Last updated at 11:59, Thursday, 02 August 2012

Cumbrian pair Alan Wills and Chloe Wilcox endured Olympic Games heartbreak despite their eye-catching performances.

Alan Wills

Wills is out of the Olympics after a day of drama when his battle with Australia’s Taylor Worth was tied at 5-5 when the Cumbrian came from 4-2 and 5-3 behind to force sudden death.

But Worth stepped off the hallowed turf a 6-5 victor over Frizington’s finest after a one-arrow shoot-off.

And two goals from Carlisle-born sharpshooter Chloe Wilcox were not enough to stop Great Britain falling to a heavy defeat to Australia in the women’s water polo.

The Team GB star scored once in each of the first two quarters, but the Sydney 2000 gold medallists proved too strong as they dominated a physical encounter 16-3.

Wilcox, who is now Team GB’s joint top scorer in the Olympic competition, was joined in the host nation team for the second time by Burton-in-Kendal’s Alex Rutlidge.

They both helped contain the girls from Down Under in the first two quarters, with the deficit just 6-2 at half-time, but the Australians powered away after the break – Rowie Webster scoring five goals.

“We expected it to be a lot more of a physical game and they gave it to us,” said 25-year-old Wilcox, who also netted in GB’s opening 7-6 defeat to Russia on Monday.

“The Aussies are a really good team, but I’m just absolutely gutted to have come out with that kind of result. We wanted to keep it close – everybody believed going into the game that we could win it, but it wasn’t our day.”

For Wills, it all came down to a single arrow,

Worth stepped forward and fired his best arrow of the day – right into the middle of the gold on the X.

Suddenly, Wills was under huge pressure and needed to match that effort to stay in the match.

Concentration etched on his face, the 30-year-old – dreaming of advancing to the last-16 tomorrow – stood, front arm shaking slightly with the tension and released. To his eye, the arrow looked good, but it drifted slightly low and to the left, just outside the 10.

“That’s it, eh? The last four years all on one shot!” he said. “That’s just the way it is though. Maybe in the future, if archery adapts and changes, the sets will maybe last a bit longer. That’s the way it goes – it is one arrow. I didn’t miss, or put it in the blue, I put it really close to the 10, so I would have been happy with that in any other shoot-off. Shooting 70m, I’m half a degree off my game then I miss the whole target, so for me an inch away from him – and I’ve got a little bit of shake going on as well, because the adrenalin is pumping – it was either going an inch that way or an inch closer.”

First published at 11:26, Thursday, 02 August 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk