Good evening!

It’ll be weird to jump on the couch way past my bedtime and not get totally absorbed in a miscellaneous Olympic sport. I would be curious to see if streaming services like Netflix or Binge saw a big drop over the last two and a half weeks. I might give myself a gentle transition by watching a streaming series about the Olympics - that shouldn’t shock the system too much.

In some bad news for the streamers, but great news for us, the Paralympics are only two weeks away. Bring it on.

I’ve got 10 seconds

Stat of the day

7
The number of marriage proposals from athletes during the Paris Olympics — a new Olympic record. At the Closing Ceremony, Paris Organising Committee President Tony Estanguet said the Games broke “a new record that is very close to our hearts”.

Quote of the day

“During all this time, you lived peacefully together in the Olympic Village. You embraced each other, you respected each other, even if your countries are divided by war and conflict… We know that the Olympic Games cannot create peace, but the Olympic Games can create a culture of peace that inspires the world”.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, in his speech at the Closing Ceremony of the Paris Games.

Random fact of the day

The 2028 LA Olympics will be the first Olympics since 1968 to change the order of swimming and athletics competitions, with the athletics program being held in the first week and swimming in the second. It has made the adjustment to the program to allow the Opening Ceremony to be held at the new So-Fi Stadium, which will also host the swimming. While delayed, the swimming should be worth the wait — the stadium capacity of 38,000 will be the largest live audience for swimming in Olympic history.

I’ve got 1 minute

It’s time to look at one final medal tally - and as the dust settles on the Paris Olympics, a number of interesting trends have emerged from all rungs of the ladder.

Team USA ends on top

The U.S. edged past China on the final day of competition at the Paris Olympics to finish on top of the medal tally. While both nations took home 40 gold medals, they were split on silvers — the U.S. won 44, compared to China’s 27.

In the final stages of the Games, U.S. cyclist Jennifer Valente won the women’s omnium event, defending her Tokyo title. On the other side of Paris, Chinese weightlifter Li Wenwen won gold in the women’s 81kg weightlifting, leaving the U.S. one gold medal behind. It came down to a tense one-point win over France in the women’s basketball for Team USA to draw equal on 40 golds, sending the count to a comparison of silvers.

The U.S. set a new record for the most medals won in a single day, with 18 medals on Day 8, its highest single-day haul in 100 years.

Japan clinched third spot on the table with 20 golds, followed by Australia's best-ever performance with 18 golds. The host nation, France, was fifth with 16 golds. On overall medals, this was its best Olympic performance since it last hosted the Games in 1900.

Not all nations exceeded expectations — Great Britain finished in seventh position, their lowest finish since 2004.

What’s next?

As the dust settles on the Games, further analysis of the medal table by U.S. outlet NBC has revealed that Grenada, a small Caribbean nation of around 125,000 people, greatly overperformed in a number of key metrics. It’s third on the list of medals-per-athlete with 0.333 medals per athlete, behind St Lucia (0.5 medals per athlete after sprint champion Julien Alfred won gold in the 100m and silver in the 200m sprint) and Kyrgyzstan (0.375 medals per athlete).

Grenada was also second on the list of medals per $US1 billion in GDP, winning 1.515 medals for every billion dollars of GDP, behind Dominica (1.529 medals).

It was also the highest-ranked nation in terms of medals per 100,000 people in its population, winning 1.585 medals per 100,000 Grenadians.

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Last week, U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles was awarded bronze on an Olympic podium alongside her teammate Simone Biles and Brazilian Rebeca Andrade.

The lineup marked the first all-Black Olympic gymnastics podium.

Now, Chiles has been ordered to return her medal, following a court ruling in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Here’s why.

What happened?

Chiles made it to the women’s gymnastics floor exercise final in Paris on Monday. These were the standings and scores at the end of the event:

After the final standings were released, Chiles’ coach, Cecile Landi, filed an appeal to add 0.1 to her score. Landi argued this would better reflect the difficulty of the U.S. gymnasts’ floor routine.

The appeal was successful, moving Chiles from fifth to third — the bronze medal position.

The revised standings moved Romania’s Ana Bǎrbosu out of a podium position.

Together with her teammate, Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, the Romanian gymnast launched an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

CAS Dispute

The CAS is an independent global body designed to settle sporting disputes. During an Olympics, a temporary CAS facility is set up in the host city to manage disputes as they arise.

In an application to the CAS on 6 August, Bǎrbosu and Maneca-Voinea claimed the appeal by Chiles’ coach was invalid.

They argued it was filed four seconds past the one-minute limit allowed by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).

The Romanian gymnasts suggested they could share the bronze with Chiles.

In a short statement this morning, the CAS ruled the extra 0.1 awarded to Chiles was invalid.

It sided with the Romanians, finding Chiles’ coach did appeal her score outside the required timeframe. The CAS ordered the FIG to decide how to assign the medals.

The FIG determined that Chiles finished fifth, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should reassign the bronze medal to Bǎrbosu.

The IOC issued a statement shortly after, confirming it was facilitating a reallocation ceremony to award Bǎrbosu bronze.

U.S. Response

In a short statement this morning, the CAS ruled the extra 0.1 awarded to Chiles was invalid.

It sided with the Romanians, finding Chiles’ coach did appeal her score outside the required timeframe. The CAS ordered the FIG to decide how to assign the medals.

The FIG determined that Chiles finished fifth, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should reassign the bronze medal to Bǎrbosu.

The IOC issued a statement shortly after, confirming it was facilitating a reallocation ceremony to award Bǎrbosu bronze.

In its second statement a few hours later, USA Gymnastics said it had formally submitted a letter and video evidence to the CAS. It claims this submission proves Landi’s appeal was filed 47 seconds after the publishing of the score, not 64 seconds after.

It said “time-stamped video evidence” had not been made available to USA Gymnastics “prior to the tribunal’s decision,” but had since emerged.

The CAS is yet to respond to the presentation of that evidence.

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How major sporting events are trying to attract Gen Z audiences

According to a recent study, Gen Z are more likely to tune into Netflix and TikTok over live sports. Though it remains important, Gen Z watches a lot less sport compared to older generations, like Boomers.

Deakin’s Dr. Josh McLeod highlights how Gen Z’s ‘digital nativity’ influences their sports consumption, with young people preferring online or shorter format content and to follow individual athletes over teams.

Major sporting organisations like the Olympics have tried to combat this by appealing to young audiences – partly through the appeal of celebrities and influencers.

“Snoop Dogg at the Olympics is a perfect illustration of the buzz and interest that he can create and bring into sport,” Dr. McLeod says.

There’s also the inclusion of new events, like Breaking, Bouldering and Skateboarding.

“Skateboarding is a sport that is played and performed by young people,” Dr. McLeod says. “The Australian gold medalist is a perfect illustration of that – the people who are performing at the highest level in Skateboarding are very young, and that's leading to young people watching those sports, too.”

Who knows what the 2080 Olympics will look like?

Think beyond the field. Study sport at Deakin.

Looking back…

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