Paris: Earlier this week at Champions Park – the long, blue catwalk in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower where medallists are paraded each day – Australia appeared to finally receive the recognition from the rest of the world that it truly deserves.
As gold medal-winning sisters Jess and Noémie Fox made their way down the runway, an ear-splitting roar from the crowd filled the precinct.
It soon became apparent the explosion of adulation wasn’t so much for Australia’s favourite siblings but French swimmer Leon Marchand, who had appeared at the other end without his shirt but one of his four gold medals dangling from his neck.
Jess celebrates at the medal ceremony.Credit: AP
Still, the world can’t ignore for much longer what Australia is achieving at these Games, our most successful in history with three days left to play.
I’m not sure about you, but I feel as proud as John Howard wearing his Wallabies tracksuit on a brisk morning walk.
My enormous head bursts with patriotic pride when I look at the medal ladder and see our country placed third behind China (population: 1.4 billion) and the USA (333 million) and ahead of host nation France (67 million) and Great Britain (66 million).
Australia, with a population of 26 million, has sent the third-biggest Olympic team (467) behind the USA (621) and France (600), and it is delivering in ways few had imagined.
David Tarbotton, the Australian Olympic Committee’s Jedi Warrior of all things statistics, tells me our 18 gold medals betters the 17 won in Athens in 2004 and Tokyo in 2020 and 16 in Sydney in 2000.
It was in Sydney that Australia, off the back of considerable government investment, claimed its biggest overall haul of 50 medals. At the time of writing, we’d won 45 in Paris.
Another stat: apart from days nine and 13, Australia has won a gold medal every day since the opening ceremony.
The four golds won on Wednesday, capped with Nina Kennedy’s victory in the pole vault, made it Australia’s most successful day in history. Our overall medal hauls on days one and seven are in the top seven of our most successful days in history.
Nina Kennedy flies high and caps off Australia’s most successful day at the Games.Credit: Corbis via Getty Images
What’s also interesting is Australia’s medals have come from 15 disciplines. We are far more than our swim team.
You can’t win everything, of course, but also consider the sports in which we were considered strong chances, like rowing, rugby and hockey, but yielded just one medal between them.
None of this history-making success is a fluke.
Australia invested heavily and broadly in women’s Olympic sports decades ago and before most of its competitors, and while there’s still some way to go, the results have been there for all to see.
Of the 18 gold won, 13 belong to female athletes. Of the 45 won overall, 27 have come from women.
In the pool, much of Australia’s success has come from our young women, many of whom are under the guidance of super-coaches Michael Bohl and Dean Boxall.
Outside Team USA’s swimming and athletics programs and China’s group of divers, no cohort in any team regularly strikes gold like Australia’s female swimmers.
What’s also helped boost Australia’s medal tally is our ability to change as the Olympics change with the introduction of new sports like skateboarding, from which we’ve won three golds in the last two Games.
The Fox sisters also embody this principle: Jess Fox won gold in the new sport of canoe slalom in Tokyo, then defended the crown in Paris, while Noémie won kayak cross in its debut here last week.
(Their three golds, incidentally, means the outer-western Sydney suburb of Penrith is currently 18th on the ladder, ahead of Brazil, which has a population of 215 million).
Cycling is another example of a sport benefiting from its adaptability.
While track has done remarkably well to bounce back from its gold-less campaign in Tokyo with victory in the men’s pursuit final, AusCycling’s support of the relatively new sport of BMX culminated in Saya Sakakibara winning gold.
BMX champion Saya Sakakibara (left).Credit: AP
Meanwhile, in athletics, concentrating on the events in which we can win the most medals – mostly field events – has paid off, with six medals claimed already.
There’s also a lot of love inside the Australian team for chef de mission Anna Meares and high-performance director Alex Baumann, who are being credited for the job they are doing.
As gold medal winners for Australia and Canada respectively, as well as flag bearers, they inherently know what an Olympic athlete requires. Meares is the face of the team while Baumann has never sought the limelight but has a proven track record.
