BRONZE is the new Gold

Things have been a bit quite from my end, as I haven’t updated my blog since the round games. I do apologise, but things have been a little bit hectic.  So in chronological order, here is what happened. 

We finished top of our pool after beating the Russian’s comfortably 11-8.  I was able to kick-start the scoring with this goal, pictured below.  This was always one of our goals, but the way the Olympic competition goes, as there are only eight teams in the women’s competition, everyone goes through to the quarter-finals, so this is where the games really count. 

So we came across China for our quarter-final.  We were confident going into this game as China hadn’t produced the goods in this tournament thus far, but how wrong could we be.  This game was the most tense game I can remember playing.  It was an extremely high-scoring affair, with a 13-13 scoreline at the end of regular time.  Neither team would give up in the two extra-time periods, so we were forced to go to a penalty shoot-out.  We have had so much practise at these, but things weren’t looking good when our first shooter missed…but it was meant to be, our next four shooters scored, and China cracked under the pressure.  The photo below shows the sheer delight in this victory…and also made the top 20 photos of the Olympic Games!

Our next opponent was the USA, the team we weren’t supposed to meet until the final, but Spain toppled them in the groups, so the semi-final it was!  And yet another extremely close game.  We thought it was done and dusted with 1 second to go, and the USA were up by one goal, but the USA coach called an illegal time-out (they weren’t in possession of the ball) which gave us a lifeline and a penalty…which we scored and sent the game into extra-time…once again.  This time it was the USA that took advantage of the extra six minutes of play, and in an instant it seemed our Olympic dream was shattered.  It was extremely disappointing to lose this semi-final, but meeting our family and friends after the game helped put a smile on my dial!

So to our Bronze medal game against Hungary.  This was a repeat of the 2008 Olympics, where Australia won Bronze in a penalty shoot-out, so were hoping to not put our family and friends in that position again…but we were wrong!  We let a comfortable lead disappear, but thought everything was won when we were leading with three seconds to go…but to no avail, the Hungos did a submarine act, surprised our goalie and scored with 1 second to go, sending us to extra-time for the third consecutive game. We made no mistake in the extra-time and buried the Hungo’s for good.  So we are the OLYMPIC BRONZE MEDALLISTS!!!  Haven’t you heard, Bronze is the new Gold! 

We have now landed back in Australia, but will all reconvene for the Olympic parades around the country (as medallists we get to go to all of these).

I am sorry to provide such nail biting games, but no one can accuse us of not being entertaining!

Until next time

Jane