Day 3 Velodrome

We approached day 3 at the velodrome with some nervous. Sam was in the quarter finals but so were some really good riders.

First up was the women's scratch race. It was a great race with Jo K, Rushlie Buchanan, and Gemma Dudley from NZ. Lots of tussles but Rushlie rode away with about 7 laps to go and established a good lead. With about 2 laps to go the field went after her as she was starting to slow up. With 1 lap to go Megan Dunn from Oz exploded away and took the lead followed by Jo K. and that was how it finished. Great ride by the Kiwi girls.

Then the Team Sprint qualifying, interesting to see Wales false start twice and get disqualified. Kiwi's was second to last to qualify and posted the fastest time to date. Australia were last and broke the games record to qualify. So NZ/Oz final.

Individual Sprint quarters sam was up against Travis Smith Canada. Sam won in 2 and looked to be comfortably in control of things.

Eddie Dawkins came up against N, Philip Trinidad and had a great tussle. N Philip was at Junior Worlds same year as Sam and is showing real speed. Eddie won in 2

Then it was the semi finals. As Sam qualified 4th fastest in the flying 200metre he came up against the faster qualifier Shane Perkins in the semi final. Sam has known all year that he would have to beat Shane to win a gold. So he took it to him. In the first ride Sam put on a superb match sprinting performance, he controlled Perkins and did not allow him to dictate terms, when Sam initiated the sprint he did so with power and built a small lead. Shane Perkins was at full stretch and only caught him by a couple of inches.

All in all very good performance, from track side we could see Sam was gutted to lose particularly by such a small margin. In the second sprint Shane was fully aware of what he was up against and took it really seriously giving Sam plenty of respect. Shane rode very well and won it relatively easily.

The loss put Sam into the Bronze medal ride off.

Eeddie Dawkins came up against Scott Sunderland. These two have fought many battles together. Scott seems to have carried great form into the Games and was able to beat Eddie in 2.

Sadly this put our two boys against each other, on a positive note a guaranteed medal for New Zealand.

In the bronze medal ride it was obvious that the two boys knew each other and their tactics, respect was given to each others abilities. Sam was able to win in 2.

Yahoo a bronze medal.

What a proud moment during the medal ceremony, seeing him up there.
After the ceremony Sam crossed the track and we got hugs across the barrier, so good to see him.
At that point we were mobbed by the locals wanting to touch a medalist, one person thrust a young child (not quite a baby at Sam. The kids face was about 6 inches from Sams. The kid just starred at Sam while the parents got a photo. Then there were people wanting autographs etc. It was crazy, eventually Sam was lead off for some media commitments and the remaining people asked Meren and her brother Peter for autographs. I stood clear holding the camera. It was funny.

In the Womens Individual Sprint, Sam's friend Becky James was representing Wales. Becky was at Junior Worlds in Moscow with Sam. She qualified 3rd in the flying 200metres and came up against Karly McCullough from Australia. Becky rode and amazing race and beat Karly much to the surprise of the Ozzies in the crowd. It was fantastic and we were delighted. Becky could could hear the calls from the people in black and even gave us a wave after the first race. Becky came up against Anna Meares in the final. Becky rode really well in the final but Anna showed her class. This got Becky a Silver medal. We were delighted for her.

The Team Pursuit had the Gold Silver ride with Australia. NZ went out really fast, too fast for their current form but they had to, to have a chance against Australia. Unfortunately the pace was too hot and they lost the 4th ride at 2km and then gaps appeared between the other riders and they were overlapped by Australia with 1 lap to go.

So all in all 3 medals from the track today and a total of 7 medals from the track (so far).

Tomorrow (today now) we have Team Sprint and Womens IP (Ali Shanks) with excellent chances of medals.

After that Sam was off for Doping control and we went off to the Athletics evening session. Our driver dropped us reasonably close to one entrance to the stadium unfortunately our entrance was the opposite and with security we had to walk a hell of a distance around to get in. While it was night it was still very hot and even more humid. We got into the stadium to find there was only one place selling food and water in the half of the stadium that we had access to and there was a 20-30 minute queue to get stuff.

So we sucked it up and went to our seats. It was great to be there and we saw Mens and Womens 100 metre finals, Some Hammer throws, I love the image of the song, "Its Hammer time". We also saw Mens Shotput.

The experience at night convinced us that we really got lucky going to the cycling with an air conditioned venue and relatively easy access to food (if you can call the chicken burgers that) and water