As some of you will have heard, Kirk and Jason made the semis at this years Klagenfurt Grand Slam in Austria, two weeks prior to the Olympics.
The Klagenfurt event has become the most prestigious event on the World Tour, with the 6,000 seat stadium sold out every session. The crowd goes wild here, as you will see in the film.
The following link gives you a glimpse of what it was like at NZ's first ever semifinal on the World Tour. The footage was taken by a good friend of the team, BK, who was on tour following the Canadian team Cadiuex/Heese. (Mark Heese has placed 3rd-1996, 5th-2000, 5th-2004 Olympics but like us missed out for Beijing)
In reaching the semi finals, Pitman/Lochhead, beat the following teams who competed at Beijing
Gosch/Horst AUT - Finished 5th in Beijing
Geor/Gia GEO - Finished 4th in Beijing
In the semi-finals they lost to the silver medalists at the 2007 World Championships, Barsouk/Kolodinsky and although taking Ricardo/Emanuel BRA (bronze at Beijing) to three sets and serving for the match at 15-14 up in the 3rd set, they eventually lost 18-16.
Since the boys started playing together in 2004, other players and fans have always asked them when they were going to do the haka, to which they always replied "When we make a semi-final.... then we'll do the Haka". Five years ago that seemed like a distant goal, this year it happened, dulling somewhat the disappointment of missing out on qualifying for Beijing.
For those of you who know her, the fan waving the NZ flag is Feline.