Oly: Cyclists keep Australian medal target on track

AAP General News (Australia)
08-25-2004
Oly: Cyclists keep Australian medal target on track

By Sharon Labi

ATHENS, Aug 24 AAP - Ryan Bayley won gold and Anna Meares a bronze as Australia today
maintained its medal bonanza in the Olympic cycling.

Meanwhile Australia achieved its best ever win in baseball, assuring the team of its
first Olympic medal with a shock win over Japan in the semi-finals.

However Australia's women's water polo team will not defend its Olympic title won in
Sydney, losing 6-2 to Greece in a physical semi-final played in front of a vocal home
crowd.

The team will now play for bronze.

And in beach volleyball, defending champion Natalie Cook and new partner Nicole Sanderson
were distraught after they lost their bronze medal play-off to the United States.

As Australia's cyclists revelled in their most successful Olympics ever, Meares collected
her second medal of the Games in the women's sprint after earlier winning gold in the
500m time trial.

And Bayley, fuelled on a diet of KFC and Coke, came from behind to beat Dutch world
champion Theo Bos 2-1 in the best of three men's sprint final.

Bayley's gold was the fourth in Athens by the cyclists and Australia's 14th overall,
maintaining the nation's fourth place on the Games medal table.

Australia's cyclists also have two silver and two bronze medals with a day of competition left.

The 2002 world keirin champion, Bayley went into today's races in sensational form.

He set the fastest time in the qualifiers and in the team sprint on Saturday recorded
what was believed to be the fastest flying lap in history.

"It's been a lot of years, trying to dream of going to the Olympics for starters,"

Bayley, 22, said.

"To be here was absolutely unbelievable, to see the crowd and the support was unbelievable.

And to win is, I just have no idea, it's something you can't describe, can't imagine."

Meares, 20, beat Russian Svetlana Grankovskaya 2-0 in their best of three sprint races
for the bronze medal, in a reversal of the result of this year's world championship final.

On the baseball field, the unheralded Australians will advance to the gold medal game
after defeating Japan 1-0 in the semi-final.

They will play either Canada or Cuba.

"Words can't express how I feel right now. This is just tremendous for Australian baseball,"

said relief pitcher Jeff Williams.

Australia has finished seventh in baseball at the past two Olympics.

Meanwhile the Boomers finished their Olympics campaign in 9th place after beating New
Zealand in the men's basketball classification round.

Captain Shane Heal announced he had played his last game for Australia and was carried
shoulder high off the court by his teammates.

AAP sal/sp

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