One word to describe our Aussie Olympic Games performance at Paris 2024: simply extraordinary!! That’s right we finished 4th overall on the medal tally with 18 gold, 18 silver and 14 bronze after 16-18 days of action, which is our most successful games ever since Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 with also back-to-back 4th.
Sure, we might not be the biggest country when it comes to size and investments with likes of USA and China who always finish 1st and 2nd, but still we had plenty of stunning gold medal moments though including some in silver and bronze when it comes to various other sports as we relive our golden fortnight.
Our Aussie Dolphins Swim Team always as strong as ever in the pool with seven gold medals despite being pipped by Team USA on the ninth and final night last weekend. We continue to see more success of Jess Fox with her sister Noemie now a first time Olympic gold medalist in the women’s canoeing events that made her canoeing family proud with their parents dad Richard (a former British slalom canoeist) & mum Myriam (also a former French canoeist who won bronze back via the K1 class race in Atlanta 1996 for France), especially where Jess and Noemie are both Western Sydneysiders from Penrith.
We also love riding with glory on a bicycle where one came on the road from Grace Brown via time trial, another coming from BMX in Saya Sakakibara after an emotional last few years, and one on the velodrome with the men’s team pursuit.
What else? We went skateboarding & collected two gold there thanks to 14-year-old Arisa Trew & 23-year-old Keegan Palmer in their respective women’s and men’s park events. We also can’t forget our men’s tennis triumph last weekend at Roland Garros when Matt Ebden & John Peers came from behind to win over USA’s Austin Krajicek & Rajeev Ram via 3rd set tiebreak to 10 in the men’s doubles Final since Todd Woodbridge & Mark Woodforde back in Atlanta 1996.
We also did well over in the sailing when Matthew Wearn successfully defended the men’s laser event from Tokyo 2020 on what has been his second straight Olympic gold triumph. And finally in the track and field/athletics, Nina Kennedy became the 18th and final Aussie gold medalist of Paris 2024 when she won Olympics gold for the first time in the women’s pole vault – how good was that!!
She had an outstanding 12-24 months that began with Diamond League & Commonwealth Games title in 2022 as well as by a World Championship win last year in Budapest, Hungry, and now Nina’s an Olympic champion fast forward to Paris 2024!! Keep an eye out for her as she has came from a long way since her setbacks at the start of this 2020s decade & she knows how to respond with by achieving so many huge accolades along the way!!
As Paris 2024 has drawn to an excellent close, we now say goodbye to Paris who has been a great host over these last 16-18 days of world-class sports competition. Next stop: Los Angeles in the United States of America when the 34th Summer Olympics edition will take place in July 14-30 2028.
