The last day of the Olympics comes with an anticlimactic feel.
There’s always a limited Day 16 programme as they clear out the main stadium for the closing ceremony, and New Zealanders are not usually found in the medal rounds of the second-week team sport finals, nor are they at the pointy end of the marathon.
But they are at the velodrome, and this Games provided anything but a comedown.
It was epic, and Ally Wollaston provided the perfect coda for what must be the best closing few days of an Olympiad New Zealand has ever experienced.
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The excitement was brewing before she took to the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines for the points race, the final of four events that make up the omnium. It was from my couch at least.
The women’s marathon was sensational. With seven kilometres to go, the lead group was still seven-strong, with five to go it was five. The final kilometre was a shootout between the remarkable Sifan Hassan and Ethiopian Tigst Assefa. It was knife-edge stuff, especially when they both tried for the inside line on one of the final corners and nearly took each other out.
The Netherland’s Hassan held on with her sprint-finish kick, giving her gold to go with bronzes in the 5000m and 10,000m — a ludicrous treble attempt that saw her run 62km of racing in 10 days. This was a brutal marathon course but I’m so here for it. Hills bring strength and tactics into play rather than the usual pancake-flat courses that have become a two-hour-and-change speed trap.
It also means finishing is a significant achievement and you could tell by their reactions that the middle- and back-markers, including New Zealand’s Camille French, had a genuine Olympic moment as they grimaced, smiled, laughed and cried their way down the finishing chute, medals being the furthest thing from their minds.
The finish of the marathon dove-tailed perfectly with the start of the final day of the track-cycling programme.
Before the Games I had marked Ellesse Andrews down as a red-hot chance in the keirin and a decent chance for a ‘minor’ medal in the sprint. It was a theory her father and coach Jon only added to when he noted that the sprint didn’t play to his daughter’s strengths.
It turns out her strength was her strength. She simply overpowered her vaunted opposition — Britain’s Emma Finucane in the semi and German Lea Friedrich in the gold medal races — whether riding from the front and making herself ‘big’ on the final turn, or overpowering them on the final run down the back straight from the second position.
Not only did she win gold, but she did it in such a comprehensive, dominant fashion that Friedrich sat up and effectively serenaded her to the finish line in the second and final of their best-of-three ride-offs.
It might be faulty logic to frame the following as such, but what Wollaston achieved in the points race, the final of the omnium’s four gruelling events, was even more impressive.
After a solid start in the scratch race, Wollaston, who earlier won silver in the team pursuit, didn’t fire a shot in the tempo and appeared to have ridden herself out of a chance for the dais with a disappointingly early elimination race exit.
Halfway through the points race, which potentially carries more weight than the other three events1, there was no sign that the 23 year old had any ammunition left. The sensational Jennifer Valente, who earlier in the week had dragged the US team pursuit to gold ahead of New Zealand, was clearly out of reach, but second and third seemed almost as improbable.
The only way Wollaston could do it was to grab two laps on the field. The first was done easily enough and with the tacit approval of an unconcerned peloton, but the second lap gained was one of the gutsier efforts you’ll see on a track bike, as was the final few laps when she had to mark any potential late charge from Belgian two-time world points race champion Lotte Kopecky.
I know that I have previously written that at the Olympics, nations are a team in name only and medal tables are a bit silly. I still believe that, but Wollaston’s performance was emblematic of the New Zealand campaign as a whole: treading water for a long time and then coming home with strength, guts and no shortage of brilliance.
A typical Day 16 anticlimax? Couldn’t be further from it.
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Now, for some arbitrary awards…
NZ Athlete of the Games
Athletes who have a chance of multiple medals are usually favoured and that’s the case here, although it would be remiss not to acknowledge the brilliance of single-discipline performers like Lydia Ko and Hamish Kerr.
Ultimately it was a coin-flip between Lisa Carrington and Ellesse Andrews, and the latter got my vote for the mere fact her two golds and a silver were more of a surprise than Carrington’s triple gold. There is something about Andrews, too. I don’t want to call it a lack of humility, because that makes her sound arrogant, but there’s a confidence and a surety about the way she talks and the way she goes about her work that is eye- and ear-catching. Also, New Zealand Cycling had drawn a blank on the road, the mountain and the BMX track and the normally solid men’s enduro track team was to leave without a cigar, so Andrews was a critical pick-me-up for an entire NSO.
Carrington, though, what a warrior. Using cherry-picked metrics and leaning heavily on sepia-toned sentiment, you could mount a reasonable argument that Peter Snell remains our greatest Olympian, but as far as I’m concerned he is the only one that belongs in the conversation with the Whakatāne paddler.
