Olympics round-up: Laciga brothers on target for medal

Swiss sportsmen and women had a mixed day at the Sydney Olympics: One of the best performances was recorded by the Laciga brothers who beat the competititon favourites from Australia in the beach volleyball tournament.

Martin and Paul Laciga had little trouble reaching the quarter-finals beating the highly-rated Australians Prosser and Zahner 15-8 in 47 minutes in front of a crowd of 10,000 people at Bondi beach.

The Australians were rated number one in the tournament.

Switzerland’s last remaining singles tennis player in Sydney, Roger Federer, has qualified for the third round after beating the Slovak player Karol Kucera 6-4, 7-6.

Federer will meet the Swedish player, Mikael Tilström, in the next round.

As the early track events got underway, Mireille Donders failed to get through her qualifying heat for the 100 metres, finishing fifth in a time of 11.63 seconds.

The race was intended as a warm-up for Donders who will be taking part in the 200 metres.

Another Swiss team which fell by the wayside on Friday was the men’s 100 metres swimming relay team. They beat the Swiss record by 39 hundredths of a second with a time of 3:42.78 but it wasn’t enough to qualify for the next round.

swissinfo with agencies