Manawatu cyclist Simon van Velthooven won a cycling bronze medal today.
That’s New Zealand’s 99th medal and now we’re waiting for Nick Willis to run the 1500.
He won a silver medal in Beijing and there’s a lot of talk of him bettering that today.
Do such expectations weigh heavily on athletes, do they help to inspire them or do they ignore them and concentrate on the race in the knowledge they’ve trained and prepared to the best of their ability?
Willis came across as the ideal flag bearer at the opening ceremony, managing the difficult combination of both pride and modesty.
Now we wait in the knowledge he’ll do his best and dare we hope hope that he might do better?
UPDATE: No medal for Willis. In the post race interview he is obviously disappointed but still gracious.
It is likely that the next medal will come from Weymouth.
The mens ’49r skiff, and the womens 470 being strong prospects with the mens 470 being in the mix as well.
BTW I dislike with a passion the noun “medal” being used as a verb by repeaters and our officials.
Quintin – I agree – not all nouns should/can be verbed.