Good evening!

Well done, you made it to Friday. There’s one more jam-packed weekend of Olympic action left before a four-year wait until the next games so make sure to soak it up.

I’m taking a short break from writing the newsletter and will be back soon. In the meantime, my colleagues will take you through this weekend and next week! It’s been a pleasure helping you all navigate the sporting chaos of the Olympics.

Before I leave, here is one of my favourite quotes to come out of the games so far. Australian rugby women’s sevens coach Tim Walsh paraphrased poet Rudyard Kipling after his team was upset by the U.S. and missed out on a medal,

"Triumph and disaster; they are both impostors and you have to treat them the same way,"

I won’t elaborate but I think it’s some pretty good food for thought!

Paris ‘24: Medal tally

Paris ‘24: Tonight’s top moments

Friday 9th August (All times are in AEST)

⛳ 5:00pm: Women’s Golf (Round 3)
The women’s Olympic golf tournament continues today. Hannah Green (tied 29th) will tee off at 6:44pm and Minjee Lee (tied 22nd) will tee off at 7:17pm. Switzerland’s Morgane Métraux is in the lead.

🏃‍♂️6:05pm: Women’s Heptathlon (Long Jump, Javelin)
Camryn Newton-Smith and Tori West will compete in the long jump and javelin components of the women’s heptathlon from 6:05pm.

🛶 6:50pm: Canoe Sprint, Men’s and Women’s K2 500m (Semi-Finals and Finals 🥇)
Australia’s two K2 canoe sprint crews are in action tonight. The women race their semi-final at 6:50pm with an A final to follow at 9pm. The men race their semi-final at 7:20pm with the A final to follow at 9:20pm. Both crews must finish in the top four in the semi to qualify for their respective A finals.

🏃‍♂️ 7:50pm: Men’s 800m (Semi-Final 3)
19-year-old Peyton Craig finished third in his heat to qualify for the semis. He’s the only Australian in the event after neither Peter Bol nor Joseph Deng were able to qualify from the repechage. 

🚴‍♂️ 10:41pm: Track Cycling, Men’s Individual Sprint (Semi-Final)
Australian Matthew Richardson is up against Dutch cyclist Jeffrey Hoogland for a place in the gold-medal final. If he loses he will race in the bronze medal final. The finals will take place from 2:00am.

🏊‍♀️ 11:00pm: Diving, Women’s 3m springboard (Final 🥇)
Madison Keeney came second in qualifying to earn a place in this final. She’s a genuine medal shot here.

 Saturday 10th August

🎶12:13am: Breaking, B-Girls (Group B)
Rachael Gunn will be the first athlete to represent Australia in Breaking, the newest Olympics sport. Gunn faces American Logan Edra in her first match-up. The rest of the tournament will occur throughout the early morning hours, with the gold medal battle scheduled for 5:29am.

🏐 3:35am: Men’s Water Polo, Australia v Greece (5-8 Placing Match)
After losing to the U.S., the Sharks are now in a bracket with the other losing teams from the quarter-finals to determine where they rank between 5th and 8th. They still have an opportunity to finish 5th, the best the Aussie men have ever done (1984, 1992).

🏀 1:30am: Women’s Basketball, Australia v Team USA (Semi-Final)
The Opals face a tough assignment against Team USA, who haven’t lost a game since 1992. If they win, they will play the winner of France v Belgium for gold. If they lose, they will still get to play for bronze.

🏐5:00am: Women’s Beach Volleyball, Australia v Switzerland (Bronze-Medal Match)
After losing the semi-final to Brazil, Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar can still leave Paris with a bronze medal if they beat Switzerland to win this. Brazil and Canada will play the gold medal match at 6:30am.

🏃‍♂️4:00pm: Men’s Marathon (Medal Event 🥇)
Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya is seeking to become the first athlete to win three consecutive Olympic marathon titles at age 39. Australians Patrick Tiernan, Liam Adams, and Andrew Buchanan will compete in the 42.2km race.

🏃‍♂️ And then it’s time for track and field finals…

3:30am: Women’s 4x100m relay (Final 🥇)
Australia missed out on the final by under four-tenths of a second. The U.S. are the favourites after qualifying with the fastest time.

