09:25
Fitness 2021
This weekend the Olympics began, they began with an
opening ceremony just like any other world competition. I was not that
impressed by the opening ceremony but it had its moments of awesome
entertainment like when Mr Bean was doing what he is famous for (making people
laugh). I also enjoy it when all the athletes from all the participating
nations walk into the stadium. The big teams like America, China, Great Britain
and other countries have hundreds of participants thus increasing their
probability to win more medals, whilst the smaller sporting nations have fewer
participants. South Africa, my country does not have a lot of participants as
always but hopefully we are going to get more medals than in the last Olympics
in Beijing.
Some events like rowing, tennis, badminton, hockey, soccer,
basketball, archery, gymnastics, cycling and possibly other sports which are
not that popular have already began with China and America leading the
medals(no surprise there). Oh I forgot to mention that swimming has also been
one of the main attractions on the early days; there have already been a few
finals and Olympic/world records broken.
How South Africa
Is Doing So Far
4 years ago South Africa only managed to win 1 medal and it
was a silver medal. That was a very disappointing year for us. This year on day
2 we have already managed to win 1 gold medal in the pool. Last time no medals
were won in the pool even though the swimming pool is one of our strongest
events.
The South African soccer team Banyana Banyana managed to
qualify for the Olympics, being only one of two African representatives at the
London Olympics. Banyana Banyana is the lowest ranked team in at the Olympics
so basically the odds were stacked against them. They were beaten 4-1 during
their opening match against Sweden, and then beaten 3-0 by Canada, they face
Japan tomorrow, and it is not looking good for the South African ladies as the
Japanese ladies are the current world champions. They were unlucky to be
grouped with teams that are all in the top 7 in the world when they are not
even ranked in the 50s.
South African
Swimmers
A few of our swimmers managed to do well in the heats in the
first couple of days on to do badly during their semi-finals and finals. But the highlight of the London Olympics so
far has been Cameron Van Der Burgh who became the first home-bred male South African to
break a swimming world record. He got better with each round, he broke the Olympic 100m
Breast stroke record and went on to break the world breast stroke record during
the final to win South Africa’s first gold medal during the London Olympics.
The South African 100 relay team did well during the qualifiers and were neck
to neck with the French, who eventually won the gold in the final, but South
Africa’s performance during the final was disappointing and they did not win a
medal.
That is all for now, let us hope there are still more medals
to be won by South African Athletes in the coming events.
Posted in: sport
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