International athlete
There was a lot to love about the way Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis underlined his mastery of the pole vault with a world record, and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was sensational in the hurdles and 4x400m relay. Tom Pidcock’s comeback from a flattie on the mountain bike was superhuman.
There were cool stories wherever you looked whether it was a Pakistani javelin thrower, an Indonesian speed climber or a Botswanan, Dominican or St Lucian sprinter, but for sheer weight of expectation and ability to perform under the most intense scrutiny, I can’t look past Léon Marchand and his four individual golds in the pool supplemented by a bronze in a relay. No son or daughter of la Republique has handled the white-hot heat with more dignity since Jeanne d’Ay de Donrémy in 1431.
NZ Team
Another brutally tough category and I’m worried people will think I have a snitcher on the GOAT in the Boat when in fact my admiration for Carrington (and her teammates) could not be higher. The K4 500m, K2 500m and Black Ferns sevens have been edged out by the lovely story (Cambridge News was all over it) that was the double sculls mums, Brooke Francis and Lucy Spoors.
International Team
The USA men’s basketball team definitely had the most ink spilled on them, but there were teams that captivated me more, including the French men’s volleyball team and the German mixed triathlon team. Both hockey finals went to shootouts and were won by the Dutch, but that wasn’t the oranje team that had the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
That would be the Netherlands 4x400m mixed relay team anchored by Femke Bol, which came from fourth on the final turn to reel in the United States on the line.
“I keep telling people it’s just two words. It’s ‘Femke Bol.’ She’s just special,” said Dutch leadoff man Eugene Omalla. “She’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent.”
It might be that she sacrificed her individual ambitions for that moment of glory, as she was never in the picture in her specialist 400m hurdles, finishing third behind US star McLaughlin-Levrone, but what a moment to set the track programme alight.
Moment
That Finn Butcher moment was so, so cool. That’s some top-notch analysis there. Still, it wasn’t my moment of moments.
Have to admit to being a bit of a miserable git when it comes to medal ceremonies. I tend to drift off into my own thoughts and rarely pay any attention to the pap interviews that immediately follow. But something about Lydia Ko on the final green and dais gave me the feels in a way I never expected. It wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t think golf had a place in the Olympics, yet here I was alone in the safety of my lounge in the middle of the night with hayfever suddenly playing havoc with my eyes.
Hey, don’t judge me — I was seriously sleep deprived and still had Kerr to come!
International Moment
The finish of that women’s marathon will take some beating, Alex Yee’s comeback, as much as it pains, to pip Hayden Wilde was, um, wild, and the push-and-shove conclusion to the women’s hockey semifinal between Belgium and China (China would win in a shootout), was sport at its rawest.
I’m going for Julien Alfred, though, and that 100m dash that captivated a tiny island nation.
Mulligan, please
Another goose egg in the pool would be an obvious place to start, but maybe too obvious. Just like a moribund athletics scene got its freak, in the nicest sense of the word, in Val Adams (and to an extent Nick Willis) in 2008, swimming needs its own. Erika Fairweather was so close to being that person but couldn’t quite touch that wall in time. It’s not as if Ariarne Titmus, Summer McIntosh and Katie Ledecky, who got there ahead of her in the 400m free, are slouches. Ian Thorpe, Pieter van den Hoogenband and a bloke named Michael Phelps might like a word, but that’s arguably the greatest one-two-three in Olympic swimming history.
The football teams, perhaps? The mixed triathlon misadventure?
There’s no way you can do a category like this without being a little cruel, but for me the “track” part of track and field was a big shoulder shrug2. Yes, injuries played a part, but that was part of the disappointment rather than a mitigating factor.
Oh, and the television production. Paris was a brilliant host by the looks, although the brown River Seine never looked like an appetising swimming venue, and some of the pictures were magnificent, but there were far too many faux pas and amateur-hour moments when covering the events.
Don’t be so harsh, perhaps?
A talented Black Sticks squad went to Paris, played five, lost five, scored four goals in the process and conceded five against a pretty average Australian team alone. Disaster, right? Ironically, from a pure performance perspective, I thought they demonstrated they belonged in this company (aside from that ugly Australian performance).
What they lacked was a killer instinct in the circle and international-standard penalty corner options. Their lead-up play was as good as most teams but even the most beautifully constructed sentences need a full point on the end of them.
