The Golden Olympics - Paris 2024
As a lover of the Olympic Games and a subscriber to the opinion that history happens every day, it would be remiss of me to not reflect on some of the sporting history moments that were made during the recent games.
An Overview of the Games
The opening ceremony was held on 26 July 2024 and was the first to be held outside of a traditional stadium venue. Unlike in all previous Olympic opening ceremonies the host city became the stage with the river Seine the pathway by which athletes entered and all performances taking place at various locations around the river. This was an interesting choice and unfortunately the rain made it hard to clearly the see athletes (which is always my favourite part - I know that is not a common opinion) and this meant the team uniforms were not able to be seen as clearly. I was still able to identify the uniform that I think stood out most and that was the Haitian team's uniform which was designed by Haitian-Italian designer Stella Jean. The colours, pattern and design all link back to traditional Haitian concepts which makes them even more perfect!
While it has become custom for host nations to spread events throughout the country this time France included their wider "empire", with the surfing event taking place in Tahiti, French Polynesia. The athletes and their support teams competing in the surfing stayed on a cruise ship which served as the local "Olympic Village" for the duration of the event.
Surfing, along with sport climbing and skateboarding returned to the games after having made their debut in Tokyo 2020 however they were still classed as non-core events. This will be different at the 2028 games when all three are added to the regular sporting list, which in effect secures them as "core" events (of course this is always subject to change, see below). A fourth event was included at the Paris games as an exhibition event and this was breaking (aka break dancing). Enough has been said about this sport that I think the only thing to be noted is that it will not be returning at the next games.
A nice touch at these Paris Games was a re-allocation medal ceremony that was held on 7 August on the Eiffel Tower stage where medal winners of the current games were also presented each day. The reallocation ceremony publicly recognised those athletes who have now been award medals retrospectively after other athletes, who had previously medalled, have now had their medals stripped. Some of those being presented with their medals dated back to the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It is great that these athletes have been able to be publicly recognised. To see the list of recipients follow this link.
Australia's Golden Olympics and the Increasingly International Flavour of the Medal Tall
There is no question that these games have been a golden rain shower for Australia! As a nation we’ve prospered to achieve our best ever Olympic result with 18 golds cementing our place at number 4 on the medal tally behind the USA and China (each with 40 gold) and Japan in third (with 20 gold).
Of Australia's 18 gold medals, 13 were won by women! If you only counted the gold won by the Aussie women Australia would still finish in the top 10 on the medal table with the Aussie girls coming in at seventh! By comparison, a male only medal count would place Australia down in fifteenth. Yeah the Girls!
 Yes, this is the largest gold haul for Australia, but it should be noted that the Aussie Olympic team did take home more medals overall back in Sydney 2000 with a total of 58. By comparison at these 2024 games Australia totalled 53 medals.
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Notably Australia’s best ever medal table finish was when Melbourne hosted the games in 1956 and Australia finished third. Both these Melbourne and Sydney games results are not surprising given the host nation tends to dominate. This is especially true for this year’s host, France. The nation finished fifth on the medal tally which is their highest rank since the 1996 Atlanta games. Overall the nation took home 64 medals this year which is their highest by a long margin, unless you go back to 1900 when Paris first hosted the games and France took home a whopping 102 medals! There were significantly fewer other nations competing though which makes this number inflated.
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As the games were underway, and Australia seemed to win medal after medal, the nation sat comfortably in the top three of the medal tally and this remained until the final day when Japan jumped up into third place pushing Australia to a fourth place finish.
How did Australia seem to remain so high on the medal tally though for such a long period of time during the games? It is expected that the USA and China will always rank highly given their large populations but other nations such as Japan, Great Britain, Republic of Korea and Germany tend to sit higher in the table however these games they finished third, seventh, eighth and tenth respectively.
Russia was clearly absent from the games and any medals won by the neutral athletes did not appear on the medal tally which does leave a big hole in regards to another historically dominant medal winning nation; thus the door was open to other nations who may have previously been pipped by Russian athletes. Why though did other generally dominated nations not medal as highly as they did in the past?
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While I’m sure many nations are having reviews into their Olympic Committees as they didn't perform as well as they would have expected, I don’t think it is the lack of performance by these nations that is the reason behind the somewhat different medal tally.
Take New Zealand for example, in the past their best Olympic finish was eighth at the 1984 LA games where they won 8 gold medals. At these 2024 games they won their highest ever number of gold, with ten and finished eleventh overall which is their best finish since 1984.
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New Zealand is not a unique example with many other nations having had their best ever Olympic results, and it is testament to the growing depth of international sport which can only make the Olympics more internationally competitive in the future.
In fact, several nations have taken home their first ever medals at these games. If you’re going to win your nation’s first Olympic medal, then taking home gold is the way to do it in style! This is what happened for both the Caribbean nations of St. Lucia and Dominica.
