That Golden Feeling

That Lisa Carrington knows her way to a medal, doesn’t she? Truly one of the dominant Olympic athletes of the twenty-first century in her chosen sport. That was the third straight time she’s won the K-1 200m gold and she wasn’t done there either. Chuck in a K-2 500m doubles gold with Caitlyn Regal as well and that was quite a day. She raced two semi-finals, set Olympic best times in each of them, raced two finals and beat the Olympic best times she’d set earlier in the day in each of them, plus got to stand atop the podium and hear the national anthem twice. Basically every 45 minutes she was going from one of those activities to another. This was how the day panned out in NZ time...

Carrington has two more events left. She’s only halfway through her schedule. There’s the K-1 500m heats which are on this early arvo and there’s also the K-4 500m race, the quartet, which she and the three kiwi women canoeists others competing in Tokyo will combine for. Could there be a golden quadruple? Let’s not speak too soon, friends.

But she is one medal away from becoming Aotearoa’s most decorated Olympic athlete. As it stands she’s tied with Ian Ferguson on four golds each (Fergo also has a silver while Carrington also has a bronze) and in terms of overall medals Paul MacDonald (3G 1S 1B) and Mark Todd (2G 3B) also have five. No New Zealander has six Olympic medals... yet. (By the way, Ferguson and MacDonald: also canoeists).

Although a huge shout out to Valerie Adams whose Olympic efforts are just as legendary. She has four medals after completing the set in the women’s shot put over the weekend and while that still leaves her one down on the overall total of Carrington/MacDonald/Todd/Ferguson... the difference there is that Adams only competes in one event per games and has medalled in four consecutive Olympics. Mark Todd’s equestrian greatness also gave him medals in four games but they weren’t consecutive... he won medals in 1984, 1988, 2000 & 2012. Valerie Adams still medalling at the Olympics after two kids, numerous injuries, changing coaches, varying form... it’s iconic stuff. She herself said that the bronze was possibly the best achievement of the lot (though you can say that when you’ve already won two golds before, I s’pose).

Tell ya what, the tales of greatness at these games from the NZ Team are crazy. Peter Burling and Blair Tuke getting a silver medal in the Men’s 49er sailing class... mere months after winning the America’s Cup with Team NZ. They were mere metres away from gold too, not even joking. They finished in third in the medal race but would have still won gold had Germany pipped Great Britain over the finish line.

Instead this is what happened...

Imagine watching sailing without those amazing graphics they roll out, aye? Wouldn’t be the same.

Aotearoa is up to 6 golds and 15 total medals now, as things stand on Wednesday morning. Still very much on target for those pre-Olympic aims of 8 golds and 20 totals medals with a few track cyclings, men’s shot put, women’s golf, some more canoe sprints, and more yet to come. 8 golds would tie the NZ record. The kiwi best for total medals is 18 set last time in Rio and surely we’ve gotta see that one tumble before the week is out.

Bronze Boxing

David Nyika getting bronze as well. He wasn’t able to quite hang with Russia’s Muslim Gadzhimagomedov who was just too good. That guy was unreal. Nyika came out swinging in a way that he hadn’t in earlier fights, abandoning his caution knowing that he needed to really impress the judges to topple the event favourite and for about a minute he was looking great. Jabbing well and using that killer anticipation of his to keep his head rolling out of trouble. His evasiveness is so impressive. But then Gadzhimagomedov figured him out. Any time there was a hint of vulnerability from Nyika, Gadzhi was driving a fist through it. His counter punching was supreme. Catching Nyika on the head and keeping him from being able to do much.

Nyika did take one card, the Argentinian judge giving him the benefit of the doubt (for some reason) but the other four judges all saw it clearly in favour of the Russian as was the correct call. A split decision defeat against the best in the field though, can’t argue with that. Nyika was so good in his earlier bouts. He’s earned that bronze medal and then some. The one slight point of discomfort is that if he’d been on the other side of the draw he could well have taken the dudes in the other semi and this could have been a gold medal bout instead... but it is what it is. The draw was done on rankings and Nyika was fourth coming in. Gadzhimagomedov was the one who beat him in the last world champs at the round of 16 stage, a unanimous decision to the Russian on that occasion. Nothing but pride and respect.

