Tokyo Olympics LIVE Matildas heartbreaking loss Kookaburras Boomers shoot for medal rounds

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Australia’s Thomas Green will go for gold this afternoon in the men’s kayak single 1000m after qualifying in the semi-final this morning.

Green came in third spot in his semi-final group to progress to the final with a time of 3:24.612.

Thomas Green of Team Australia has earned a shot at gold.Credit:Getty

He will go for a medal at 1.20pm AEST this afternoon.

Unfortunately, Green’s Aussie teammate Jean van der Westhuyzen was eliminated in the same race, coming in eighth position.

We mentioned earlier that Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya turned up at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo on Sunday night â€" becoming the latest Olympic athlete to refuse to return to her country out of fear for her personal safety.

The Olympics have served as sites of protest, platforms to isolate discriminatory regimes and theatres for Cold War tensions. For some athletes and coaches, the Games have also offered avenues to defect.

Running for a safer life: Krystsina Tsimanouskaya of Belarus.Credit:AP

“The Olympics provide a very attractive opportunity for people to escape difficult situations at home, most often political repression,” said Barbara Keys, a historian at Durham University in England.

Click here for a look at several prominent Olympic defections of the past.

Australia’s Mackenzie Little is in the box seat to qualify for the women’s javelin final. With her first throw this morning, she produced a personal best of 62.37m - the second-best distance of her qualifying group.

Mackenzie Little threw a personal best this morning.Credit:AP

That’s not quite enough to qualify directly - 63.00 or better was needed - but only one thrower managed that, Poland’s Maria Andrejczyk, and there’s 12 spots in the final to fill.

There is more qualifying to come with another group, but Little’s performance should be enough to get her through.

Matildas midfielder Emily van Egmond was the player at the centre of last night’s controversial non-goal against Sweden. She was the player who referee Melissa Borjas deemed had illegally blocked the runs of several defenders.

That was the free kick that Sam Kerr brilliantly converted but didn’t count, arguably robbing Australia of a 1-0 lead just before half-time.

Van Egmond has now spoken, via News Corp, and believes she was hard done by.

“One hundred per cent that was a fair goal,” she said.

Emily van Egmond departs the field after Australia’s loss to Sweden. Credit:AP

“Personally I didn’t think there was much contact at all. I thought the girl ran into me and I am actually not too sure if there was anything at all in it.

“The ref called me for a potential block ... look, we still have a game to play and a chance to get a medal, so we’ll rest up and recover best we can.”

The VAR, as we explained earlier, couldn’t intervene because Borjas blew her whistle before Kerr’s shot. Had she not done so, the VAR would have been able to review the whole passage of play.

Van Egmond thought that was an error too.

“She blew the whistle before the goal was scored,” she said. “The whole point of VAR, isn’t it to go back and check?”

It’s been 15 years since that penalty call against Lucas Neill in the Socceroos’ round of 16 clash with Italy at the 2006 World Cup. Is this decision going to haunt Matildas fans in the same way?

How do you know you’ve made it? For me, the true yardstick has always been getting an item of food named after you at a cafe or pub. Eating a ‘Vince Rugari sandwich’ is very high on my bucket list. Probably won’t ever happen.

Stewart McSweyn, however, has officially made it. Not only did he just qualify for the men’s 1500m semi-finals at the Olympics, but he’s got a parmi (or parma, depending on what part of the country you’re from) named after him at Tasmania’s King Island Hotel, the pub in his hometown.

Stewart McSweyn has officially made it.Credit:AP

What’s on it? Glad you asked - ham, cheese, napoli sauce, and ‘golden rings of pineapple’ on a chicken schnitzel. You can also wash it down with a McSweyn Golden Sunset - a cocktail of Malibu, orange and pineapple juice, and raspberry.

Stewart McSweyn has a chicken parmigiana in his honour at the local pub. Credit:Facebook

“They swapped recess at the school, at the pub they have a parmy down there,” McSweyn just said on Seven, after his race.

“A few would have snuck down there. I love the support. I see every message.

“When I’m on the track I feel like I have the whole King Island population in Tasmania behind me. It has helped me a lot.”

The population of King Island, by the way, is just 1585. It’s the second-largest island in the Bass Strait.

It hasn’t been a good Olympics for Australia’s shooters - this is the first Games they’ve left without a single medal since London 2012.

But at least they didn’t mess up as badly as Ukranian Serhiy Kulish.

The world No.2 Serhiy Kulish left the Asaka Shooting Range cursing himself after committing one of the most extraordinary howlers at the Tokyo Olympics: hitting an opponent’s target.

Not a great moment for Serhiy Kulish.Credit:Getty

Kulish had sailed into Monday’s final of the men’s 50-metre rifle 3 positions event chasing a second Olympic medal to go with his 10m air rifle silver in Rio five years ago.

While eventual winner Zhang Changhong of China led the eight-shooter group for much of the final, Kulish, in fourth place after 30 shots, was initially hovering around the medal bracket.

His nightmare unfolded in the seventh series when he fired at a rival’s target, and was soon the first of the eight shooters to be eliminated after his 35th shot was deemed to be worth nought.

More than his ouster, the manner in which it happened rankled the shooter.

“I shot into someone else’s target,” the 28-year-old fumed. “I am not happy. Who shoots into someone else’s target? Only people like me.”

Kulish at least knows what caused the lapse in his concentration. “The button on my jacket came undone and I felt some discomfort, but time passed and I had to make a shot so I didn’t notice that I was already aiming for someone else’s target.”

with Reuters

Australia’s Oliver Hoare has got his country off to a solid start on the track. He’s just qualified for the semi-finals of the 1500m, after placing third in his heat - crossing in 3:36.09, just 0.08 seconds behind the winner, Ismael Debjani of Belgium. The top six in each heat go through.

Australia’s Oliver Hoare leads the pack.Credit:Getty

Another Aussie, Jye Edwards, has just come seventh in the second heat, so he’ll need to wait a little longer to find out if he’s made the cut for the semis as one of the next six fastest runners. There was a bit of carnage there with two runners - Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski and Qatar’s Abdirahman Saeed Hassan - both going down while in close proximity to Edwards. Neither was his fault, by the looks of things.

And now the third heat has wrapped up - Stewart McSweyn ran third in 3:36.39, so he’s into the semi as well. There’ll be two semis, both to be staged on Thursday.

Unfortunately Edwards has missed the cut, and he’s just spoken to Seven about it.

“Absolutely brutal,” he said. “This is obviously what Olympic races are like. I had a good preparation leading in. Unfortunately [I] couldn’t get it done, couldn’t execute on the day. It is quite frustrating and a pretty messy race too. It is what it is.”

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