By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
On a relatively quiet day of competition for Team SA on Tuesday, freestyle BMX cyclist Vincent Leygonie was knocked out in the men’s park qualifying round after finishing 12th overall.
In the swimming pool, Matthew Sates was 20th overall in the men’s 200m butterfly heats in 1:57.04, and he did not progress to the semifinals.
Single sculls rower Paige Badenhorst finished fourth in her quarterfinal in 7:44:03, and though she was also eliminated from medal contention, she was set to turn out again in the C/D semifinals on Wednesday (10.14am).
The national men’s hockey team continued to struggle in an attempt to punch above their weight. They fell in a 5-1 defeat to Germany and remained without a win after three matches in the tournament.
On Saturday they’d not been disgraced in losing 5-3 to world No1’s Netherlands. On Sunday they held Great Britain (England are world No2’s) to 1 2-2 draw and on Tuesday they went down to sixth-ranked Germany.
Team SA had previously played Germany, at Tokyo 2020, and had achieved a remarkable victory. This time, they aimed to deliver another memorable performance as a birthday present for head coach Cheslin Gie.
“It wasn’t the result we wanted,” said coach Gie. “We played within ourselves at stages, which is quite frustrating. Germany was very efficient and punished all our errors. We are still looking forward to the games against Spain and France, knowing that two victories will put us in the quarter-finals.”
South Africa’s women’s sevens team secured 11th place at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games after defeating Fiji 21-15 yesterday.
The third round of the women’s surfing competition was postponed on Monday and again on Tuesday, due to unfavourable weather conditions in Tahiti.
Sarah Baum, the last remaining SA surfer at the Games, will be hoping to compete on Wednesday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Among other events to be contested on Wednesday, former Olympic medallist Henri Schoeman will join Jamie Riddle in the men’s triathlon (10.45am) after the race was postponed on Tuesday due to poor water quality in the Seine river. Vicky van der Merwe also goes in the women’s triathlon at 8am on Wednesday morning.