Penny Smith continued a proud Australian tradition in the women’s trap shooting on Wednesday, securing a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics with a score of 32. Smith placed behind silver medallist Silvana Stanco of Italy and Guatemala’s Adriana Ruano Oliva, who won the Central American nation’s first gold medal in Olympic history.
Australia has twice won gold in the event, with Suzy Balogh shooting home to first-place at Athens 2004 and Catherine Skinner repeating that feat at Rio 2016.
Smith, who began her career at the Noorat Gun Club in regional Victoria, has been a rising star in the Australian shooting ranks. She won gold in the mixed team trap at the 2017 world championships in Moscow, and silver in the team trap at last year’s world titles in Baku. But the Olympic bronze is Smith’s first individual medal at the international level.
Paris is the 29-year-old’s second Olympics; she finished sixth in the same event in Tokyo.
Matt Hauser recorded the best Olympic finish for an Australian man in the triathlon since 2004 after finishing seventh in the three-legged discipline that looped around central Paris.
The 26-year-old left the River Seine swim leg in third and was among the leading pack in the cycling. Although he fell leading into the second transition, he recovered in the run and finished 44 seconds behind winner Alex Yee from Team GB.
“I really wanted a medal, and I knew I was capable of that on my day, it just wasn’t my day today,” Hauser said.
After two days of delay due to concerns over pollution in the Seine, it was the strong current in the river rather than the water quality that proved problematic.
He was the best placed of Australia’s four triathletes in action across the men’s and women’s events on Wednesday.
The group has been taking antibiotics in a bid to combat the risk of swimming in the Seine, and is now preparing for the mixed relay on Monday.
Alice Arnott scored for the second time in as many Olympic Games as the women’s hockey team shut out the United States to book an early quarter-final berth.
The Hockeyroos’ 3-0 win followed a dominant 4-0 defeat of Great Britain and a scrappy 2-1 result against South Africa to begin their Paris campaign. Their 3-0 start was enough to book a spot in the final eight with two pool games still to play.
Substitute goalkeeper Genevieve Longman’s late cameo has delivered Australia’s women’s water polo team a penalty shootout win against the Netherlands. The Australians triumphed 15-14 to keep hopes of topping their Paris Olympic group alive.
Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre gave the rowing team a much-needed boost by winning their women’s pair semi-final. The Australians set up an enthralling medal race on Friday against the Netherlands, with their world champion crew Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester the pace-setters in the event.
The Australian team have had four boats miss A finals – the men’s pair, the women’s four, women’s quad sculls and the women’s double sculls – with Amanda Batemen and Harriet Hudson considered outside medal chances going into the Games.
They finished fourth in their semi-final, pipped by 0.22 seconds for a place in the medal race. The men’s and women’s coxed eights both have to contest the repechage to make the blue riband medal race.
