Day 8 in Rio2016: A silent continuation

Zoltán Kővágó

The 13^th of August was a much calmer day in Rio2016 after the amazing Hungarian successes on Day 7. The swimming events finished without Hungarian participants and the women’s water polo team lost to the USA, which luckily didn’t affect our qualification to the quarter-finals. We cheered for discus thrower Zoltán Kővágó and heptathlonists Györgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas and Xénia Krizsán in the athletics stadium, who finished in the 7^th, 8^th and 16^th place.

It was time for our women’s water polo team to face the Americans in the last round of group B. We unfortunately lost by 6:11 so the girls will have to meet Australia in the quarter-final on Monday. “It was practically sure after our loss to Spain that we’ll finish in the 3^rd place of the group no matter what we do. I think we look forward to the Monday match confidently as the American and the Australian team represent a similar game style. We didn’t play like it was a training match, this is the Olympic Games. Of course, we tested tactics we want to play, but not all of them. We’ll need more outstanding individual performances in the quarter-final. We shouldn’t draw conclusions from former matches, but they won’t be able to surprise us” said Coach Attila Bíró.

Zoltán Kővágó started out great in the men’s discus throw final with 64,50 metres. However, the 2004 Olympic silver medallist couldn’t advance in the continuation and finished in the 7^th place in the end. “I reached the level of 5 Olympic Games, attended 4, made it into the final of 2 and won 1 medal. I believe this is not a bad rate. I think there’s more to it, I could easily do Tokyo. I don’t know how the field will form, we’ll see if it would be worth it. For the time being I can see that German engineers have worked a lot on the results. If everything goes well, I could be in the final” said Zoltán Kővágó.

RESULTS:

Women’s heptathlon, long jump – Györgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas 8^th place and Xénia Krizsán 16^th place

Men’s discus throw, final – Zoltán Kővágó 7^th place

Men’s sculls, final C – Bendegúz Pétervári-Molnár 2^nd place, 14^th place on the whole

Men’s Finn sailing, heats – Zsombor Berecz 12^th and 18^th place

Men’s Laser sailing, heats – Benjamin Vadnai 29^th and 25^th place, 33^rd on the whole

Women’s Laser Radial sailing, heats – Mária Érdi 9^th and 20^th place, 14^th on the whole

Women’s water polo, 3^rd round – Hungary-USA 6:11

Women’s individual badminton, 2^nd round – Laura Sárosi-Michelle Li 0:2