Olympics: Kendall finds form too late, but Fouhy on course

7.45am

ATHENS - New Zealand's original golden girl Barbara Kendall won't complete the Athens Olympic hat trick, but today she painfully demonstrated what might have been.

Following a weekend that saw New Zealand's Evers-Swindell twins and Sarah Ulmer winning gold, Kendall produced a perfect day with two wins in the Mistral, but a fourth consecutive Olympic medal is set to elude her.

Two false start disqualifications from her first five races, only one of which she could discard, scuppered her medal chances despite showing today on the Aegean she was still among the world's premier boardsailors at 36.

With one of the 11 races remaining on Wednesday, Kendall, likely sailing at her farewell Olympics, sits on 54 points in fifth place, still 22 points short of the bronze medal position.

But if the high expectations on Kendall weren't fulfilled, the New Zealand medal haul is by no means over as kayaker Ben Fouhy provided a reminder of his class today.

With New Zealand still on a high after a magnificent gold medal ride by track cyclist Ulmer in the 3000m individual pursuit final yesterday, world champion Fouhy and teammate Steven Ferguson gave the country something more to look forward to in Athens.

The K1 1000m world champion couldn't have scripted his opening day better on the same stretch of water where rowers Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell gave New Zealand their first golden moment of these Games two days earlier.

Fouhy underlined his credentials with an easy heat win in the very first race of the regatta. Less than an hour and a half later he returned with Ferguson, cruising to second place in the K2 1000m race and another berth in Friday's finals.

Fouhy admitted he struggled to lift himself mentally for the K1 race.

"Steve and I didn't want to admit it to each other but we were feeling pretty flat this morning," Fouhy told NZPA.

"For some reason it was all very dull so it was good to come down to have a race, which is what we've been training for."

The men's hockey team were considering what might have been, as they racked up a third successive win only to still miss the medal round.

New Zealand beat South Africa 4-1 to seal third place in pool B behind the Netherlands and Australia.

The highest they can finish is fifth, with two more ranking matches to go, starting with Korea on Wednesday night (Thursday morning NZ time).

Giant defender Hayden Shaw was at it again today, drilling home two of his three penalty corner attempts, while reliable strikers Dave Kosoof and Phillip Burrows added the other goals.

New Zealand were left ruing a 3-4 loss early in the tournament to the Dutch, when a draw would have kept their medal chances intact.

Basketball's Tall Blacks, another side whose gritty performance have won them fans in Athens, also pondered the what-ifs when losing 84-88 to Spain.

"It was a very close game, that seems to be the story of these Olympics for us," experienced campaigner Phill Jones said.

"I am very disappointed, we needed to win this game to get on. We paid for the loss to China, and the terrible start we had in the game with Italy.

"We could have easily finished first in our group, instead we finished last.

"It is not enough to win the respect of the crowd and the other teams, we want to win.

"It does not make much of a difference if we lose by 20 points instead of one or two. We came here to show that we can win."

Cycling queen Ulmer yesterday smashed her second world record in as many days to secure New Zealand's second gold of the Olympics.

Like the Evers-Swindell twins before her in rowing's double sculls, Ulmer went into the individual pursuit with that gilt-edged look about her.

She beat her own world mark set just the previous day in qualifying with a new time of 3min 24.537sec to overwhelm her close friend and rival Katie Mactier, of Australia, in the final.

Ulmer lines up in the points race on Wednesday, but hopes for a repeat gold are slim at best, with her training exclusively geared towards the pursuit.

- NZPA