Olympics: Men's hockey and Tall Blacks regain magic touch

7.25am

Twin success for the men's hockey and basketball teams have finally given the New Zealand Olympic team something to smile about.

A day after a handful of athletes dropped out of medal contention, the men's hockey team powered past Argentina 3-1 after the Tall Blacks rocked world champions Serbia-Montenegro.

Both teams posted their first wins at the Olympics, with drag flick specialist Hayden Shaw opening the scoring in the hockey.

Further goals to Bevan Hari and Phillip Burrows gave New Zealand their first win after a flat 1-4 loss to Australia and a heartbreaking 3-4 defeat to the Netherlands.

The Tall Blacks also rediscovered their magic touch in time to keep their Olympic dream alive when they knocked over Serbia-Montenegro in the men's basketball preliminaries in Athens last night (NZ time).

A loss for either team would have meant near-certain elimination, but New Zealand's upset victory left both with one win and two losses in a six-team pool where only the top four progress to the quarterfinals.

"We made the big step to the quarterfinals. Now we have to win one more game," New Zealand guard Phill Jones said. "It's amazing."

The irony of the 90-87 victory was not lost on the Tall Blacks. It kept New Zealand in the hunt for an Olympic medal, after the Balkan team -- competing as Yugoslavia -- deprived them of a medal at the 2002 world championships by beating them in the semifinals.

"We took revenge," New Zealand forward Dillon Boucher said.

The Serbs were annoyed at a controversial call 20 seconds from the buzzer that helped the Tall Blacks.

Leading 87-86, an offensive foul was called on Milos Vuljanic when the Serbs claimed he had been fouled as the Serbs were inbounding the ball. New Zealand capitalised on the decision with Sean Marks dunking from the play to put them into an 88-87 lead.

Mark Dickel made two free throws in the closing seconds, while the Serbs missed two three-point attempts.

Serbia-Montenegro coach Zeljko Obradovic waved his finger at the referees and harangued them as they walked off the court.

"The decision with 20 seconds left ... directly affected the game," he said. "The decision was a gift to the team that won the game."

New Zealand's windsurfing "rainbow girl" Barbara Kendall suffered another setback in her bid to add to her collection of Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals, when for the second time in the Athens regatta she was relegated to last place in the women's Mistral fleet for crossing the start line prematurely.

Early this morning (NZ time) the New Zealand team were considering whether to protest the decision, which relegated her to 12th place overall after five of the scheduled 11 races.

Best New Zealand performances on the Aegean Sea on day six of the Games came from Sarah Macky, who finished sixth and fourth in the two Europe class races today to be seventh overall after eight races.

In the Olympic pool, New Zealand's Hannah McLean rebounded from her earlier disappointing 100m backstroke effort to swim personal best times twice in the 200m backstroke.

She advanced from the heats as ninth fastest qualifier in 2min 13.33sec, shaving 0.04sec off her national record. Then she cut her national mark to 2min 12.87sec to be fifth in her semifinal and 10th fastest overall, so she missed out on qualifying for the final.

South African-born Corney Swanepoel, viewed as New Zealand's best chance of making an Olympic swimming final in Athens, sneaked into the 100m butterfly semifinals as 15th fastest qualifier from the heats.

Swanepoel's 53.07sec swim was well off his New Zealand record and personal best of 52.50sec.

He improved in the semifinals but not enough to reach the final -- his 52.99sec swim had him eighth in his race and 13th overall.

- NZPA