Paris: In the end, the much-hyped battle between Australia and Team USA was a fizzer. Since last year’s world championships, when Cate Campbell went after the USA’s national anthem and penchant for a cowbell in a tongue-in-cheek interview on Channel Nine, the narrative for these Games has been about how “our greatest ever swim team” was going to wipe the floor with them in Paris. The swimmers didn’t give it much energy nor oxygen, but an obsession with winning more gold than our significantly larger rival quickly developed.
It was dangerous rhetoric that was setting them up to fail. It says everything about the ethos within the team, and the character of the current bunch, that they could ignore the hype and perform as they did in Paris. Heading into the final night of a program that seems to get longer with each Olympics, Australia had won seven golds and the USA had six.
American Bobby Finke ’s world-record win in the men’s 1500m drew them level. The final race of the night, the women’s 4x100m medley final, would decide it. Team USA won comfortably, with Australia second.
Bobby Finke drew the US level with Australia on seven gold medals when he won the men’s 1500-metre freestyle. Credit: AP Our swim team needn’t compare themselves to our biggest rivals to gauge whether it was a successful meet. Australia might have fallen two short of the nine gold won in Tokyo, but it was a successful meet, continuing the sport’s upward trajectory after lean times in London and Rio.
Asked on Sunday night if seven gold was what he expected, head coach Rohan Taylor admitted the haul was a little light. “It’s pretty close,” he said. “We’re probably just a little bit down on some conversions [from trials to Olympics] .
.. but it’s not far off the mark.
I’ll sit back and I’ll look at where we’re going to and where we need to improve four years from now. The beauty is, we have four years to get to Los Angeles. We’ve got a young team of really good, young studs that are coming through.
We’ve got some young ones that maybe didn’t get the best out of themselves here, that are really hungry to get back.” Swimming is a brutal sport. Your body can fail you at the worst possible time.
Sam Short had a god-awful stomach bug at the selection trials in July and he’s never really recovered. The 400m world champion, he finished fourth in the final . He failed to reach the final in the 800m and 1500m.
Those close to him report that he’s shattered. Emma McKeon , who has declared this is her last Olympics, couldn’t capture the magic of Tokyo, where she won four gold. Mollie O’Callaghan was considered a lock for the 100m freestyle, but didn’t medal.
Her response afterwards, though, was gold: “I have to suck it up and wait another four years.” Mollie O’Callaghan has her eyes on Los Angeles in four years. Credit: Getty Images Zac Stubblety-Cook would have won the 200m breaststroke but happened to come up against an athlete who was experiencing the best week of his young life.
Amid all the talk about Australia and the USA, we forgot about a French swimmer who is being mentored by Michael Phelps’ old coach and may well end up just as successful as the American legend. These are great days for Australian swimming, which has been mired in dysfunction in the front office for years with a procession of chief executives and chairs. While the country’s richest person, Gina Rinehart , is an important benefactor to the sport, most of its funding comes from the Australian taxpayer.
The same support is needed if our swimmers are to shine in Brisbane in 2032. What Brisbane organisers must consider is where they hold the event. The decision in Paris to erect a pool in the middle of an indoor stadium used for concerts and rugby matches was a masterstroke.
The atmosphere was superb. In Los Angeles in 2028, swimming will be held in a makeshift pool in the middle of SoFi Stadium, the 100,000-seat home ground for the LA Rams and Chargers. The capacity will be reduced to 40,000, but Brisbane organisers could do worse than toying with the idea of plonking it in the middle of Suncorp Stadium.
From the moment the International Boxing Association and its president, Umar Kremlev , started going out of their way to turn these Olympics into a gender culture war, serious questions about the testing of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting have gone unanswered. There are plenty of unanswered questions about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. Credit: Eddie Jim Specifically, what were the tests, where are the results and why did they allow the two boxers to fight at the 2023 world championships – where they were banned mid-tournament – after they failed a test in 2022, as per the IBA’s media release.
To its credit, the IBA will hold a media conference in Paris on Monday evening to apparently give “detailed explanation of the reasons for the disqualification”. Fronting the press will be IBA secretary general and chief executive Chris Roberts , former chair of the IBA medical committee, Dr Ioannis Filippatos , IBA sport director Marko Petrič , and IBA coaches committee chairman Gabriele Martelli . Three babies had to be escorted out of Roland Garros during the Novak Djokovic - Carlos Alcaraz final by their parents for crying during the match.
Djokovic’s serve was held up at one point, with the embarrassed dad yelling out and apologising to the Serbian superstar on his way out, receiving a round of applause from a crowd that only moments earlier were shooshing what looked like a two-year old girl. Novak Djokovic wasn’t put off by crying babies in the crowd at Roland Garros. Credit: Getty Images It didn’t faze Djokovic: he won 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-2), claiming the only known trophy he hasn’t claimed.
THE QUOTE “You guys really gotta stop asking athletes what’s next after they win a medal at the Olympics. Let us soak up the moment we’ve worked our whole lives for.” – USA gymnast Simone Biles ’ post on X, clearly tired of retirement questions.
She’s the oldest gymnast on the team since 1964. THUMBS UP In one of the truly great men’s 100m finals, American Noah Lyles lived up to his own hype and talk with a brilliant finish to pip Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson . Noah Lyles celebrates his thrilling victory in the men’s 100 metres.
Credit: AP THUMBS DOWN France has some of the strictest employment and labour laws in the world, but you wonder if they’re being applied to the poor souls wearing the heavy Phryges (pronounced free-jes ) mascot uniforms in stifling heat all day long. At the very least give them some Rexona or the like because the bad BO seeping through their bright red outfits could stop a train. It’s a big day in Paris for .
.. Torrie Lewis , Australia’s fastest woman, who will need to reach the 200m sprint the hard way despite running a personal best in her heat.
She needs to win a repechage to reach the semi-final. It’s an even bigger day for ..
. Jack Robinson , who meets former Brazilian world champion Gabriel Medina in the semi-finals of the men’s surfing — depending, of course, on conditions at Teahupo’o in Tahiti. For Olympics news, results and expert analysis sent daily throughout the Games, sign up for our Sport newsletter .
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