The Nations Who Broke Their Medal Droughts
The Island nation of St. Lucia, home to less than 180,000 people, first competed at the Olympics in 1996 and has sent athletes to every summer games since then. Thanks to track superstar Julien Alfred, not only did the nation win their first medal but it was gold in colour when she finished first in the women’s blue ribbon track event, the 100m sprint! Just days later a silver medal was added to the tally when she finished second in the 200m event.
Thea LaFond of Dominica in the Caribbean took home gold in the women’s triple jump. Dominica first attended the Olympics back in 1996 and has attended every games since though their medal tally sat empty. Born in Dominica, LaFond emigrated to the USA when she was a child where she honed her skills. She competed in the 2016 Olympics where she failed to make the triple jump final but in 2018, she won Dominica’s first Commonwealth Games medal when she placed third in the triple jump event. At the Tokyo Olympics she was the nation’s flag bearer, and she finished twelfth in the event. At the subsequent Commonwealth Games in 2022 she took home silver. Through hard work she has grown in each competition and now has the honour of being not just Dominica’s first Olympic medallist but the first gold medallist!
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When it comes to playing the long waiting game Albania sits high on that list (at the start of the 2024 games sitting tied for ninth place with Mali for number of games attended with no medal wins)!
In 1972 the nation made their Olympic debut however they missed the subsequent three games for political reasons, (Albania was part of the communist soviet block during this time). The nation returned to the international sporting landscape in 1992 and has attended every games since then, including making their Winter Olympic debut in 2006 and attending every winter games since that time.
On the penultimate day of the 2024 games, Albanian wrestler, Chermen Valiev, finally broke the nation’s drought by winning the first Albanian Olympic medal when he won bronze in the men’s freestyle 74kg event. What is notable though is that Valiev is Russian born and until this year competed for his homeland; even taking home the Russian national title last year!
Though he is not the only Russian-born Olympian to attend the games under another national flag he is one of the most recent to switch allegiance. There are of course other Russian and Belarussian athletes at the games, all invited by the IOC and individually vetted who are competing as neutral athletes.
On the final day of the games another wrestler won a bronze for Albania.
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The African nation of Cape Verde has also competed at the Summer Olympics since 1996 however it wasn’t until these recent games that boxer Daniel Varela De Pina made history by winning the nations first Olympic medal. This was a bronze in the men’s 51kg event.
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The Refugee Olympic Team, which debuted back in 2016 with ten athletes, now has the largest number of athletes at an Olympic Games with a team of 37. Cindy Ngamba took home the first medal for the refugee team with a bronze in the women’s middleweight (75kg) boxing event.
Born in Cameroon she moved to the UK when she was 11 however when her Uncle returned to Cameroon he lost her immigration paperwork. This resulted in Cindy and her brother being detained in a London detention centre in 2019 however they were released. When she was 18 years old Cindy came out as gay and this made returning to Cameroon not an option for her as it is illegal and thus a crime to be gay in Cameroon.
Though she trains with the British boxing team Cindy cannot compete under the UK flag as she is not a citizen or have a British passport.
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Botswana has been attending the Summer Olympics since 1980 and though the African nation has won silver and bronze medals in the past they had never stood atop the podium. This changed when Letsile Tebogo won Botswana’s first ever gold medal when he secured first place in the men’s 200m sprint. Not only did he win the nation’s first gold medal, but it was the first time the title was secured by a representative of an African nation. In celebration of his win the President of Botswana gave everyone an early mark the following day declaring Friday afternoon a public holiday!
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Earlier in the games, shooter Adriana Ruano of Guatemala also took home the nation’s first gold medal when she won the women’s trap shooting event. Until earlier this year in March 2024, it appeared that she would have to compete as a neutral athlete with Guatemala suspended from the IOC since mid-2023 due to internal domestic failures in the management of the nation’s Olympic committee. With the ban lifted this means that her gold is added to the national medal tally.
Guatemala made their Olympic debut in 1952 with 21 athletes attending the games however they wouldn’t return to the Olympics until 1968. From this time they participated in every summer games except for 1980 in Moscow when they participated in the USA led boycott. The nations first medal came in 2012 in the men’s 20km walk when Erick Barrondo won silver. At these 2024 games, fellow shooter Jean Pierre Brol took home a bronze in the men’s trap shooting event. With the nation’s first gold and bronze this has been their best performing Olympics ever!
Changes to Sports at the Next Olympic Games, LA 2028
Boxing: Due to corruption in world boxing the sport has been axed from the next Olympics.
Boxing debuted at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, USA with a women’s match held as a demonstration event. Though boxing would be included in the 1908 games and then every subsequent Olympics from 1920 onwards, a women’s event was not included until 2012. The USA tops the all time boxing medal tally followed by Cuba and the Great Britain.
Modern Pentathlon: This is a phenomenal sport due to the variety of skills required for an athlete to both compete and succeed. A true representation of the spirit of the Olympics due to the varied events included, the modern pentathlon is believed to have been inaugurated by the founder of the modern games himself, Pierre de Coubertin (there are several sources that note other individuals as the founders of the modern pentathlon but no doubt de Coubertin would have had some involvement given his liking for all around sporting events).