The results in Paris, though, will paper over many large cracks in Australia’s sporting landscape.
Several Olympic sports are teetering on the brink of insolvency domestically as they fight the AFL, NRL, and cricket for corporate dollars and athletes.
Mainstream codes drag talent away from the likes of water polo, hockey, handball and volleyball, because of the potentially huge sums on offer.
That’s why rugby, despite its challenges, is fortunate because it can offer a pathway to the Olympics to young men and women. Cricket will return to the Olympic program when the Games are held in Los Angeles in 2028.
The AOC is sitting on a trust worth $200 million, and while its function is to fund Olympic teams, it’s a lot of money just sitting there when it could be used to fund Olympic sports.
The AOC needs to find more benefactors like Gina Rinehart (left) lead.Credit: AAP
At least the AOC offers medal incentives, with gold medallists receiving $20,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze. Payment is made per athlete, not medal won. Kennedy will also receive a US$50,000 payment from World Athletics, although other international governing bodies aren’t that generous.
As mentioned in this space earlier in the Games, the AOC will be searching for more Gina Rineharts to do the financial heavy lifting. It’s happening in the US and we should follow the trend.
Those within the Australian team also tell you that success breeds success.
It’s no coincidence that Australia’s Olympics is often determined by how the swimmers perform in the first week. When they struggled in London and Rio, it was felt by the rest of the team. When they revelled in Tokyo and Paris, it turbocharged our campaign.
In Los Angeles, athletics will be held in the first week and swimming in the second.
But that’s a story yet to be written. We’ve still medals to win before they pack up the five-ringed circus on Sunday night for another four years.
The beach volleyball stadium under the Eiffel Tower is one of the Games’ most picturesque venues.Credit: Getty Images
Each of the medals won in Paris contains a small piece of the Eiffel Tower. The way Australia is tracking, it’ll have enough to build its own when we get home.
The AOC has issued a warning to the remaining athletes in the Olympic Village and in Paris about not doing anything silly after they finish competing – like buying cocaine in the fashionable suburb of Montmartre as Kookaburra Tom Craig did earlier this week.
After a night and then day in a police holding cell, Craig was released without charge or conviction, but it was enough for Olympic officials to put the rest of the team on notice.
Your humble correspondent was out and about in Montmartre the night after Craig’s arrest — purely for research! — and I can attest it’s a zoo full of strange and wonderful animals.
THE QUOTE
“I’ve got a lot of thinking to do and do a lot of decisions to make.” – Jamaica’s discus gold medallist Roje Stona, who broke the Olympic record, is considering a shot at the NFL. He’s already had tryouts with the Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints. That’s a worrying sign for field.
THUMBS UP
In the moments before the men’s 200m final, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo looked up to the heavens. He then ran the race of his life, beating the USA’s Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles, who left the track in a wheelchair and later revealed he had run after testing positive for COVID. Tebogo lost his biggest supporter, his mum Seratiwa, in May.
Letsile Tebogo celebrates his Olympic victory.Credit: Getty Images
THUMBS DOWN
Draaaaaama in the women’s hockey semi-final between China and Belgium with China’s Fan Yunxia cannoning a ball in frustration into the leg of opponent Delphine-Daphne Marien after full-time. She only received a yellow card when it should have been red … before China won the penalty shootout.
It’s a big day in Paris for … Opals coach Sandy Brondello, who must decide whether to unleash veteran Lauren Jackson for the women’s basketball semi-final against the USA at Bercy Arena. Jackson hasn’t played in the last two matches, but what a sight it would be.
It’s an even bigger day in Paris for … France as it plays for gold in the men’s football against arch-rivals Spain at Parc des Princes, the home ground of Paris Saint-Germain. The host nation, coached by legendary Arsenal striker Thierry Henry, is attempting to win their first gold since Los Angeles in 1984.
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