This is a tricky period to negotiate for Hockey New Zealand. The women’s programme is in transition after an extended period of angst and the men finished last at the Olympics, so the programme funding they need to be playing regularly in Europe might be hard to justify.
Also, anecdotally, I’m hearing that Covid wasn’t kind to the sport and that some schools in are reporting sharp drop-offs in team numbers (one Auckland ‘powerhouse’ school has apparently gone from 11 teams to four in the space of a few years).
Hockey here could do with some good news. It’s a great sport and we need our flagship teams playing at the sharp end of it.
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Aside, perhaps, from the person at HPSNZ who decides where the cash goes, no one person’s opinion is any more valuable than another’s on these types of subjective judgements. I’d love it if you used the above categories to give me your athletes and moments in the comments section. You know the drill, click on the button.
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A final Olympics note
I have mentioned this before so apologies for the repeat, but this is the first Olympics since 2000 that I have not covered to order, either on the ground (2004, ’08 and ’12) or in a newsroom. I still ‘covered’ the Olympics, but because The Bounce is mine, I watched what I wanted and wrote about the things that meant something to me, hoping that I hit on enough touchstones that resonated with you.
Mostly though, I’d forgotten just how much fun the Games are. I’ve had a blast bringing you 13 “Olympique Dailies”. I might have had one semi-grumpy day and committed more typos to posterity than your average Year 11 essay, but mostly these newsletters reflect how much I’ve enjoyed watching athletes and teams who are not usually part of the weekly news cycle get their moments in the sun.
When I’ve had a chance, I’ve enjoyed scrolling through the comments. Even those that I don’t 100 percent agree with (and sport would be boring if we all viewed it through the same lens?) have been compiled with soundness of mind and a love for sport.
It feels crass to bring the commercial element to this note, but hey, is there a more commercial sporting organisation on earth than the IOC, but the Olympics has brought in a bunch of new subscribers (and some old ones returning) to The Bounce. Thanks so much for signing up and I hope you both stick around and encourage others who you think might be interested to join you.
Not to dampen expectations because there’s some great stuff coming your way this week, including a Samuel Whitelock book extract, AMA (with me, not Sam) and giveaway, but from next week through to the end of the month I’ll be dropping down to a couple of newsletters per week as I recharge the creative batteries and get some long-ignored admin cleared off my desk.
Cheers and, as always, I appreciate the support.
- Dylan Cleaver (don’t click out yet, there’s more to come below!)
In Pt 6 of K3 Legal’s “Business Toolkit” series,learn the essentials of managing exclusivity to benefit in their must-read latest article: “Exclusive or Not: The Tightrope of Restrictive/Exclusive Arrangements.”
About that test (redux)
Yesterday I sent out a call to multiple Wellington contacts regarding the lack of crowd and general buzz for the All Blacks and got some great feedback and theories.
This might sound like I’ve just grabbed names from books in the Holy Bible, but I swear on the aforementioned that Paul, Mark, Daniel, John, James I and James II are real people.
For further context, all have families and all are professionals. One is a rugby administrator, one a former international coach and administrator. The responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Paul:
“From our POV we chose between the Argentina game and the Bledisloe Cup. Tickets we looked at were $130 each so $520 per game for the four of us. That’s very much a treat rather than a ‘go to show your support’ option, so we chose the most interesting game rather than spend $1040 to get to both.
“It felt too expensive. I also wish they’d make it cheap as chips for teenagers, schoolkids and young rugby players. It feels rough to charge full whack for 16 and 17 year olds. They just won’t go. They’ve priced themselves out of the family market which is disappointing — and the fact NZR had to discount tickets closer to game day (apparently down to $50) is a good indication they misread the market.
“People don’t know the Argentina team, so they’re not much of a drawcard, and it was a big night at the Olympics.
“I’m not one who thinks rugby is a shit product, but it’s definitely not as compelling as it was a few years ago. You’d think NZR would know that and sell the place out and get the buzz from people trading tickets in the second-hand market.”
James I:
“It was poorly promoted and tickets prices were too high at $150 for an average seat that would see you drenched if it rained. The pull of the Olympics made it even harder to get cut through.
“Add that to the crappy and expensive food and booze options and it’s just not a compelling spectacle anymore.
“They should seriously consider retro-fitting a rectangular stadium on the site… once we fix the leaking pipes.”
Mark:
“Ticket prices were definitely a factor and the game-day product is not up to modern standards. The Fifa women’s World Cup showed how it should be done with the lights and a decent halftime show. The halftime show on Saturday was poi dancing.
