Patty Mills promised to take his bronze medal home to hang up at his mum and dad’s house, but first he used it to sip beer off and danced up a storm as the Boomers toasted their bronze medal win at the Tokyo Olympics.
A video doing the rounds on social media showed the team partying with guests and singing along to Men at Work’s classic Down Under.
As on the court during the Olympic campaign, Mills was the star attraction.
And Joe Ingles reacted to the social media post suggesting it would have been a great party to have been at by responding with: ‘Who says it’s stopped.”
Who says it’s stopped? ???? https://t.co/OYcxC8BJz4
— Joe Ingles (@Joeingles7) August 9, 2021
The bronze medal ended 65 years of hurt for the men’s basketball team, who had had four fourth-placed finishes before beating Slovenia to the gold medal.
Mills carried the flag for Australia at the opening ceremony and was immense throughout the tournament, scoring a game high 42 points in the bronze game.
He was also the only Australian named to FIBA’s All Star Five of the Olympics, alongside his new Brooklyn teammate Kevin Durant.
Mills also delivered the interview of the Games after the Slovenia win, amid plenty of emotion from basketball fans.
“We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Mills said to a choked up TV presenter Mel McLaughlin.
“It’s taken a lot of experiences, a lot of ups a lot of downs for us to get over the hump.
“It’s our culture at the end of the day, our Australian culture.
“Aussie spirit, it’s the boys being able to hang together understand what it means to represent your country and how deep the layers go for it to all come pouring out in moments like this and now that we’ve made it over the hill this is the standard now for Australian basketball for men we take nothing less.
“We say gold vibes only as a standard and we don’t accept anything less off the court on the court all of our preparation.
“And it pays off in the long run. I don’t know whether to cry, laugh, smile, a lot of emotions.
“It’s time to bring an Olympic medal home to our country Australia so I can hang it up at mum and dad’s house.”
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