Rough day on the water for the UniRoos

Despite excellent conditions, the UniRoos had a rough day on the water to finish fourth in the mixed fleet sailing competition at Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia, in the Bay of Naples.

The UniRoos dropped from first overnight to fourth place after racking up 25 points in the four-round final, due in large part to a pair of last-place finishes in today’s sailing.

After heading into the final round in first with a two-point advantage it was quickly stripped away in the first race after being penalised for crossing the start line early. The team from UNSW Sydney consisting of Thomas and Jessica Grimes, Nicholas Rozenauers and Annelise Scholten, fell behind finishing 8th in the first round. After a comeback in the second round finishing 2nd they couldn’t keep the good form going finishing 8th and 6th in the last two rounds.

The team was upset with the result, but as manager Mitch Evans said, “There’s always another regatta.”

Finland took the gold medal, winning three of the four races on the final day to end on 7 points. Fourth-seeded Austria, the only team to defeat Finland on Friday, moved up two spots to capture silver thanks to a 14-point tally, while Singapore 2 held on to third position with 17 points. Singapore 1 (26 points), Russia (29), Germany (30) and Japan (32) rounded out the top eight.

Mixed fleet was the lone sailing event scheduled at the 30th Summer Universiade as the sport returned to the biennial multisport event for the first time since 2011, in Shenzhen, China.

Athletics – After the excitement of the morning the afternoon session was all about the women’s relay teams.

The UniRoos 4×100 team of Abbie Taddeo (Australian College of Physical Education), Nana Owusu-Afriyie (Deakin University), Riley Day (Griffith University) and Celest Mucci (RMIT University) qualified for the final finishing 2nd in their heat in 44.28 and 2nd fastest overall behind Switzerland’s 43.97.

The women’s 4×400 team of Genevieve Cowie (The University of Sydney), Morgan Mitchell (Collarts), Jessie Stafford (The University of Sydney) and Gabriella O’Grady (University of Technology Sydney) qualified for the final finishing 3rd in their heat and 4th overall in 3:34.51. Canada were fastest with 3:33.24.

RMIT’s Chris Mistrevski and Darcy Roper both qualified for the long jump final. Mistrevski in 6th with a 7.71m jump and Roper in 8th with a 7.66m jump. Two athletes, Alesandro Melo of Brazil and Cheswill Johnson of South Africa leapt 7,83m to lead the qualifying in what will be a very open final.

These three finals will be held on the final day of athletics competition, Saturday 14 July with the 4×100 relay at 18:15 CEST (2:15 AEST), the long jump at 19:00 CEST (3:00 AEST) and the 4×400 relay at 19:30 CEST (3:30 AEST). This will be live streamed via the FISU live stream here.

More from the track and field:

Caitlin Adams (University of South Australia) finished 8th in the 5000m final in 16:07.38.

In the men’s pole vault final Angus Armstrong (The University of Sydney) finished 10th and Stephen Clough (University of Western Australia) finished in 11th with both clearing 5.06m.

In the 300m steeplechase final Matthew Clarke (La Trobe University) finished 11th in 8:43.91 and Max Stevens (Swinburne University of Technology) finished 14th in 8:57.40.

In the 110m hurdles Nick Andrews (Macquarie University) just missed the final finishing 5th in heat 1 and 9th over all in 13.86 and Jacob McCorry (Macquarie University) finished 6th in heat 2 and 11th overall in 13.93.

University of Technology Sydney’s Jye Perrot finished 4th in his heat and 10th overall with 1:49.49 in the 800m semifinal and fellow UTS student Mason Cohen finished 4th in his heat and 15th overall with 1:49.98 to both miss the final.

The men’s 4×100 team of University of Technology Sydney’s Jye Perrot, Maston Cohen and Sean Fitzsimmons and Zach Holdsworth (University of Wollongong) finished 11th overall in the semifinal in 3:11.23 miss out on the final.

Water Polo – The women’s water polo team has finished 5th at Napoli 2019 after defeating Japan 11-10 in the 5th place playoff in a thrilling comeback.

Locked 2-2 at the end of the first period, Japan looked like running away with the game after putting 4 goals on the board in the second period to Australia’s 1. But the UniRoos never looked like quitting coming out and putting four of their own on the board to even the match up heading into the final period of play. With 5th place on the line both teams played with nothing to lose. A Jessica Zimmerman (Curtin University) goal with three minutes left gave Australia a narrow 11-10 lead which they managed to hold on to in a nervy final few minutes. Zimmerman finished the game with three goals, as did Matilda Kearns (University of Southern California) while Brooke McClean (Australian Catholic University) and the ever-reliable Alice Williams (University of Technology Sydney) both scored 2. This result means that the women’s water polo end one place higher than in Taipei 2017 where they were defeated in the 5th place playoff 16-8 by Canada.

The men’s water polo dropped their final game to Croatia 12-4 in the 7th place playoff to finish 8th overall. Up against a quality opposition in Croatia, the UniRoos struggled to gain momentum early with Croatia scoring 6 first half goals to put the game out of reach.

Angus Lambie (UNSW Sydney), Tom McJannett (TAFE NSW), Nicholas Elphick (University of Notre Dame) and James Gillifeather (TAFE NSW) all got on the scoresheet for the UniRoos as they recorded their best finish at the Summer Universiade since Gwangju 2015 where they finished 7th.

Rhythmic Gymnastics – Day two of the rhythmic gymnastics was staged Friday with Elizabeth Inaba-Hill (University of South Australia) performing in the individual clubs and ribbons apparatuses. Elizabeth performed well placing 21st in the clubs with a score of 13.750 and 24th in the ribbons with 11.500. These results has Elizabeth placed 25th overall in the All-Around competition scoring a combined 51.700.

The team’s competition also wrapped up with Emily Abbot (TAFE Queensland), Alexandra Eedle (Queensland University of Technology), Alannah Mathews (Queensland University of Technology) and Himeka Onoda (University of Queensland) combining to finish 7th in the all-around competition with a score of 31.750. In today’s apparatus, the ‘3 hoops, 4 clubs’, the team scored 16.150 to finish in 7th place.

Taekwondo – La Trobe University’s Kyah English fell to C. Vieira of Brazil 3-1 in her first round of the 53kg division.