Thus he joins a short list of New Zealanders with Olympic boxing medals:

• Ted Morgan – Gold in men’s welterweight – 1928 Amsterdam

• Kevin Barry – Silver in men’s light heavyweight – 1984 Los Angeles

• David Tua – Bronze in men’s heavyweight – 1992 Barcelona

• David Nyika – Bronze in men’s heavyweight – 2020 Tokyo

Some useful company to keep there. Ted Morgan was the first gold medallist for the New Zealand team, and the first NZer to win a gold as an individual athlete. The previous two were Victor Lindberg who was part of the Great British water polo champs in 1900 – and there’s a big bit on him in our most recent Substack mailer – and Malcolm Champion who competed with three other Australian swimmers in an Australasian men’s 4x200m freestyle relay. Ted Morgan meanwhile, he won four fights on the way to gold in Amsterdam and he did so with a broken knuckle in his left hand. Old mate was a southpaw too so that’s his dominant hand. And he won gold.

Morgan never went professional despite a 26-2 record as an amateur and that was a decision he later in life admitted that he felt some regret over. David Nyika on the other hand has already had one professional bout, even if it only lasted 29 seconds, and there’s no doubt that that’s where he’s headed next. Gonna be a hugely exciting prospect in the cruiserweight division (defs to start with, though at 6’4 he does have the size to step up to the heavies a few years down the line – which has been a common trend in recent years with Oleksandr Usyk the most famous, Usyk has a title bout with Anthony Joshua in September). What’s gonna be funky is how Nyika chooses to go about it. He’s trained with both City Kickboxing and the Joseph Parker camp before. Does he latch onto CKB again? Does he follow Joseph Parker to England and have a chat with Eddie Hearn? Does he do the Junior Fa thing and get an American promoter? Decisions, decisions.

Lydz On The Course

Today Lydia Ko starts her Olympic golf excursion, just over one week since her last LPGA Tour appearance. Thankfully Ko's dip in form across June was flipped into tied-22nd and 6T across July, giving Ko seven top-10 finishes out of 14 tournaments this year. Ko's worst two results came in June, while the LPGA's trip to Asia for two tournaments in April/May saw Ko register a 7T and 11th; who knows what young Lydia will serve up in chasing back to back Olympic medals?

Aotearoa's wahine are stacking up the medals and hopefully Ko has been tuned in while traveling to Tokyo, then feeling the kiwi love around Team Aotearoa. I've been tracking Ko's work on the LPGA Tour for a few years and part of that involves tracking Ko's major statistics, so here's a special update ahead of today...

Average Driving Distance

2020: 254.41m - 57th

June: 258.11m - 69th

July: 257.37m - 84th

Driving Accuracy

2020: 66.62% - 121st

June: 63.13% - 138th

July: 62.72% - 151st

Scoring Average

2020: 70.26 - 6th

June: 69.96 - 6th

July: 69.78 - 5th

Greens In Regulation

2020: 68.91% - 36th

June: 71.01% - 62nd

July: 71.33% - 55th

Putts Per GIR

2020: 1.77 - 4th

June: 1.72 - 3rd

July: 1.72 - 3rd

Putting Average

2020: 29.13 - 5th

June: 28.78 - 4th

July: 28.76 - 3rd

Sand Saves

2020: 68.25% - 3rd

June: 55.56% - 14th

July: 56.52% - 12th

Keep an eye on Ko's work off the tee when driving as her distance and accuracy have fluctuated throughout her career, while consistently being well down on her competition. Ko just needs to be good enough when driving to hang, then Ko will need to be sharp out of bunkers when she does find herself in the lovely sandpits.

