Day 9 - Hackett, Tomkins Say Goodbye

Major Highlight - Men's 1500m Freestyle

Grant Hackett (Australia) was less than a second away from the impossible. Attempting to become the first man in history to win gold in the same event at three consecutive Olympics, Hackett finished a heart-breaking second to take silver behind surprise gold medallist Oussama Mellouli (Tunisia), going down by just 7/1oths of a second. The Aussie gave all he had and could barely walk back to the change rooms after exiting the pool. In one of the great 1500m races of all time, Hackett and Ryan Cochrane (Canada) set the pace (albeit slowly) early, before Mellouli, who had sat in the back half of the field for the first half of the race moved through to take the lead at the 1100m mark. With 100m to go Hackett trailed the Tunisian by over a second and a half. But the Aussie champion dug deep and accelerated over the last two laps. With 50m to go he still trailed by around a second. A late spurt with 25m to go, and a tiring Mellouli had the crowd roaring, but in the end the Tunisian held on to deny Hackett a place no man had ever been before. 19-year-old Cochrane held off fast finishing Yuriy Prilukov (Russia) for the bronze. Questions may (and should!) be asked about Mellouli's performance. He has already served a doping ban and improved his personal best by 9 seconds in the heat and then another 7 seconds in the final! It will be a shame if Grant is denied a place in history by a man who turns out not to be clean some time down the track. While Hackett seemed disappointed to get so close to an elusive third gold in the event, his courage and bravery to take the silver showed his champion qualities and elevated him to the same pedestal as Keiren Perkins as one of the great long-distance swimmers of all time.

Gold - Oussama Mellouli (Tunisia)
Silver - Grant Hackett (Australia)
Bronze - Ryan Cochrane (Canada)

Rowing
James Tomkins rowing career ended in disappointment as Australia's Men's Eight put in one of their worst performances of the season to finish 6th in the final. The Women fared no better with Australia also finishing 6th in the Women's Eight.

Athletics
Jamaica's golden run in the sprints continued as Shelly-Ann Fraser made it a Jamaican trifecta by taking gold in the Women's 100m, becoming the fastest woman on earth. Her countrywomen Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart tied for the silver. Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia) successfully defended his gold medal in the Men's 10,000m repeating the performance of his hero Haile Gebrselassie who finished 6th in his fourth try at the event.

Cycling
Defending champion Ryan Bayley (Australia) was eliminated in the repercharges of the Men's Sprint and has failed to get to the quarter-final stage. Australia also missed out on a chance for gold in the Men's Team Pursuit. After being on world record pace over the first 3km, losing Brad McGee, a complicated catch of the Dutch team, and a tiring Graeme Brown saw the Aussies finish out of the top 2 places. They will now ride off for bronze against their antipodean rivals from New Zealand.

Gymnastics
In an exciting first night of apparatus finals that saw both thrills and spills, China took two more gold medals. Zou Kai took gold in the Men's floor, although Japan's Kohei Uchimura seemed to be extremely harshly treated by the judges in finishing 5th. World champion Xiao Qin took gold in the Men's Pommel with Filip Ude (Croatia) and Louis Smith (Great Britain) winning their nation's first ever gymnastics medals with silver and bronze respectively.

Water Polo
Australia's women are into the medal rounds after an epic 12-11 win over China. The Austrailan's managed to overcome one of the most biased pro-home nation refereeing performances of all time to hang on for a deserved win, despite being subject to an horrific four double exclusions that gifted the Chinese 4 goals (usually there is no more than one of these a game at most!).

Hockey
The Kookaburra's kept their unbeaten run at this years Olympics intact with a come from behind 2-2 draw to previous silver medalists the Netherlands.

Basketball
The Opals remain undefeated at this years games after a powerful second half display saw them overrun Russia for a 75-55 victory.

Medal Tally after Day 9

1 - China - 35-13-13 (61)
2 - USA - 19-21-25 (65)
3 - Great Britain - 11-6-8 (25)

5 - Australia - 8-10-11 (29)

Channel 7 Bullshitmetre - With the Australian women in a do-or-die quarter final with China, Channel 7 could not resist taking an ad break with Australia cruising to a 3-0 lead early in the first quarter. Apparently, however, there wasn't actually a break in play, because when we returned China had magically managed to snatch two goals (god knows how!) to reduce the deficit to 3-2! The quarters go for 20 minutes (including stoppages) at most, so surely 7 can hang on that long between ad breaks, especially given they seem to throw in ads every five minutes in the prime-time evening session.