The Olympics have finally concluded and while Ausrtalia’s eight gold medals is a good return, it’s clear we expected more.
Archery produced a bronze in the men’s team, for which they should rightly be applauded.
However, individually Australia disappointed. Taylor Worth lost on a shoot off, our other two men failed to advance past the round of 64, and in women’s individual, Alice Ingley lost in the round of 32. However, she was the 58th seed, so that is somewhat excusable.
In athletics, Australia achieved two medals, both in race-walking. Dane-Bird Smith achieving bronze in the 20 kilometres and Jared Tallent taking silver in the 50.
Australia failed to achieve much else, although I can accept the non-medal positions from the other events. Furthermore, Tallent has said that he should be competing at Tokyo 2020, so at least that’s something to look forward to.
In basketball, our men’s team was going extremely well until they played Serbia in the semi-finals. The match was an embarrassment. Australia had a horrible first half, leading basketball legend Andrew Gaze to put his head in his hands according to commentary on Channel Seven.
Let’s remind ourselves that this team had beaten Serbia by ten points in the groups, and proceeded to lose by 26 points in a semi-final. To add to that pain, the Boomers lost to Spain by a single point in the bronze medal match.
Our women’s team fared worse however, as they lost a quarter-final to Serbia by just two points, after they had been undefeated in group play.
In boxing, 2014 Commonwealth Games champion Shelley Watts lost to an 18-year-old Italian in a two-to-one decision.
In the canoeing/kayaking, Jessica Fox won our sole medal in the slalom, while Lachlan Tame and Ken Wallace achieved our second bronze in the K-2 1000m. The remainder sadly underwhelmed.
Cycling did us no favours, as the women suffered major injuries before they started, resulting in Anna Meares being the only female medalist, with a bronze in the keirin. The male cyclists also underwhelmed, with the sole bright spot being a silver to the men’s team pursuit, where gold went to our old rivals in Great Britain.
Diving produced a bronze for Australia through Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith’s performance in the 3-metre synchronised springboard. However, we failed to medal in all of the other events we contested.
Equestrian bought the most pain for me. If there’s anyone who can say they tried as hard as possible, it’s Chris Burton. With a young horse, he performed a perfect cross-country. Sadly, his horse undermined him on the jumping portion, leading him to go from first to fifth after jumps. Still, his performance was enough to win Australia a bronze in the team event.
In field hockey, both Australia’s teams failed to medal for the first time since 1984. It is shocking that one of the best nations in the world fails to even medal. This will likely see a review after these games.
In football, the Matildas have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. After a loss to Canada, the team achieved a shock draw with Germany and thrashed Zimbabwe to reach the quarter-finals, where they met Brazil and lost in a penalty shootout – the football equivalent of a Tattslotto draw – and for that they should feel extremely proud.
Australia did decently in golf, with Marcus Fraser achieving a shock seventh, while Scott Henderson finished in 39th. In the women’s event, our two golfers finished in seventh and 15th – decent results.
Australia didn’t advance to a single gymnastics final, which was expected. Judo also isn’t a sport we typically do well in so as a result our lack of success is reasonable.
If there was a major surprise from these games, it was in modern pentathlon, where Chloe Esposito shocked the world by winning Australia’s first medal of any colour in the event – gold – and achieved an Olympic record in the process. Our male entrant didn’t do as well, finishing seventh.
In rowing, the men’s four and quadruple sculls won silver, while Kim Brennan achieved gold in single skulls, which was a great achievement.
That leads us to rugby sevens, where the men’s team finished eighth, while the women’s team made history as they became the first Olympic gold medalists in rugby sevens, an amazing accomplishment for women’s sport.
Sailing was the best event for medals. Tom Burton achieved a miracle as he finished third in the medal race and the Croatian finished well behind him, leading to a gold for Australia. The men’s 470 and 49er class, and the mixed nacra 17 event produced three silvers.
In shooting, Catherine Skinner advanced to their final, and with the pressure of the whole Australian shooting team on her shoulders, she won a gold in the trap event.
That leads us to swimming. Where do we even start? Let’s see what gold medals the AOC predicted we’d win.
Mitch Larkin – 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke
Bronte Campbell – 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle
Emily Seebohm – Swimming 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke
Women’s 4x100m freestyle relay
The AOC failed to predict the golds that would be achieved by Mack Horton and Kyle Chalmers, and only got one of the above predictions correct – the women’s relay. Larkin was the only other prediction to win a medal, a silver in the 200m backstroke.
If you need one person to focus on it’s got to be Cate Campbell. After she achieved an Olympic record in her heat and semi-final in the 100 metres freestyle, she committed the self-described “worst choke in Olympic history” as she proceeded to finish sixth in the final.
However there were many other disappointments. There must once again be a review into swimming in Australia, because these disappointments are unacceptable.
Synchronised swimming was a further disappointment, as in the team event we finished eighth and failed to make the duet final.
Table tennis was a relative success, as Lay Jian Fang reached the round of 32, though Melissa Tapper couldn’t achieve similar success.
Safwan Khalil finished seventh in men’s Taekwondo, while all other competitors failed to advance past the first round.
Tennis was also disappointing though that was due to the lack of strength in the team as both Nick Kyrigos and Bernard Tomic refused to compete.
In the triathlon there were some decent finishes, as Ryan Bailie and Ryan Fisher finished in the top ten in the men’s event, and Emma Moffatt was sixth in the women’s event.
In volleyball, Louise Bawden and Taliqua Clancy made it to the quarter-finals, only to run into an almost unbeatable United States team.
Our men’s water polo team failed to advance to the quarters, despite a win in their final group game against Italy. Upon losing on penalties to Hungary in the quarter-finals, our women’s team defeated Brazil in the placement semi-finals, then lost to Spain in the fifth-place game.
Weightlifting didn’t produce any meaningful results. However, given that we aren’t expected to do well in the event, it wasn’t that disappointing.
Wrestling is another event that we don’t typically do well in so our losses were expected.
Here’s hoping we’re more successful in Tokyo.
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