Australia’s gold standard at Paris holds hope for more

Sport participants and supporters are burdened by many superstitions. One of them is not to crow too early. But it is becoming harder not to raise our arms to the Parisian sky and shout for joy.

With eight days’ competition decided, Australia has had its best start to a summer Olympics, amassing a stunning 12 gold medals, complemented by eight silver and seven bronze.

Across the nation, streets are quiet and lounge rooms glow with Olympic coverage as Australians join together to silently urge or pray or to loudly cheer our athletes. The Olympics are surely a true and pure national bonding experience. They also show a gentle side of nationalism and seem to bring out our best, and goodwill that is perhaps sometimes absent when Australians compete in other international sporting arenas. They also present to the world the way we like to think of ourselves – young, talented, friendly and open-minded – and they give a glimpse of how people can live together in peace.

Australia has been at the modern Olympics since the beginning and over the years the nation has exemplified many of the Games’ initial aims. The founder of the modern Olympics, France’s Baron de Coubertin, envisaged the games to be amateur, a glorification of youth and in the service of global harmony, famously saying that taking part, not winning, was the real grail.

“The important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well,” he said.

His fine words carried the Games through war and crises, but it is often forgotten the baron barred women from Athens in 1896.

“An Olympiad with females would be impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and improper,” he said.

Fast-forward to 2024 and Paris reflects the massive societal changes in much of the planet. For the first time, the Olympics have equal gender representation.