Cyclist, judoka fail to impress

FEMALE CYCLIST Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and judoka Zack Piontek both experienced Olympic lows in their respective events yesterday.

Moolman-Pasio was once again left disappointed when she finished the women’s individual time trial outside the top-10, placing 12th out of 25 riders in wet and slippery conditions. In Sunday’s road race she finished in a creditable 10th place which was the best result by a female road cyclist since readmission. Her 16th place finish from London 2012 was the second best since 1992.

While Moolman-Pasio was left disappointed with the result, it was also the question what could have happened if she had the rub of the green.

“It’s really tough when you come to an Olympics having put so much into it and hope everything comes together. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case for me, both in the road race and the time trial,” Moolman-Pasio said. “In the road race I had some mechanical problems with my brakes, which I only discovered after the race. And then today as I thought I was having a nice time trial I slid out on the first really technical descent.”

Moolman-Pasio was going nicely after the first 10 kilometres, lying in seventh place before she slid and fell. She finished two minutes, 02.69 seconds behind winner Kristin Armstrong of the United States.

“It just didn’t work out on the day, it really threw me off,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “So another Olympic Games done. Not the results I was looking for, but I hope that I made my country proud.”

Meanwhile, judoka Piontek was knocked out of the first round following defeat by ippon against Brazilian Camilo Tiago.

Piontek discovered shortly before the start of the Olympics that he had a fracture in his left hand which he strapped heavily for his first bout.

“I didn’t think about any pain or any tiredness, I was just trying to work out how to get past his defence and how to beat him,” Piontek said. “I got injured about two weeks before I came here. I went for a scan at the Olympics and saw it was a fracture in one of the bones in my hand.”

Piontek dropped a point to the 2000 Sydney Olympics silver medallist early into the five-minute bout and made a valiant effort to wrest it back. With six seconds to go before the end he got ipponed for an early exit at his maiden Olympics.

“He was just one step ahead of me at the end of the day.”