Ko's Sand Saves have the biggest drop off from last year and Ko's success comes with her world-class ability to exit bunkers, then sink a putt. Ko's last outing was the Evian Championship where Ko slotted 4/6 Sand Saves and that's 66.66 percent - much closer to Ko's 2020 mark. Xander Schauffele won the men's gold medal and is currently 3rd in Sand Saves on the PGA Tour (63.10%), with the women playing at the same golf club used as the men. Perhaps these are encouraging omens for Ko.

Shotting The Put

This was the foot that caused a surge of panicked confusion across the nation of Aotearoa late last night. Tom Walsh’s left little piggies ruled to have nudged out of the circle on his decisive last throw. Walshy instantly appealed to the judges and there was a long referral process that eventually ended with his throw of 21.49 metres, which was comfortably over the qualifying standard for the final, being registered as a legitimate attempt and after all the worries he was through.

The way they do it, is there’s a couple judges on the right side of the throwing circle and another one on the left. It was the dude on the left who kept signalling for the red flag on Walsh. The first time was probably fair as he got a little too far off centre with his throw – which otherwise would have been very close to the automatic mark and definitely long enough to get him into the final. But it was a foul and then he fouled his second one as well which left him in a precarious position. One of the medal favourites and if he didn’t pop a biggie last time around then he’d have been out already.

He appealed that second one and was successful. He’d clipped a microphone that was situated on the edge there with his toe but he hadn’t actually stepped over. So the second throw was registered after a slight delay, taking at least a little bit of the pressure off him... but it was only 20.38m. Not good enough to advance - in fact if he hadn’t improved on that then he’d have finished 19th in the meet. Would have been a horrendous result for him. But yeah then he came out and burst one deep enough to finish the top qualifier from his side of the draw after that long, long, long, long review delay. Excruciating stuff to watch late on a Tuesday night but he got there in the end, exhale calmly.

Jacko Gill also got there… just. Jacko was also in a situation, in the second qualifying group, where he needed to improve on his distance with his final throw or be gone and he wasn’t too chuffed with what he produced at the third put but 20.96m was enough to see him through in ninth... ahead of Joe Kovacs (11 with 20.93m) who was the silver medallist last time around. Twelve guys make the final which is on Thursday afternoon. Twelve guys with three throws each then the top eight get a further three throws. Gill is right on the cusp of making that top eight so that’s the target for him in his second Olympics.

Gill placed ninth in Rio with a best of 20.50m... note that the distances have improved a heap since then. Tom Walsh’s excellence and consistency have been a big part of that but the main credit has to go to Rio gold winner Ryan Crouser who is basically the greatest shot putter in history at this stage. Guts to Walshy’s gold hopes because not only is Crouser the defending champ, not only did he go one-and-done in qualifying with a throw over 22 metres to easily mark the best distance of day one, but about a month before the Olympics began he BROKE THE WORLD RECORD which had stood for 31 years. If Crouser hits close to his potential then nobody is capable of matching him, simple as that. 23.37 metres is what Crouser did, the bloody marvel.

Walsh’s best throw this year is 22.22m which is only the ninth best of 2021 although to be fair Crouser has five of the better efforts. Joe Kovacs and Darrell Hill (not in Tokyo) have also topped that. However Walsh’s PB is 22.90m and only Crouser has thrown further of active shot putters. Most likely it’s gonna take a throw in excess of 22 metres to win a medal and Tom Walsh is one of the ones capable of doing that. All three of the Americans are also going to be in contention – Payton Otterdahl is the wildcard there – and it’s probably best not to read too much into the two non-Crousers being below their best in qualifying because, well... so was Tom Walsh. Darlan Romani is another who has it in him. And if you want a smokey bet... Armin Sinancevic of Serbia could be a dark horse threat. Not a hundy percent sure we should count out Nigeria’s Chukwuebuka Enekwechi either. It’s going to be one of the strongest fields ever assembled for an Olympic shot put final, that’s for sure. Jacko Gill has a personal best of 21.55m although his three best ever throws have all come this year so he’s trending upwards.

Speaking of trending upwards, let’s throw it back to the women’s event now because in all the medal chat we can’t lost sight of the enormous strides that Maddi Wesche has been making over the last year or so to keep the shot put x silver fern torch burning…

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