Silver medals for Matthew Richardson at the velodrome and Maddison Keeney in the diving pool headlined the day in Paris, while canoe sprinters Tom Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen added a bronze in the water for a total of 48 medals won by the end of day 14. If you come at the king, you better not miss, to paraphrase a line from a popular TV show. Matthew Richardson sensed he had a shot after some strong performances in qualifying for the men’s sprint, but when he swung at Harrie Lavreysen in the final, he narrowly missed the Dutch cycling great, who retained his Olympic title.
Silver for Richardson was his second medal of these Games, adding to the team sprint bronze medal he won earlier in the week. An incredible, near perfect dive – the best of any of the competitors in the women’s 3m springboard final – was enough to win a silver medal for Maddison Keeney at the Olympic Aquatics Centre. The forward two-and-a-half somersaults with two twists dive had a high degree of difficulty but Keeney nailed it on her last dive and was rewarded with a score of 78.
20 points – and her second Olympic medal, after she won bronze in Rio eight years ago. Having broken the world record over 500m in the semi-final of the men’s K-2 canoe sprint, Australian pair Tom Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen headed into Friday’s medal race as hot medal hopes. Alas, they could not reproduce their form of 24 hours earlier in the face of a blistering pace set by eventual winners Germany.
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