3:37am: Women’s shot put (Final 🥇)
Canadian Sarah Mitton was the top qualifier for this event with a throw of 19.77m. Watch out for two medallists from Tokyo in this final, Gong Lijiao of China (gold) and American Raven Saunders (silver).

3:47am: Men’s 4x100m relay (Final 🥇)
The Aussie men broke the national record in their heat, but came sixth and didn’t qualify for the final. The U.S. are the red-hot favourites. 

4:00am: Women’s 400m (Final 🥇)
No Aussies in this event. It should be a tight race — there was less than a second between the fastest and slowest qualifier. 

4:57am: Women’s 10,000m (Final 🥇)
Lauren Ryan set the Australian record in March and beat her previous personal best in the 10k by over 90 seconds. This will be a gruelling race.

5:45am: Men’s 400m Hurdles (Final 🥇)
Norway’s defending Olympic champion Karsten Warholm is the favourite for this event but expect American Rai Benjamin, who was second in Tokyo, to give him a run for his money.

Paris ‘24: The headlines

In case you missed it…

🏐The Stingers are through to the final of the women’s water polo for the first time since Sydney 2000. The Aussies upset three-time Olympic champions the U.S. in the semi-final 14-13. The game was tied after regular time and went to a penalty shootout, where the Stingers emerged victorious.

🥊 Australia won two bronze medals in boxing overnight. Both Caitlin Parker and Charlie Senior lost their respective semi-finals, but since there are no bronze medal matches in Olympic boxing, they received a medal for making it to the final four. Parker lost to China’s Li Qian in the women’s middleweight division, while Senior was defeated by Uzbekistan’s Abdumalik Khalokov in the men’s featherweight. It comes as boxing is in danger of being absent from the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics due to issues with its governing body.

🏊‍♀️ Moesha Johnson claimed a silver for Australia in the women’s marathon swimming. Johnson led the way for most of the 10km race, before being overtaken in a sprint to the finish line by Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands. The Dutchwoman is a highly decorated open-water swimmer, having won gold in Rio and silver in Tokyo in this event. Rouwendaal dedicated her win to her dog Rio, who died in May. After the race, Johnson said her medal result was  “gonna take a while to sink in".

🛶The men’s canoe sprint team won silver in the K4 500m event. The team of Riley Fitzsimmons, Pierre van der Westhuyzen, Jackson Collins, and Noah Havard finished just four-hundredths of a second behind the gold medallists, Germany. Spain finished in third. Van der Westhuyzen’s brother, Jean, won gold in Tokyo in the K2 event with Tom Green. The same duo is racing in the K2 at this Olympics and will be strong medal contenders.

Paris ‘24: What we’re talking about (part 1)

Day 13 track and field finals see U.S. domination and a new rivalry in the men’s javelin…

Day 13 showed the world how dominant the U.S. can be in track and field events.

Grant Holloway and Daniel Roberts finished first and second in the men’s 110m hurdles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won the women’s 400m hurdles in world record time (50.37) with her compatriot Anna Cockrell in second, and Tara Davis-Woodhall and Jasmine Moore won gold and bronze respectively in the women’s long jump.

Botswana’s first gold medal ever

The first exception of the day was the men’s 200m, where Letsile Tebogo won Botswana’s first-ever Olympic gold medal. Tebogo took the lead halfway through the race and powered over the finish line ahead of Americans Kenny Bednarek in second and Noah Lyles in third (more Americans on the podium!). 

After winning the 100m earlier in the week, Lyles was the favourite to win the 200m, especially given it’s considered his strongest event, but he was comprehensively beaten and collapsed on the track after the finish. It’s since been revealed that Lyles tested positive for COVID on Tuesday, before the 200m final. 

Rivalry in the men’s javelin

The second exception of the day came in the men’s javelin throw final, which saw a battle between an Indian and Pakistani athlete for Olympic supremacy. Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem set an Olympic record of 92.97m to eclipse the defending champion Neeraj Chopra of India, who finished in second place with a throw of 89.45m. Nadeem said: “There's no doubt about the cricket rivalry. Now this javelin is also there".

