London 2012 Day 13: USA score winning goal with Ladies Football
Gold in Women’s Football was the highlight of Day 13 for Olympic ranking leaders USA, and it may prove to be the decisive leap for them to win the London 2012 Olympic Games.
As usual for the US, victory in Football came on top of several other excellent results in Track (Men’s200m) and Field (gold and silver in the Men’s Decathlon) Athletics and Women Amateur Boxing. Strength in depth is the Americans’ hallmark and the London Games are no exception.
Second-placed China are now 1456 points behind the USA, which appear to be unbeatable. The battle is fierce for third place between Russia (1395 pts) and hosts Great Britain (1379 pts). The 16 points margin is very slim indeed, roughly equivalent to a 6th place in an Athletics event. The highlight of the day for Team GB was victory and third place in the Equestrian Individual Dressage, where they had already won Team gold.
Team ball sports will probably hold the key in the Russia-GBR struggle. Russia is in the Men’s Volleyball gold medal match and will compete for bronze in the Men’s Basketball, while Team GB is in neither competitions.
Team GBR clinched bronze in the Women’s Hockey and the British boys will try to do the same tomorrow.
Finally neither country is in the last four in the Handball, Football, Water Polo tournaments in either gender, nor in the Women’s Volleyball.
Russia has an advantage then, and Great Britain will have to exceed themselves in Athletics to offset this. They will also have to watch Japan in fifth place, only 144 points behind them.
In the top 20 positions: Canada is rising after a bronze medal in Women’s Football, and could well catch Italy in tenth place. Also on the rise are Jamaica, now 12th overall but second in the Athletics ranking, and Kenya, 18th overall and 3rd in the Athletics ranking, with the Marathon events still to go.
