By Josh Squire
Just over a week into the 2024 Olympic action, Australia is on track for a record-breaking haul. Already pocketing 36 medals across all disciplines, including 14 golds, Australia sits in third place on the medal tally and is poised to continue its success.
Commonwealth Games alumni have produced strong performances across the sports. Here are some of the big stories from the first 11 days of competition.
How good is Grace?
The lasting memory from these Olympic Games may well have been delivered on the first night of competition when Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Grace Brown stormed to victory in the women’s Road Cycling Time Trial.
Difficult conditions didn’t seem to have the same effect on Brown as the rest of the field, and she went 90 seconds quicker than any of her competitors to set the golden tone for Australia in one of the very first events of the Games.
Brown returned for the road race but could not emulate the incredible achievements of the time trial, finishing in a respectable 23rd position.
Dolphins girt by medals in the pool
Australia’s happy hunting ground – the pool – was home to 18 medals in the nine days of action. Much like Tokyo, it was the women who raked in the majority of the silverware, spurred on by a duel first night success of seven-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Ariarne Titmus and the women’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay Team.
Huge head-to-head battles in the women’s 200m and 400m Freestyle races were touted as the big moments to watch, but by the end of the week it was hard to go past the 100/200m backstroke double that Kaylee McKeown produced. The three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, who now has five Olympic gold medals to her name, took down the 100m backstroke world record holder Regan Smith and then followed it up with a dominant win in her pet event, the 200m.
In the end, however, Australian hearts warmed most to the beautiful comeback story of four-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Cameron McEvoy. In his fourth Olympics, the speedster finally broke through for the gold medal he sought so feverishly in previous years, nabbing the only men’s individual gold in the pool.
Five-time Birmingham 2022 gold medallist Mollie O’Callaghan rounded out the individuals who stood on the top step of the podium for Australia, getting the better of Titmus before sharing the national anthem experience at the medal ceremony with her in a touching moment.
Seven golds, eight silvers and three bronzes weren’t quite enough to knock off the powerhouse United States squad who finished with eight golds, but it was another strong Olympic showing for the Dolphins.
Records being set across Paris
Early in the Olympic proceedings, we were witness to a string of dominant performances. No team was safe in the women’s rugby sevens when Birmingham 2022 gold medallist Maddison Levi got the ball. 14 tries in her campaign still weren’t enough to get her team onto the podium, but it was the most any woman has scored in a single Olympic tournament in the sport’s short history.
But it took until the track cycling got underway for Australia to claim its first world record of the Paris Games. The men’s Team Tursuit quartet of Sam Welsford, Kelland O’Brien, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn smashed through the previous record time by over a second to secure a place in the gold medal race against Great Britain. Welsford and O’Brien were part of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games team pursuit squad that won gold, while Leahy secured dual bronzes in Birmingham.
Emerging athletes show out
Commonwealth Games Australia have been proudly selecting the next generation of Australian athletes for the Emerging Athlete of the Month award since 2022, and so far, we’ve seen several of them strut their stuff on the world’s biggest stage.
Track duo Torrie Lewis (200m) and Claudia Hollingsworth (800m) both made the semi-finals of their respective competitions. Lewis managed a personal best of 22.89 in the heats to give Aussies a taste of what’s to come as the speedster continues to improve her times.
Newly announced Emerging Athlete of the Month for June, Hwan Bae, produced a valiant effort as part of the men’s table tennis team who went down to fourth ranked Japan in the Round of 16.
Former nominees Ruby Pass and Callum Peters also produced strong showings in their first Olympic Games. Pass was the only Australian to qualify for the women’s Individual All-Around final, where she finished 13th. Peters pushed world champion Nurbek Oralbay from Kazakhstan all the way in the men’s 80kg weight division, narrowly losing on a split decision result 3-2.
End of an era for greats
Of course, with each Olympics being a four-year cycle, emotional farewells are almost certain during each Games, and Paris is no exception. Most notably, swimming will be without 14-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Emma McKeon, who added a gold, silver and bronze to her unmatched Australian tally of 14 medals, bowing out with an iconic jump into the pool following the medal ceremony alongside teammates McKeown, O’Callaghan and Birmingham 2022 silver medallist Jenna Strauch.
Three other stalwarts of Australian sport, Glasgow 2014 gold medallist Jane Claxton in hockey, Gold Coast 2018 gold medallist Melissa Tapper in table tennis and Birmingham 2022 gold medallist Sharni Smale in rugby sevens, are also on the way out post-competition. Claxton’s retirement is effective immediately following a loss to China in the quarter finals, while Tapper will continue through to the Paralympic Games before she finishes. Smale’s rugby sevens career ended after a heartbreaking duo of losses to Canada and the United States in the bronze medal match.
Week two of the Games promises to continue delivering incredible moments for the Australian Team, and we’re sure more success is on the way!
