Aussies eye top-five finish

BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) : Watched by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Australian Olympic delegation strode into the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday night. By sending 434 athletes, Australia aims at a third consecutive top-five finish on the medal table in Beijing. Australia was always one of the first delegations to march in the Olympic ceremonies that paraded participating teams in alphabetic order. However, this time the order was decided by the strokes of each team's first character in its Chinese name, as Australia's first character has 15 strokes against Guinea's two. Australia has competed in every Olympic Games and is one of the sixth nations to have hosted the Summer Games more than once. After staging the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, host Australia peaked in the Sydney Games in 2000 by winning 58 medals, including 16 golds, to finish fourth in the medal tally. Four years later, the Aussies repeated their fourth placing in Athens, thanks to the country's highest ever gold tally of 17. "The fact we finished fourth at the last two Olympics means there is an expectation. We had top-five objectives at both those Games, and we still do," said John Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee.