KEY POINTS:
BEIJING - After seven days of wilting in the Beijing heat, the Silver Fern grew rapidly in stature yesterday with clear signs the Olympic Games medal drought is about to break.
At the velodrome, on the water at Qingdao, at the hockey stadium, the shooting range, the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest, New Zealand athletes turned in class performances.
Track cyclist Hayden Roulston loomed large as a medal prospect when he powered around Laoshan Velodrome to post the second-fastest qualifying time in the 4000m individual pursuit, while the ever-improving Alison Shanks was fourth-fastest in the women's pursuit.
Both will chase medals this evening (NZT), with Roulston looking the biggest threat to hot favourite Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain, who qualified with an Olympic record time.
While the yachties will have to wait a few days longer until their medals are decided, Jo Aleh in the Laser Radial and boardsailors Barbara Kendall and Tom Ashley strengthened their hands, finishing second, second and fifth respectively.
Halfway through the 10-race regatta, Kendall lies sixth and Ashley fourth, while in her fourth race Aleh improved to fourth, and in the Star Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams grabbed fourth in their opening race.
Middle distance runner Nick Willis turned in his usual canny race to ease into tomorrow's 1500m semifinals.
He was second in his heat, after clearing out the flotsam with an attack 400m from home.
With striker Simon Child at his clinical best, the Black Sticks men's hockey team dealt to Belgium 4-2 to move closer to making the semifinals.
They led 3-0 at halftime, only to let Belgium sneak back two goals.
And the hits kept just on coming when the men's 4 x 100m medley squad put New Zealand into another swimming final, with Daniel Bell, Glenn Snyders, Corney Swanepoel and Cameron Gibson chasing home the United States and Russia in their heat to clock the sixth-fastest qualifying time.
It was the first time a New Zealand relay swimming team had made an Olympic final.
At the morning session, Melissa Ingram and Swanepoel had narrowly missed their respective finals, with Ingram 11th fastest the 200m backstroke semifinals, and Swanepoel 12th fastest semifinalist in the 100m butterfly.
Teenager Robert Eastham threatened to win the first New Zealand medal of the Games when he mounted an unexpected challenge in the 50-metre prone shooting final.
After the first 30 shots his 299 from a possible 300 had him trailing eventual gold medallist Artur Ayvazian of the Ukraine and Finn Juha Hirvi by a solitary point.
His final score of 594 from 600 saw him miss the medal final by a point, and finish 14th in the 56-man field.
At the Shunyi rowing course, lightweight double scullers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor joined New Zealand crews to be sunk, when they were fourth in their semifinal, missing a place in tomorrow's final.
Single sculler Emma Twigg, who missed the final by the tiniest of margins, finished third in her B final, while coxless four Carl Meyer, James Dallinger, Eric Murray and Hamish Bond won their B final.
At the Bird's Nest heptathlete Rebecca Wardell opened her two-day seven-event athletics campaign with a season's best of 14.07secs in the 100m hurdles, then followed up with a personal best 1.71m in the high jump, 14.28m in the shot put and a 24.64sec 200m, to lie 24th of 43, Beatrice Faumuina failed to make the discus final, and Kimberley Smith was ninth in the 10,000m final.
Basketball's Tall Ferns were outgunned 90-59 by the Czech Republic, a third successive defeat extinguishing their hopes of making the quarterfinals.
- NZPA
* Video courtesy of Television New Zealand
