Heading into Day 5, we focused on three Olympic sports where Australia could win medals. Well gosh golly gee everyone, Australia won a total of seven medals in cycling, swimming, and rowing to increase their medal count to 16. Without further adieu, let’s take a look.
ROWING
Aussie boats won four medals on Wednesday. In the women’s coxless fours, Annabelle McIntyre, Jessica Morrison, Rosemary Papa, and Lucy Stephan came away in first. The Australian foursome posted a time of 6:15.37 to win the gold medal by 0.34 seconds. Netherlands won silver and Ireland won bronze.
In the men’s coxless fours, Australia won a second gold medal in rowing. The Aussie rowers who placed first were Jack Hargreaves, Alexander Hill, Alexander Purnell and Spencer Turrin. Here, the Aussies beat the Romanians by 0.37 seconds. Italy won bronze.
In the men’s quadruple sculls, Australia came away with a bronze medal time 5:33.97. The Aussies in this boat were Jack Cleary, Caleb Antill, Cameron Girdlestone, and Luke Letcher. Australia reached the podium by three-tenths of a second over Poland. The Netherlands won gold with a time of 5:32.03, and Great Britain won silver with a time of 5:33.75.
In the women’s quadruple sculls, Australia also won bronze. The team comprised of rowers Ria Thompson, Rowena Meredith, Harriet Hudson and Caitlin Cronin. Australia comfortably reached the podium by 1.25 seconds over Italy. China won the gold medal with a time of 6:05.13, and Poland won the silver medal with a time of 6:11.36.
SWIMMING
Two more Olympic medals for Australia, sees the 2020 Olympic swimming medal count rise to nine. Ariarne Titmus set the Olympic reciord in the women’s 200 metre freestyle with a time of 1:35.50. Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong won the silver medal with a time of 1:53.92. Six-time Canadian Olympic medalist Penny Oleksiak of Toronto won the bronze medal with a time of 1:54.70.
Meanwhile, in the men’s 4×200 metre, Australia and the United States had the rare battle for Olympic bronze. Australia had a time of 7:01.84, while the United States were at 7:02.43. Great Britain won the golf medal with a time of 6:58.58 (a European record), and the Russian Olympic Committee won silver with a time of 7:01.81. The Australian team in the men’s 4x200m relay contained Alexander Graham, Kyle Chsalmers, Zac Inserti, and Thomas Neill.
CYCLING
It should have been no surprise based on his resume the last few years that Rohan Dennis came away with an Olympic medal. On Wednesday, the colour was bronze. Dennis posted a third-place time of 56 minutes, 8.09 seconds to beat Stefan Kung of Switzerland by four tenths of a second for a medal. Primoz Roglic of Slovenia won gold (55:04.19) and Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands won silver (56:05.58).
Australia’s 16 medals, puts them in fifth place in the overall medal standings. They are behind the United States, China, the Russian Olympic Committee and Japan.
