Two more Olympic events today. The first was the cycling at Versailles so Mamfa and I took in the Palace of Versailles before the event (Mawfa had been there before so had a sleep in). The palace is huge and it’s no wonder there were so many peasants in the 1600’s when they were spending so much on opulent buildings. Lots of large paintings of dead dudes in the massive rooms – and you only visit a small proportion of the whole palace.

The gardens were large and impressive but disappointing that only 3 fountains operate during the week.

It was then time for some more Olympics at the Velodrome which had qualifying sessions for the men’s sprint, women’s team pursuit and women’s Kieran. An Aussie broke the world record for the flying 200m sprint (hitting 70km/h!!) only for it to be beaten about 5 minutes later by a Dutchman. Maybe a world record for the shortest time holding a world record.

It was then a dash back across to the north of Paris to Stade de France for the athletics evening session. It was fantastic to see Australia’s first ever female field gold medal winner with Nina Kennedy nailing the pole vault. Matthew Denny from Australia also won the bronze in the discus. Other events included the men’s 400m with a really close finish (top 4 all ran personal bests), 3000m steeplechase final, 200m men’s semifinal, men’s 110m hurdles semifinal, men’s 400m hurdles semifinal, women’s 400m semifinal, and triple jump qualification.

This day in sporting history (7 August)

1954 Englishman Roger Bannister beats Australia’s John Landy in the mile at the Empire Games in Vancouver; first time 2 men run sub-4 minute mile in the same race.