Qin Springs Into Olympic Semi-Finals

Olympic debutant Esther Qin displayed the poise of a Games veteran in qualifying for the semi-finals in the 3m springboard diving.

The 24 year old was the last of the 29 divers on the board and she reeled off a string of consistent scores to be ranked fourth going into the semi-finals.

Her combined score of 347.25 across five dives exceeded her expectations coming into Rio.

“I am very happy with my performance, I didn’t expect my place to be this high for today,” Qin told the AOC website.

“My goal coming into the event was to take it step by step – make the semi and then make the final and then focus on the final and hopefully improve my score”.

Qin will compete in the 18 women semi-final tomorrow afternoon.

Two NSWIS boxers were in action this morning but both Shelley Watts and Daniel Lewis had their Olympic dream shattered.

Watts lost a split-decision over the four rounds against Italian teenager Irma Testa (39-37, 37-39, 39-37).

The Australian coaches telling the AOC website they believed Watts was unlucky in the scoring.

“It’s terrible to accept something like this at the Olympic Games,” Australian coach Don Abnett said.

“Shelley had it pretty much under control; I don’t know what the judges were looking for.”

Lewis faced a tough second round bout against Uzbekistan’s No. 2 seed Bektemir Melikuziev in the middleweight division but struggled to counter his highly-ranked opponent.

The Olympic campaign is over for NSWIS table tennis player Sally (Ziyu) Zhang after Australia was eliminated from the women’s team’s competition.

The Australians fell 0-3 to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, whose team included Rio women’s singles bronze medallist Kim Song-I.

The Australian men’s team which features NSWIS player Chris (Xin) Yan face Hong Kong early tomorrow morning AEST.

NSWIS shooter Warren Potent has finished 35^th in the 50m rifle prone event.

The veteran recorded 620 points in this his fifth straight Olympic Games.

The Hockeyroos grabbed a major scalp with a 1-nil win over world number two Argentina.

NSWIS athlete Emily Smith scoring the only goal of the match in the 33^rd minute.

“Scoring goals for Australia is awesome but when it’s at the Olympics in such an important match it was even more exciting,” Smith told the AOC website.

“It was really good. We didn’t really give them a sniff, which is what we planned to do. We wanted to press them hard and not give their playmakers time and space and I think we really executed that, which is good.”