| Korean archers set two world achievements This coming weekend, 25 sets of medals will be awarded at the Olympics. Athens' first gold medal winner will be announced around noon on Saturday when the women's air rifle competition concludes. Russians Tatyana Goldobina and Lyubov Galkina are among the world elite in this discipline.
The first world record at the Games was set yesterday, the day before the official opening ceremony. At the qualifying competitions for archers, where they only distributed places in the tournament bracket with elimination, the representative of South Korea, Park Sun Hyun, showed a result of 682 points out of 720 possible and surpassed the previous world achievement of Italian Natalia Valeeva by three points. Since the qualifications applied to both the upcoming individual competition and the team competition, Park Sun Hyun and her teammates Lee Sun Jin and Yun Mi Jin, who took second and third place, respectively, became co-authors of another world record - 2030 points for the team ( each girl shot 72 arrows).
As for the starts that will take place in the first two days after the official opening of the Olympics, on Saturday the Russians' hopes are connected with the individual fencing tournament, where four-time Olympic champion Stanislav Pozdnyakov and winner of gold medals in Atlanta and Sydney Sergei Sharikov will perform in the team. The group race of road cyclists will last about six hours. We have someone to worry about - Vladimir Karpets and Denis Menshov have a chance of success. Our divers will definitely compete for prizes in the men's synchronized 10-meter platform and women's 3-meter springboard competitions. In the four swimming finals, the Russians are unlikely to qualify, but in the weight category up to 48 kg for the judokas, we can expect a good performance from the silver medalist of Sydney, Lyubov Bruletova. At the shooting range, after the riflemen, pistol men will fire from a distance of 10 m. 2002 world champion Mikhail Nestruev can win his first Olympic medal - in Sydney he was one step away from bronze.
It will be hot in the swimming pool on Sunday. A dramatic fight is expected in the men's 4x100m relay. A year ago, at the World Championships in Barcelona, our quartet won first place, but, naturally, at the Olympics the competition will be much fiercer. Our epee fencers, whose final of the individual championship will also take place in the evening, can climb to the podium. Our road racers, who will have a group race, also look good this season. The first round matches for tennis players will begin; both days gymnasts and gymnasts will step onto the platform in preliminary competitions. All our teams in team sports, except for water polo players, will play their first matches in groups of the preliminary stage this weekend. Ilya TRISVIATSKY |
|
