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articles Kowalski wins bronze A sense of deja vu filtered through the Australian swimming team tonight as it claimed a solitary bronze medal from the first night of finals at the Atlanta Olympic Games - exactly the same result as in Barcelona four years ago. It was Victorian Daniel Kowalski's turn in 1996 to get the Australian medal count going with a bronze in the 200m freestyle. That role in 1992 fell on South Australian Phil Rogers when he took a bronze in the 100m breaststroke. But Rogers could not repeat the effort here tonight - despite a faster time - and had to settle for fifth. Head coach Don Talbot was a little disappointed that although his Australian squad had not gone backwards in its Olympic performance, it had not gone forward either. "We got four finalists and we got one bronze out of it ... you sort of hope for better than that but still...," Talbot said. It was the night of the unknowns with three nations - Ireland, Belgium and New Zealand - winning their first individual golds at Olympic swimming competition. China claimed the other and all up the host nation, the United States, had to be content with two silvers and a bronze before a tightly packed and very vocal Georgia crowd. Australia won its first medal in the pool when Victorian Daniel Kowalski sneaked up on the leaders from over in lane seven and grabbed the bronze in the 200m freestyle - the last event on tonight's Day One of the Atlanta swim program. Kowalski, who turned 21 the day he left Australia to come to the Olympics,
touched in a PB 1m:48.25 behind New Zealand's Danyon Loader (1:47.63)
and Brazil's Gustavo Borges (1:48.08).
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