July 31, 2012

Stanford Olympic Page

Official London 2012 Olympic Page

STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford's Olympians met with success on some of the most hallowed grounds of English sport Tuesday at the London Games, highlighted by U.S. women's soccer's win at Manchester United's Old Trafford and the Bryan Brothers grabbing a doubles win on grass lawn of Wimbledon.

In Women's Gymnastics action...
Stanford's Kristina Vaculik, who will be a sophomore at Stanford this fall, contributed to a record-setting effort for the Canadian team. Canada's fifth-place finish in the team final at North Greenwich Arena was Canada's best-ever team finish.

Canada scored 170.804 points to edge Great Britain (170.495) for fifth. Canada had never finished higher than ninth in a non-boycotted Olympics.

In the team final format, each team uses three individuals for each event and each score counts. Vaculik, Canada's reigning all-around champion, competed on the uneven bars (14.166) and balance beam (13.433). Her bars score tied for 16th best in the competition and her beam placed her 20th.

In Equestrian action...
Thailand's Nina Ligon, an incoming freshman at Stanford, finished 41st in the individual three-day event, which concluding with the jumping portion on Tuesday.

In Women's Soccer action...
Ali Riley '10 helped New Zealand to a historic day. The Football Ferns had never won a match in a World Cup or Olympic Games until beating Cameroon, 3-0, in Coventry, England.

The result pushed New Zealand (1-2, 3 points) through to the quarterfinals, squeezing in as the third-place team in four-team Group E. New Zealand was the last qualifier, edging North Korea on goal differential. North Korea, third place in Group G, was minus-4. The Football Ferns were even.

New Zealand will play the United States on Friday at 6:30 a.m.

In Manchester, England, Rachel Buehler '07 and Kelley O'Hara '10 helped the United States to a 1-0 victory over North Korea at Old Trafford.

The U.S., with co-captain Buehler in the central defense and O'Hara at right outside back, finished atop Group G with a 3-0 record.

In Men's Swimming action...
Three of Stanford's four men's swimmers saw their first Olympic action Tuesday.

David Dunford '10, representing Kenya, finished third with a time of 49.60 in the fifth heat of the 100-meter freestyle competition. That time, however, was not among the top 16 after the preliminaries finished, and Dunford did not make the semifinals.

Tobias Oriwol '06 and Markus Rogan '04 competed in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay, representing Canada and Austria, respectively. Neither country's time ranked in the top eight and they failed to qualify for the final.

Both teams swam in the second preliminary heat, with Canada taking seventh (7:15.22) and Austria eighth (7:17.94) in the heat.

In Men's Tennis action...
Pushed to the limit for a second straight match, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan hung on to defeat Russia's duo of Nikolay Davydenko and Mikhail Youzhny 7-6 (6), 7-6 (1) on Tuesday afternoon in a second round doubles match at the All-England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club in Wimbledon.

Three days after notching a 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 6-3 victory over Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci and Andre Sa in their opener, the Bryan Brothers were able to grind out another challenging match and punch their ticket to the quarterfinals.

Seeded No. 1 in the 32-team draw, the Bryan Brothers will next face the winner of Switzerland's Roger Federer/Stanislas Wawrinka (No. 6 seed) and Israel's Jonathan Erlich/Andy Ram (unseeded).

Of the five sets combined over the Bryan Brothers' first two matches, four have been decided by tiebreaker.

The Bryan Brothers have captured 78 career doubles titles, representing an all-time men's team record. The duo has competed in two Olympic competitions, earning a bronze medal finish at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and reaching the quarterfinals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

In Men's Water Polo action...
Peter Varellas '06 recorded his second straight hat trick as the U.S. came from behind to defeat Romania, 10-8, Tuesday.

Tony Azevedo '05 added a goal for the second straight game. Layne Beaubien '99 and Peter Hudnut '03 saw action in the game as well.

Azevedo and Varellas netted the first two U.S. goals Tuesday, pulling the Americans even at 1-1 and 2-2. The U.S. was forced to play catch-up until midway through the third period, when the team finally took a lead at 6-5 on Ryan Bailey's goal with 1:56 left in the frame.

Varellas would score his second of the game just 50 seconds later, capping a 4-0 U.S. run that started at the end of the second period and flipped a 5-3 U.S. deficit into a 7-5 lead.

The U.S. defense held the Romanians scoreless for a span of 12:28 spanning the 2:11 mark of the second period until the first Romanian goal of the second half, with 5:43 remaining in the game. That goal cut the U.S. lead to one at 7-6, but a goal from Adam Wright followed by Varellas' third with 2:09 to play put the Americans in comfortably in front at 9-6.

The U.S. (2-0, four points), atop Group B with Serbia, next faces host Great Britain Thursday at 10:20 a.m. PT (6:20 p.m. local time).