Editorial: Golden moments to cherish

It's been a great weekend of sport, first with our Olympian rowers picking up gold over the weekend and our own Sam Bewley grabbing his second bronze medal in the men's cycling team pursuit.

To add to the weekend sporting extravaganza we had Dave Rennie's Chiefs win their first Super Rugby title in the final in Hamilton.

It has made getting up in the wee hours of the morning to watch the action at the Olympics so worthwhile. Seeing Bewley punch the air in triumph was a great sight. It's fantastic to see our elite sports stars showing some emotion.

Look at Sonny Bill Williams' reaction when he scored a try. He ran to the crowd and leapt into some excited spectators. Then after the match the team did a stirring haka. This was not an off-the-cuff sort of thing. They timing and execution would suggest the team had learned and practised the haka. Fantastic stuff!

As for Bewley, well his effort was huge but it was marked with a tinge of sadness with the 25-year-old saying haere ra to a successful track cycling programme.

He collected bronze in the men's team pursuit along with Jesse Sergent, Aaron Gate and Marc Ryan and it matched his achievements in Beijing. He also medalled three times at world championships and won two World Cup events.

The former Rotorua Boys' High School student has decided to concentrate on his road cycling career. Especially since he signed with Australian-based pro-cycling team GreenEdge.

He joins fellow Rotorua pro-rider Julian Dean on the Australian team and Linda Villumsen who is also in the women's squad.

If he puts half the effort into his road cycling career that he did with the track, we could see the rise of another great road cyclist like Dean.

While we are halfway through the Olympics there are still plenty of our Bay of Plenty Olympians to look out for and hopefully add to our medal tally. Three of them are strong medal prospects - Valerie Adams, Lisa Carrington and Sarah Walker - and we can't forget mountain biker Karen Hanlen or the old warrior himself, triathlete Bevan Docherty.

So I'll continue with the early starts in the hope to pick up another memorable Olympic moment.