SCOOP Olympic Update, Sunday 24 Sept, 2000

SCOOP Olympic Update, Sunday 24 Sept, 2000
Article: Mathew Loh

NEW ZEALAND skill on the water was again highlighted today when former world champion board-sailor Aaron McIntosh took the bronze medal in the men's mistral class yachting on Sydney Harbour.

It was New Zealand's third bronze and fourth medal of the games with 3 out of the 4 being won on the water. This is nothing remarkable and can be expected given the outstanding record Kiwi sailors have fashioned at Olympic regattas with McIntosh's bronze the 15th medal earned by yachties since the first was won at the 1956 Olympiad.

McIntosh proved he ranks as consistently among the world's premier board-sailors by finishing fourth on Sunday to end the regatta with a score of 48 points which was good enough to join other legendary Kiwi sailors as a winner of an Olympic medal.

Argentina's Carlos Espinola completed a great regatta to win silver but the man of the moment was Austria's Cristoph Sieber who by, remarkably, winning his first major regatta entered history as the Sydney 2000 men's board-sailing gold medalist.

In other sailing news Chris Dickson and Glen Sowry achieved their goal of a earning a respectable top ten finish by ending up in fifth place in open Tornado class. The gold medal was won by the Austrian team - the second Austrian sailing gold to go with Sieber's victory which represents an incredible effort for a land-locked country - of Roman Hagara and Peter Steinhacer.

And in the men's 470 class the New Zealand crew of Peter Nicolas and Simon Cooke are sitting eighth at the conclusion of 8 races.

In other New Zealand news Greco-Roman wrestlers Jothan Pellew and Rasoul Amani were both completely outclassed as each suffered consecutive defeats.

It was an expected result as the two wrestlers were part of campaign which was tainted by a scandalous firing of a coach and such a strained preparation was obvious as Pellew in the 54 kg class was beaten 15-0 by Cuban Lazaro Riva and 16-0 by tough Turk Ercan Yildiz; Amani fared no better in the 63kg class where he was beaten 11 by Switzerland's Beat Motzer before being completely overwhelmed 14-0 by Yashutoshi Motoki of Japan.

Kylie Foy's impressive woman's hockey team secured their place in the medal round despite suffering a 3-0 loss to gold medal favourites Australia.

© Scoop Media