The first pentathlon event was held at the 1912 London Olympics, and it was inspired by the traditional pentathlon event of the ancient Greek Olympics which tested the various skills required by soldiers at the time. Since the 1912 games the modern pentathlon has been competed at every Olympics though the format has changed over the years. Notably, until 1996 the event was held over 4-5 days. The shortening of the event was aimed at making it more spectator friendly, as was moving all events to one venue which first occurred at the 2020 Tokyo games.
It hasn’t just been the length of the event that has faced changes over the years with several of the disciplines experiencing changes. In 1988 the equestrian portion was changed from cross-country riding to show jumping. These 2024 games are the last time that the equestrian event will be included in the modern pentathlon with it being replaced by an obstacle course (like that in Ninja warrior) being introduced to the event at the 2028 games.
Unlike other sports which have an annual cycle of events modern pentathlon is unique in its association solely with the Olympics. Until 1948 there was no international governing body, and it has only been since 1949 that an annual competition has been held. In 1999 a world cup series was created with 4-6 events taking place throughout the year that sees individuals accumulate points to take into the final event. Over the last decade of the event Egypt, Bulgaria, Hungary and Türkiye have served as the main host nations.
New Sports for 2028:
Flag Football (From what I can gather it is pretty much like OzTag and was a substitute for American Football failing to be selected as a 2028 sport).
Lacrosse
Squash
"Not so new" New Sports for 2028:
Baseball (first included in the 1900 games and seen sporadically until 1984 when it was played consistently until 2008. Since then it has appeared only at the 2020 games)
Softball (Played between 1996-2008 at the Olympics and made a one-off return in 2020).
Cricket (Only seen at an Olympic Games once, back at the 1900 Paris Games)
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Footnote: Australia's Olympic Team
Did you know that at these current 2024 Paris Olympics there are just three sports that Australia is not represented in.: fencing, volleyball and handball.
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Fencing has been an Olympic sport since 1896. It is one of just four sports that have been contested at every Olympics in this modern era of the event: the other three being swimming, artistic gymnastics & athletics. There was a fifth sport that should be on this list, rowing, however due to bad weather the 1896 event was cancelled so the sport didn’t actually debut until the second games in 1900.
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The first time Australia debuted fencers at a games, was in 1952 at Helsinki. Four men and two women participated with three of the men progressing to the quarterfinals. The next Olympics were the 1956 Melbourne games where, with a home advantage, Australia fielded 21 fencers. Once again, no Aussie athletes progressed beyond the quarterfinals.
This was the largest number of fencers sent to an Olympic games by Australia. Between the 1956 Melbourne games and the next time Australia hosted the games in Sydney 2000 the number of fencers representing Australia entered a steep decline, dropping to just one fencer in 1996 before bouncing up to 7 for the Sydney Olympics.
This number then dropped down to just three for the 2004 Athens games with the last time Australia had a fencing entrant being the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where two women were in attendance.
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Many Aussies will be familiar with Roy and HG and these Olympics they’ve got a daily podcast that reflects on the events of the previous 24 hours at the Olympics. I was aware that Australia didn’t have any fencers at these games but as they discussed trying to grow participation in fencing through many hilarious schemes it got me thinking about the last time, we did have a fencing participant. They also asked the question, as to if Australia will ever have a fencing medallist?
Given Australia hasn’t fielded a participant since 2008 and hasn’t had an entrant proceed to the quarterfinals since 1956, unfortunately this seems like one sport Australia will not dominate any time soon.
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In regard to Handball Australia has only once fielded teams and that was at the Sydney 2000 Olympics where, as the host nation teams automatically qualified. Both the women and men’s team’s finished last in their respective events.
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When it comes to volleyball as the host nation in 2000, both a men’s and women’s team participated however since then just a male team has participated and they have only attended two game: 2004 and 2012. These three games are the only times Australia entered the volleyball competition, which has been an Olympic sport since 1964.
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Further Reading (Selected List):
"Olympics: A Fantastic, Factual Record of an Epic Sporting Event", publisher by Hinkler (2011)
"Sports: The Complete Visual Reference", by QA International (2000)
Martino Carrera, "Stella Jean's Haitian Olympic Uniforms Are Meant to Send A Message", Women's Wear Daily (13 May 2024); <https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/stella-jean-designs-uniforms-team-haiti-2024-paris-olympics-1236373506/>
Courtney Walsh, "One Hell of A Legacy: The Seismic Shifts behind Paris game-changer as Aussie Women dominate", Fox Sports, (12 August 2024); <https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/stella-jean-designs-uniforms-team-haiti-2024-paris-olympics-1236373506/>
"Ten Olympians from three editions of the Olympic Games awarded their Olympic Medals during reallocation ceremony at Paris 2024", International Olympic Committee (10 August 2024), <https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/stella-jean-designs-uniforms-team-haiti-2024-paris-olympics-1236373506/>
"IOC Suspends NOC of Guatemala", International Olympic Committee (9 September 2022), <https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-suspends-noc-of-guatemala-with-effect-as-from-15-october-issues-a-final-warning-to-noc-of-india>
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