Paris ‘24: What we’re talking about (part 2)

Breaking starts tonight, here’s how it will work…

Breaking, the sport making its Olympic debut in Paris, begins tonight. If you need a refresher, here’s how it will work…

What is breaking?

Breaking (also known as break dancing) is a dance style that developed amid 1970s hip-hop culture in the U.S.

Breaking at the Olympics will see B-Boys and B-Girls compete against each other in face-to-face battles. The athletes will respond to soul, funk, and rap-inspired music played by two DJs and improvise their dance moves on the spot. The dancing will be adjudicated by nine judges. Each dancer gets three rounds to impress the judges during the battle.

How will breaking work at the Olympics?

In Paris, there will be 16 breakers in each of the men’s and women’s tournaments. The tournament will begin with a round-robin style group stage (four groups of four) after which the top two athletes in each group will qualify for the subsequent quarter-finals, semi-finals, bronze-medal final, and gold-medal final. 

Who is Australia’s B-Boy?

16-year-old Jeff Dunne, who competes as J Attack, will be the first man to represent Australia in Breaking. Dunne qualified for the Games by winning gold at the Oceania Breaking Championships in November last year. 

Who is Australia’s B-Girl?

Rachael Gunn will be the first woman to represent Australia in Breaking at the Olympics when the sport debuts in Paris. She is the Australian Breaking Association’s top-ranked B-Girl (noun for a female break-dancer) and competed at the World Breaking Championships in 2021 and 2022.

When Gunn isn’t break dancing, the 36-year-old is a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney. She holds a PhD in cultural studies and wrote a thesis focused on the intersection of gender and Sydney’s breaking culture. 

What they said

Gunn said: “I wasn’t a sporty kid, I was more of a dance kid. I never thought the Olympics would be on the cards for me. It’s such a privilege and it’s hugely exciting. I think a lot of people doubted my ability to do it and maybe thought I was getting too old to be able to stay on top. But I just kept pushing hard, I want to get better, and I want the scene to grow and get better.”

Breaking at LA 2028

Breaking will not be included in the Los Angeles 2028 Games.

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Anything but Paris ‘24

What’s on tonight and tomorrow?

🏉 International Rugby
The Wallabies are three from three under coach Joe Schmidt and will face their toughest assignment yet in the first match of the Rugby Championship against South Africa tomorrow. Kick-off is at 2:30pm tomorrow at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. New Zealand plays Argentina in the other fixture of the Championship at 5:05pm (AEST).

🏉 NRL
The Storm beat the Rabbitohs 28-16 last night, asserting themselves as the competition’s leading team with four games to play. Round 23 continues this evening with the Titans playing the Sharks at 6:00pm and the Panthers facing the Eels at 8:00pm.

🏉 AFL
The Sydney Swans are still on top of the ladder despite losing five of their last six matches. Tonight, they will be looking to prove they are still worthy of making a deep run into the finals when they play Collingwood (11th) at 7:40pm. Tomorrow, a top-of-the-table clash will see Brisbane (2nd) square off against the GWS Giants (4th) at 1:45pm. Also at 1:45pm, North Melbourne (16th) are set to play the West Coast Eagles (18th) in a bottom-of-the-table clash. And at 4:35pm, the Fremantle Dockers (6th) will play Geelong (5th).

A message from our sponsor

Paris is the most gender equitable Games yet – but what exactly does that mean?

It’s been a big year in women’s sport - from the success of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023, to the Paris Games which will mark the first time that female athletes represent half of the total competing athletes.

Dr. Kasey Symons, a Communications Lecturer (Sport Media) at Deakin University, says that while it’s important to recognise the athletes that have broken down barriers to get to where they are, women still have a “really difficult time” getting into certain spaces, including coaching, leadership, media and more.

“We don't think about the broader systems that are in place that have restricted participation,” she says, noting that equitable media coverage is still a major issue, with only 15% of total coverage dedicated to female athletes.

Dr. Symons also says fans can drive change by watching female athletes, following them on social media, and supporting women and nonbinary journalists covering the Games.

Think beyond the field. Study sport at Deakin.

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