A New Zealand athlete who won two Olympic gold medals in a glittering rowing career grabbed Commonwealth Games bronze in cycling yesterday, less than two years after switching sports.
Hamish Bond, who formed one of the great rowing partnerships with Eric Murray, was just over two seconds off the silver medal in the time trial — but was still kicking himself for not going faster.
“Now I look back at all the margins and think: ‘What if?’ but from now I just reassess what more I can do and where to next,” Bond said. “I’m pleased with my execution. There are still things I could improve on. I’ll discuss this with the people who have helped me along the way.”
Photo: EPA
Despite his slight frustration, it remained a phenomenal achievement for Bond, 32, who has already won the highest accolades rowing has to offer.
Bond and Murray won Olympic gold medals in the coxless pairs in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and from 2009 to 2013 they went five years unbeaten.
“Life’s about taking on challenges. You don’t know what you’ve got until you get out there,” Bond said when asked about his decision to take up cycling. “I think I’m in a pretty good place, but there’s always things you can do better.”
Australia’s Cameron Meyer took gold and silver went to England’s Harry Tanfield, whose brother Charlie won pursuit gold and silver during the track cycling competition.
The Tanfields have emerged from the amateur ranks after self-funding their rise in the sport and Harry, 23, only applied to take part in the Commonwealth Games in January, according to reports.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier