Partizan’s athletes had a struggling start at the Olympics. The first event of the first day was shooting, female 10 m air rifle, where Andrea Arsović was expected to win a medal. Instead she finished at the 26th place, she couldn’t even get close to reach the final.
Andrea Arsović at the qualifying of the 10 m air rifle
Later Arsović
talked very bitterly to Mondo. She said she had stage fright and it didn’t calm down, so she couldn’t find her usual pace. On Thursday comes her other discipline, 50 m rifle in 3 positions, she wants to focus on that now.
Then a switch to the swimming pool, where the Serbian water polo team incl. Dušan Mandić, Filip Filipović and Nikola Jakšić
yes, yes, there were the Pijetlović-brothers, too
clashed with Hungarians right in the first round.
It was not easy at all. The Hungarian team had a blitzkrieg, winning the first quarter to 3:5. At the half-time they were ahead to 6:10. Serbian goalkeeper Branislav Mitrović was mostly just watching the action in a quiet and sad manner. He was substituted by Gojko Pijetlović for the second half, that was the point when the Serbian team sped up. The standing was 9:12 for the third quarter. Ćuk, Mandić, Filipović and the others kept on scoring, Pijetlović saved as if his life would have depended on it. 7 seconds before the end the standing was 12:13. After hitting the crossbar the ball got back to the Serbian team. Filipović wasted no time, he grabbed it, shot and scored a huge goal, equalizing 4 seconds before the end buzz, finishing the game with 13:13.
Dušan Mandić during the game
Filip Filipović shots...
...and scores!
Then came rowing, where Heat 3 of the men’s pair was surely one of the weirdest heats of the entire Games. The event was placed to Copacabana, and when it was the turn of the Beđik-Vasić duo, there was a very heavy wind in the bay and the ocean was waving.
The heat started by default with a fail, though it was impossible to see from the slow motion replay which boat wanted to start the race too early. As an extra, the Serbian boat was leaning very heavily to left, almost crossing the line to the other track, where the Italian duo were waiting for the start. If I could see well, something was wrong with the rudder, nevertheless finally everything was put in order. The race started and until 1500 metres Beđik and Vasić massively kept the 3rd place. (The Hungarian boat on the 4th place was behind them with at least half kilometre.) Though at 1000 metres something was wrong, the Serbian boat was leaning very much on the rope between the tracks. Then at 1500 metres all we could see was the Serbian boat being turned over, while Beđik and Vasić were swimming around it, being rather desperate.
The other duo, Andrija Šljukić and Marko Marjanović finished 4th at Heat 1 of the double sculls. Both Beđik-Vasić and Šljukić-Marjanović will compete in the repenchange on Sunday as a chance to get to the qualifyings.
At the tennis fields Ana Ivanović was quickly eliminated by Carla Suarez Navarro. The Spaniard won to 1:2 against her (6:2, 1:6, 2:6), so the Olympic Games have finished for Ivanović.
In men’s double Nenad Zimonjić (paired with Novak Đoković) won against the Croatian duo Čilić-Draganja to 0:2 (2:6, 2:6), they qualified to the next round.
Ana Ivanović
Zimonjić (left) and Đoković celebrate after their victory
(photo: mondo.rs)
At the heats of the men’s 400 m freestyle swimming Velimir Stjepanović finished at the 7th place in his heat, which was very far from being able to get to the qualifyings. It’s not such a big tragedy, as Stjepanović’s main discipline is 200 m freestyle, he probably focuses more on that.
Velimir Stjepanović
The last event of the day was the basketball game between Venezuela and Serbia, which took place at 3.30 am CET on Sunday. The Serbian team with Bogdan Bogdanović, Stefan Birčević, Milan Mačvan and Miroslav Raduljica (and Saša Đorđević on the bench) swept Venezuela away with 62:86. Meanwhile the French team with Joffrey Lauvergne was defeated by Australia to 87:66.
Bogdan Bogdanović
(photo: nbcolympics.com)
(unmarked photos: Facebook/Olimpijski komitet Srbije)
