Back to top

London Day Eleven: Clearing that final hurdle

Where Liu Xiang failed, Sally Pearson succeeded. Along with the Missile probably Australia's most pre-hyped competitor at London 2012, Pearson delivered in the final of the women's 100 metre hurdles on a wet Tuesday night.

Pearson (12.35 seconds) finished 0.02 ahead of the USA's Dawn Harper. Fellow American Kellie Wells took bronze. I'm not sure what the technical term for 2nd/3rd/4th placings is if it's not a trifecta, but Lolo Jones was next for Team USA and out of a medal. And maybe out of the headlines for a while.

Reports on the race from the Sydney Morning Herald and NBC Olympics.

Another candidate for Australia's Most Pre-Hyped Athlete delivered on Tuesday as well, Anna Meares beating Victoria Pendleton in the women's sprint at the Velodrome. Reports from the ABC and The Guardian.

Another memorable performance on the track on Tuesday night was that of Algeria's Taoufik Makhloufi, winner of the men's 1500 metres. On Monday he has been kicked out of the Olympics by the IAAF's Not Trying Hard Enough Police for allegedly Not Trying Hard Enough in his 800 metres heat, and then reinstated on medical evidence.

Australia's Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen already have an unassailable lead in the men's 49er class sailing event going into the final race on Wednesday. It's going to be party time tonight at the Wangi Wangi RSL Amateur Sailing Club on Lake Macquarie as the locals watch their club members take Australia one place closer to Kazakhstan on the gold medal tally.

Outteridge and Jensen just need to start the race and not do something silly like Not Try Hard Enough. We've seen enough Not Trying Hard Enough at London 2012 already.

Sally Pearson was noble and eloquent in her post-race interview on Channel Nine with the non-#Qanda Tony Jones this morning (Aus time), but here, from 2008 when she was still Sally McLellan, is her interview with Seven's Pat Welsh after taking silver in the Beijing 100 hurdles. For this blog post, it's my Youtube do Dia: