, Sam Hardy, Angus Widdicombe, Benjamin Canham, Henry Youl, Nick Lavery, Rohan Lavery and cox Kendall Brodie).
Caleb Antill and David Bartholot were in the silver medal position through much of their final, but the Spanish rallied and relegated Australia to bronze, but notably still ahead of rowing legends the Sinkovic brothers.
The Aussie women’s four were first through 500m in the A-Final, then moved into second at 1000m mark behind Great Britain and the crew from the Netherlands finished strong to claim silver and leave Australia with bronze.
The men’s eight had a fantastic row in the A-Final. They set a rhythm early and went through the halfway mark in third, behind the British and the Netherlands. They held off pushes from the rest of the field to hold onto bronze.
Tara Rigney started the women’s single A-Final strong to sit second after 500m, ahead of the Olympic Champion Emma Twigg (NZL). However Twigg closed the gap and kicked on for silver with Tara claiming bronze.
Cycling
With a powerful finish Michael Matthews won the bronze in the elite men’s road race in front of home fans at the 2022 UCI Road World Championships yesterday.
He rode around the final corner at a jampacked Wollongong foreshore completely unaware of the race situation at hand and what was at stake, but his determination earned him a podium placing amongst a group containing several of the world’s most versatile sprinters.
The Canberran had to wait nearly a minute for confirmation of his bronze medal – an achievement that had seemed inconceivable when the bell lap sounded less than 30 minutes earlier, while Remco Evenepoel (BEL) was on his way to a solo victory and three chase groups remained between him and the peloton.
Michael’s teammates Lucas Plapp, Ben O’Connor and Jai Hindley had all been heavily active in multiple compositions of splits and breakaways, either at the front of the race or chasing it.
The 31-year-old said he ranked this honour as the best among his three career elite road race medals.
“I’ve been second before, but that second was also quite a long way away like this (bronze) one was,” Matthews said. "The level of cycling at the moment is so high. It’s incredible to be up here with this bronze medal."
In the women’s road race Alexandra Manly scored Australia’s best result with 15th place, finishing in a chase group that fell just short of catching the leaders.
Alexandra, along with Australian teammates Amanda Spratt and Brodie Chapman, lost contact with the top climbers on the last ascent of Mount Pleasant, a steep climb that riders crested six times in the 163.4-kilometre race.
Ultimately a group of 12 riders contested the finish after a wet race was punctuated by intermittent downpours.
“We were so close to bringing back the group and having a reduced bunch sprint, which was what I wanted for today, but we did the best we could, and we couldn’t have done any more than that,” Alexandra said. "We can be really, really proud of how we raced.”
Brodie Chapman and Amanda Spratt were riding on the high of the home crowd support.
“It really gives you energy when you see familiar voices, hear your name or even hearing a bunch of Aussie accents screaming loud,” Chapman said. “It honestly is energy-giving. I can’t tell you how amazing this experience has been, and we know it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so we’re going to soak it up.”
“When we were going along the coast at the start of the race, we went past Austinmer Beach which is the beach we always go to as a family when I was a kid, which was pretty cool,” Amanda said.
“I knew my family were camping out around the 100 metres to go. I didn’t see them, but I knew they were there, that was really nice. I spotted people I knew everywhere on the course and a lot of ‘Go Spratty’s.”
In the women’s junior road race on Saturday, Talia Appleton from the Mansfield Mt Buller Cycling Club in Victoria was Australia’s highest finisher in 21st place.
Basketball
The Opals have responded to defeat in their World Cup opener against France with back-to-back wins against Mali and Serbia.
On Friday they beat Mali 118-58 and made 18 three-pointers as a team, the most in a women’s World Cup match since 1994. Ezi Magbegor’s 15 points led the eight Aussies who scored in double figures.
In the Serbia match Bec Allen’s 16 points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and two blocks stuffed the stat sheet for Australia in a 69-54 win.
The Opals took advantage of the physical encounter by going a perfect 18-for-18 at the free throw line, while Serbia struggled in hitting only five of their 12 free throws.
The games keep coming for Australia as they take on Canada tonight at 8:30pm AEST and Tokyo 2020 silver medallists Japan at 8:30pm AEST on Tuesday night to round out the group stage.
Australia is in Group B with Canada, France, Japan, Mali and Serbia – with the top four teams in the group advancing to the quarter-finals.
Surfing
The Irukandjis have won a silver medal overall at the International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games, which wrapped up on Saturday 24 September at Huntington Beach, California.
Merewether's Jackson Baker had outstanding performances throughout the heats and charged his way through to the final. But in the final it was an unstoppable Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) and Indonesian Olympian Rio Waida who would take the gold and silver medals respectively, leaving Jackson with the individual bronze medal ahead of Guilherme Fonseca (POR).
Sally Fitzgibbons, a three-time ISA World Games gold medallist, battled her way through eight heats to find herself in the final with fellow veteran Pauline Ado (FRA), Daniella Rosas (POR) and the host nation's Kirra Pinkerton (USA). There was a lot on the line in this final with an additional Olympic spot at stake for the winning team by gender. Pinkerton got the win for the USA with a strong finish, beating The Irukandjis by just 65 points. Sally finished in third place ahead of Rosas.
Modern Pentathlon
Zara Temesi, the Australian women’s junior laser run champion, has become the world champion at the Junior Laser Run World Championships in Lisbon, Portugal.
The green and gold dominated the top five finishers and secured the team gold medal, as Genevieve Janse van Rensburg finished third and Tully Watt placed fifth.
Then on the third and final day of competition Zoe Addinsall and Max Clarke combined to win bronze in the U17 mixed relay.
Full results and reaction here.
Shooting
The Australian Shotgun Team have secured a third medal at the ISSF World Championships in Croatia, claiming bronze in the junior women’s team trap.
Kiara Dean, Breanna Collins and Molly Bretag scored 191/225 in qualification which put them in a shoot off where they placed 4th, qualifying for the bronze medal match.
They met Team USA in the fight for bronze and outscored them 6-2.
“The final felt unreal, I think once I got the first one out of the way, everything was smooth sailing so I just had to keep breathing, keep calm and everything was good. I’m speechless really,” Molly said.
Kiara reflected on their recovery from a slow start.
“It was a really good finish, I’m very proud of how we went, it was a really solid final. I’m proud of the girls this morning, we had a really rough start but we really nailed in and our next two rounds were really solid so I’m really proud of the girls we did really well,” Kiara said.
It comes after Kiara won gold and Breanna took bronze in the individual junior women’s trap just days prior.
Up next are Australia’s senior shotgun athletes to contest the ISSF World Championships.
Get the latest World Champs updates here.
Short Track Speed Skating
Beijing 2022 short track speed skater Brendan Corey has recorded the fastest international time by an Aussie (40.809s) in the 500m event to finish second at the US Speed Skating World Cup trials. In doing so he shaved 0.288 of a second off the time he set at Beijing 2022.
While in the 1500m Brendan won the A Final at the World Cup trials.
Athletics
Lisa Weightman has produced a Personal Best time (2:24:00) at the Berlin Marathon, which also makes her the third fastest Australian marathon runner in history.
She finished the marathon in 15th place.