“The cost of living is a factor. It’s an expensive night out for a family of four, including getting every one there and feeding them. NZR is bogged down in old-school thinking and they feel they can charge whatever they like because they always have.”
Daniel:
“That was certainly the poorest crowd for an ABs game I can remember.
“I checked on ticket prices on the day of the game and the cheapest I could find was close to $100. A lot of Wellingtonians have been shit-canned lately and will be saving pennies, plus we also have a Bledisloe Cup game in September and many will be waiting for that.”
James II:
“It’s been a dreadfully tough eight months for Wellington financially. Everyone seems too depressed to leave the house. The Hurricanes losing a home playoff game made Sky Stadium feel like a cemetery, too.”
John:
“It’s possibly an economic thing, but the Olympics diverted a lot of attention, especially the potential medal haul on Saturday night (which eventuated).”
There are a number of common themes there, but the one that sticks out most obviously is this: most looked for tickets and blanched at the cost of taking a family to the game.
If mums and dads stop taking their kids, that is disastrous for the sport on multiple levels, but NZR shouldn’t need us to tell them that.
There will be a different kind of panic alarm coursing through the All Blacks coaching team.
The general gist of my thinking on the All Blacks hasn’t changed since yesterday, namely that the All Blacks were poor and sluggish, but some elements have come into sharper focus.
The All Blacks under Robertson have looked noticeably more laboured when their two most experienced halfbacks, TJ Perenara and Finlay Christie, have been behind the ruck. Now would seem a good time to cut from the past and fully commit to a new vision at No 9, with Cortez Ratima, Noah Hotham, the injured Cam Roigard and perhaps Folau Fakatava at the forefront of thinking.
There’s no sugar-coating Perenara’s performance on the weekend. It was poor on first view and didn’t improve as I skipped through key moments on a second watch. I’m the last person to come to this point, but it doesn’t make it invalid: box-kicking might be a justifiable if horribly unattractive tactic, but laboured and inaccurate box-kicking takes the “justifiable” part out of the equation.
How much of Perenara’s struggles flowed onto the playmakers is something the coaches will have to determine, but neither Damian McKenzie nor Jordie Barrett had stellar outings. It’s very early in the piece, but my suspicion is that leadership doesn’t come naturally to Barrett and that to prove he is worthy of the (vc) designation he is overly determined to “play a role”, rather than play what is in front of him. Rieko Ioane has been rightly questioned over his distribution skills at centre, but Barrett has been equally guilty of shoving the ball up the jumper when a quick shift has been called for. Ironically, when Ioane came on in the second half, there was a great opportunity for him to use his pace and strength to take on a defender near his own 22m line and spark a break-out, but perhaps with the criticisms ringing in his ears, he shovelled the ball harmlessly on.
Finally, for now, New Zealand as a collective looked more passive than the Pumas in contact area. This is a wishy-washy thing to say, so I tracked down a couple of numbers that I think gives at least some statistical credence to the feeling.
The All Blacks made significantly more ball carries than Argentina (127 to 102), yet their post-contact metres gained were less than the visitors (230m to 253m). There were also 25 dominant tackles made in the test and 15 were made by Argentines.
They’re not particularly telling numbers in isolation, but do add to a picture of the All Blacks just not being up for it on the night.
A response in Auckland is paramount.
The Black Caps named their 15-man squad for the first three tests of the new season, a one-off match against Afghanistan in India, and two World Test Championship outings in Sri Lanka.
Squad: Tim Southee (c), Tom Blundell, Michael Bracewell, Devon Conway, Matt Henry, Tom Latham (vc), Daryl Mitchell, Will O’Rourke, Ajaz Patel, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Ben Sears, Kane Williamson, Will Young.
We’ll dig into the options closer to the first test starting in Noida (just out of Delhi) on September 9, but at first glance there are few surprises apart from coach Gary Stead making it explicit that Southee will be unlikely to play all the tests, meaning both young chargers O’Rourke and Sears will get a run at some stage.
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It’s orthodox-spin heavy, with three left-arm tweakers in specialists Santner and Patel, and part-timer Ravindra, part-time offie Phillips and more-than-part-time offie Bracewell (who I’m yet to be totally convinced is a specialist).
The batting lineup is settled in the most unsettled way possible, with Devon Conway, Tom Latham, Tom Blundell and batting cover Will Young all in fairly desperate need of some big red-ball runs.
1
Trying to explain the arcane elements of the omnium to my family was one of the great challenges of the Olympics.
2
Maia Ramsden set a PB in the 1500m.
