ROLL THE TAPE:

World Record Holder, Olympic Record Holder, Olympic Gold Medalist Kaylee McKeown, and I think this calls for another round of Hawkie:

If you put something in water and it comes up gold, you’ve got a positive.

It’s called the Titmus Test.

Victorians after finding out they were getting out of lockdown

This is just the beginning of using that GIF in celebration.

Exactly what the Tweet says, which is what Joanna Griggs said

If there was a swearing edition of Scrabble, that should qualify as a triple swear word score.

Jess Fox hitting the penultimate gate to lose Gold in the Slalom Canoe is right up there with Shane Kelly’s foot slipping on the pedal in Atlanta for devastating ways to lose

I’d also throw in Jane Saville getting disqualified from the lead in the Stadium Australia tunnel in the 20km racewalking at Sydney as being right up there, although I’d argue Jess’ circumstance was far worse because of how close to victory she was:

Still, the main difference:

Fox may have lost a Gold medal, but she did win a Bronze medal, and that is a POSITIVE.

I can only think poor old Minjee Lee couldn’t have picked a worse time to finally win a major title

Right as our superb Australian women started having golden showers in Tokyo, one of the best players on the LPGA won the Evian Championship after being 7 shots down on Jeongeun Lee6 entering the final round before defeating the Korean in a playoff, tying Karie Webb’s record from the 2006 ANA Inspiration for the greatest comeback win at a women’s major:

So that means the last two Australian women to win majors in women’s golf have come from Western Australia, considering Hannah Green won the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine.

Another Australian medal hopeful to look out for over the next few days

Former West Perth development squad member Matt Wearn in the Laser Dingy sailing, an event in which Australia has had great success in at the last two Summer games, with Tom Slingsby winning in London and Tom Burton winning a thriller in Rio.

After several great results in the Laser class at various World Championships & World Cups to stake himself as a Gold medal contender, Matty was stuck down in 12th after the first 2 races on Sunday and Monday, but thanks to three 2nds and a 4th in the Tuesday races, he’s rocketed up into 2nd overall on 27 points, 9 points behind Pavlos Kontides, the Cypriot from Cyprus, who did win the Silver behind Slingsby at the aforementioned London games.

The laser sailors are back in the water on Thursday, and fair to say I’ll be wearing the Rocket’s distinct green & gold Australia II jacket in support…

Which is no different to what I’ve been doing for every Australian during these games.

Yet another individual I was in the same year with at Aquinas College has done us Old Aquinians proud on the international stage

After ‘we’ dragged our arses for 8 years with absolutely nothing to show outside of a couple of Manning Jack Attack titles for myself, Ryan Van Beek, Matthew Marinoni and Jack Garbin, Ben O’Connor produced a monumental 4th on his Tour de France debut not even a fortnight ago to capture our attention,, and now Zac Incerti, who worked his way into the freestyle relay teams at the Olympic trials a few months back, claimed a bronze medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay, which by default makes him the best Olympic athlete to attend Aquinas since Herb Elliott won Gold at Rome in 1960.

You may have also noticed tonight Incerti anchored the 4x200m freestyle for the Aussies, and I’ll be very surprised if the Australian team doesn’t end up with another medal, probably not Gold, given they were comfortably 2nd-fastest in the heats behind the bloody good British team with the 200m freestyle champion Tom Dean, or as I called him, Dom Tean.

Anyway, bloody good job Zac, you’ve lifted us all up.

July 26 in Australian Olympic History

1952: ‘The Lithgow Flash’ Marjorie Jackson wins the 200 metres at Helsinki, completing the 100m-200m Gold medal double after becoming the first Australian since Edwin Flack in 1896 to win an athletics Gold Medal

1996: Kieren Perkins defies everyone and defends his 1500m freestyle title from Lane 8, and Suzie O’Neill wins the 200m Butterfly final on the same night

2021: Ariarne Titmus defeats Katie Ledecky in the 400m freestyle, becoming the first person to defeat the greatest female freestyler at the Olympics

Owen Wright saved Australia’s collective arse by earning a Bronze medal in the Surfing, which is a great story in of itself

Fair dinkum, imagine if Australia, one of the greatest surfing locations in the known universe, had entered 4 of our finest champions into the inaugural surfing event at the Olympic games, and won nothing.

That said, I would’ve blamed the piss poor conditions, because I have to say that for a country that brought us the word TSUNAMI, those bloody waves at Tsurigasaki were shithouse and got Sally Fitzgibbons and Steph Gilmore knocked out before the medal matches.

The only thing more unfathomable than Australia doing nothing in surfing would’ve been if the USA, who pretty much pioneered the modern sport with help from the Hawaiians, and Brazil, who have taken to surfing like a pig to a pile of crap with help from Gabriel Medina, didn’t win a medal.

Thankfully, all of those nations troubled the podium, and I can’t say bring on France 2024, because the surfing will be in Tahiti’s legendary Teahupo’o village.

Won’t get waves that great on the Seine.

A sign of how competitive things are at the Games

In Rio, it took 5 days for 51 nations to win a medal, and after the opening Monday/Day 3 in Tokyo, 52 nations had won a medal.

It was 53 after Flora Duffy won the women’s Triathlon for Bermuda, and as of the end of today, it’s at 55 nations with an Olympic medal.

Fremantle being the only AFL club to actually embrace this so called Retro Round

This weekend against Richmond, they’re wearing a replica of that wonderfully unique away guernsey they wore against Richmond in their inaugural AFL game in Round 1 of 1995.

Chances are they’ll also replicate that 1995 result and lose to the Tigers.

I’m pleased to see the NRL finally recognising that other parts of Queensland outside of SEQ and Townsville exist by playing games in Mackay and Rockhampton this weekend

The league have had great success in recent years playing games in the various regions of New South Wales, namely Tamworth, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga, Coffs Harbour and Mudgee, and it’s good to see regional Queensland get a couple of games that they’ve seemingly always missed out on ever since 2019, and I should note that while the Roosters vs Eels game will see rugbaleeg return to the home of the Mackay Cutters for the first time since 2013, the St George-Illawarra vs South Sydney game will be the maiden First Grade game to be played in Rockhampton, the birthplace of Rod ‘The Rockhampton Rocket’ Laver.

To paraphrase the great American orator George W. Bush, bringing First Grade rugby league to the regions to plant the seed in the kids of Australia is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.

Yesterday marked 30 years since the airing of the all-time great Clarke & Dawe skit “The Front Fell Off”

“Wasn’t this one built so that the front wouldn’t fall off?”

“Obviously not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the front fell off!”

And finally, to answer a repeated question from one of the readers, yes Kate O’Toole, I will be completing the State of Origin All Star Series by the start of the AFL Finals

AND IT WILL BE FEATURING BILL LAWRY, MERV HUGHES AND SHANE WARNE.

On that note about the State of Origin All Stars, I’ve spoken to the Tasmanian selectors, who named their team well over a year ago, and after her performances in Tokyo, Ariarne Titmus will be a guaranteed starter for the Taswegian side in their next hypothetical game.

No wonder she was so ecstatic after the 400m freestyle final.