Yachting and dressage provide bright spots for NZ

New Zealand skipper Rod Davis squeezed his way into the Soling semifinals at the Sydney Olympic yachting regatta on Tuesday, keeping his bid for a third Olympic medal alive.

Davis won the Soling class gold medal for the United States at the 1984 Games and silver in the Star in 1992 with Don Cowie, who is crewing for him again at the Sydney Olympics along with Alan Smith.

The win put them into a three-way tie with Norway and the Netherlands. The Dutch missed the semifinals on a countback from last week's fleet racing results – and have appealed.

The day after Bruce Goodin put New Zealand show-jumping on the map by jointly holding the lead after the first round, Kallista Field excelled today in the Olympic dressage - another equestrian cinderella sport in New Zealand.

Whether she goes to the ball, the Grand Prix Special for the top 25 riders, depends on how other riders go on Wednesday. But the vivacious rider from Pahiatua had a ball on Tuesday on her mare Waikare.

The Tall Ferns and Tall Blacks finished their Olympic campaigns on highs - well 11th places, one off the bottom for both the women's and men's basketball competitions.

The women beat African women's champions Senegal 72-69 in a thrilling play-off on Tuesday.

New Zealand were without their topscoring centre Gina Farmer, who couldn't run or jump after falling heavily in their previous match. But her younger sister Sally came off the bench to play a starring role, alongside Megan Compain and Tania Brunton.

The men beat their African opposition, Angola, by a more comfortable 70-60 margin after giving a couple of other teams a shake-up in pool matches.

Jacinta Coleman overcame her fear of water and finished a creditable 18th in the women's road cycling race, contested on a hazardous rainswept course. She was in the bunch who were all clocked on the same time as gold medallist Leontien Zijlaard of the Netherlands.

Roz Reekie-May was 36th after being blocked by one of several crashes.

The third New Zealander in the race, Susy Pryde, who pulled out of the Olympic moutainbike race after crashing three times, had another spill on Tuesday. She carried on, caught up with the bunch and then punctured. Having arrived in Sydney with the after-effects of a viral infection, she finally accepted fate was against her and withdrew from the race.

Former triple jumper and bobsleigh racer Nigel Avery broke all three Commonwealth records for the over 105kg division in the Olympic weightlifting on Tuesday with 172.5kg for the snatch, 210kg for the clean and jerk and his total of 37.5kg.

- NZPA