Day 2 - Rice Breaks Aussie Drought In The Pool

Major Highlight - Women's 400m IM

In the footsteps of Jodie Henry and Susie O'Neil before her, Stephanie Rice became the latest golden girl of Australian swimming with a stunning display to take Australia's first gold of the 2008 games with a dominant victory in the Women's 400m IM on Day 2. Rice took a commanding lead early in the race thanks to an impressive butterfly leg and was never headed from their on in. Her wire-to-wire performance came in a new record time of 4:29.45 as Rice became the first woman to break the 4:30 mark. Zimbabwean veteran Kirsty Coventry would have broken the old world record as well, but had to settle for silver given Rice's performance. Pre-race favourite and previous world record holder Katie Hoff (US) was disappointing, finishing almost 3 seconds outside her personal best and just holding off country women Elizabeth Beisel for the bronze.

Gold - Stephanie Rice (Australia)
Silver - Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe)
Bronze - Katie Hoff (US)

Swimming
Australia added to its medal tally with bronze in the Women's 4x100m Freestyle relay. The medal can be entirely put down to the final leg performance of Libby Trickett, as the Australian's came from near last halfway through the race to challenge for a medal. Trickett now looks in red hot form to take the 100m Freetsyle later in the meet. Michael Phelps opened his quest for a record 8 gold medals with an outstanding victory in the Men's 400 IM, smashing his own world record in the process. Grant Hackett finished a disappointing 6th in the Men's 400m Freestyle and will now look for a three-peat in the 1500m. Australia's next chance for gold in the pool looks set to come in today's Women's 100m Butterfly final with Libby Trickett and Jess Schipper cruising into the final in yesterday's semi's.

Rowing
Australia's Men's Quad Sculls were victorious in their heat to move through to the Semi-Final stage of the regatta.

Field Hockey
The Hockeyroo's got their Olympic campaign off to a remarkable start with a stunning come from behind victory over Korea. Trialling 4-1 at halftime the Australian girls reeled off 4 unanswered goals in the second half to take a 5-4 victory in the first pool game.

Basketball
The Boomers slim chance of a medal looks all but over after Day 2. The Aussie Man crashed to a disappointing 97-82 defeat to Croatia, a team ranked much lower than them in the world standings. With Baltic-powerhouse Lithuania and defending gold-medalists Argentina in their group, the Australian's will now be struggling to reach a place in the quarter-finals.

Artistic Gymnastics
Australia's Women's gymnastics team has qualified for the team final finishing 5th in the qualifying rounds.

Football
The Olyroos still have their destiny in their own hands despite a brave 1-0 loss to Argentina last night. With Cote d'Ivoire defeating Serbia in a 4-2 goal-fest, a win by Australia against the Ivorian's in their final group game should be enough to see them through to the quarter-finals.

Tennis
Sam Stosur won her first round match to move through to the second round. However, Chris Guccione was not so lucky going down in straight sets to American James Blake.

Medal Tally after Day 2:

1 - China - 6-2-0 (8)
2 - Korea - 3-2-0 (5)
3 - US - 2-2-4 (8)

7 - Australia - 1-0-1 (2)

Channel 7 Bullshitmetre - Channel 7's latest classic stunt was to cut their Day 2 Olympic coverage to show an AFL game between two sides destined for mid-table mediocrity. The Olympics is on once every four years for Christ's sake! There are 8 games of AFL a week. God knows what the poor souls in non-footballing states were thinking. I would like to know just who at Channel 7 thinks they provide even a semblance of coverage that could be considered decent. The board of directors must be filled with absolute morons. Although given that their share price has dropped 42 per cent in the last 10 months this is apparently the case.