Well. What a week of Aussie Olympic glory, sports fans, with no less than fourteen( 14 !) gold medals, three silver medals and a raft of marvelous, bronze bullion dangled in various regions of the necks of our bronzed-Aussie elegances, these persons are champs all.

For whether they’re first, second, third or still running they’ve done their very best in these trying and stormy experiences, and they’ve done us, citizens of the great, girt nation mood of Australia, blinking viciou proud.

And they seem like quite nice kinfolks, too.

What a week.

We knocked off as we always do with gold in the pool when “The Terminator”, mighty Ariarne “Arnie” Titmus twice bested the “greatest swimmer in history”, the awesome Kathleen “Katie” Ledecky( who seems rather nice, too ).

In the 200 m and 400 m freestyle, Ledecky and company tried to burn Titmus early. But Titmus, case, came from behind and ploughed over her rivals like a single-minded swim-bot; offering us seeing of her family and dear old Dawn Fraser, leaping about in Noosa, grandmother in a headlock, spilling bubbly wine-coloured at brunch while her manager Dean Boxall channelled The Ultimate Warrior and upset some of our American friends.

Good freakin’ times.

A very important question to answer…

Who did it better? ???? #Tokyo2020 | #7Olympics pic.twitter.com/ 1XnszpzDNt

— 7Olympics (@ 7olympics) July 26, 2021

Success elsewhere in the pool enabled a collaborator in this sports-gibber game to relate the words “gobbledegook” with Zac Stubblety-Cook, surprise winner of golden in 200 m breaststroke.

Kyle Chalmers proved himself a good egg after touching down 0.06 seconds behind Caeleb Dressel of America( winner of five working gold medals, it’s nice America’s getting something) in the 100 m freestyle.

And our Amazonian Super Women blitzed the field in the 4 x 100 m freestyle and positioned a new world record. Fastest and best swimming squadron ever. Go them.

Oh, yes. And Emma McKeon triumphed gold in the 100 m freestyle, 4 x 100 m freestyle, 50 m freestyle and 4 x 100 m potpourrus, and seven medallions all-up, the most any woman’s won in the puddle in one Games and equal most for any woman, any sport, any Games ever.

And Kaylee McKeown( no tie-in, they have different surnames) won gold in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke, and 4 x 100 m medley, all while plunging an F-Bomb on TV.

⚠ Viewer discretion advised ⚠

It’s fair to say Kaylee McKeown is spouted to be an Olympic gold medallist ???????? #7Olympics | #Tokyo2020 | #Swimming pic.twitter.com/ 6oRgi3VlNQ

— 7Olympics (@ 7olympics) July 27, 2021

So yes, the swimmers had a fair meet as befitting of citizens of the world’s biggest island.

Meanwhile in the frothy white water of Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre Jess Fox nudged one of those jiggling spar things in her kayak and cost herself two seconds and a amber ribbon in the women’s slalom K1.

Two days later she was in the No. 1 bib, again, waiting, the last canoe in the field( sitting down not kneeling, two-finned paddle not one) and we journey with her down the river as a so many giga-litres of lathering, roiling white-water threatened to shoot her boat out the banks like so much flotsam and/ or jetsam.

Yet she powered on, mistake-free. And prevailed by three seconds. And upwards we shot from our sofas while her daddy in commentary was made mete soften with affection. And here we noted perspective, a takeout from these Games of the XXXII Olympiad: for every athlete on a four-year journey their fellow travellers are parties, genealogy, enjoy. Now , now- don’t get teary.

The smile when he realised his daughter was about to triumph gold.

The affection afterwards…

Richard Fox was left speechless in the commentary box after his daughter, Jess Fox, acquired amber in Tokyo ❤ #Tokyo2020 | #7Olympics | #CanoeSlalom pic.twitter.com/ oJDHA5fJYD

— 7Olympics (@ 7olympics) July 30, 2021

It was hard not to when The Matildas beat Great Britain 4-3 in an absolute ball-tearer of a quarter-final footy match. Heading into the Games these parties had worse assemble than Covid demonstrators. Maybe not bad. But pretty bad.

And yet there they were ripping and sobbing, equalising 2-2 in the 89 th instant before saving a penalty and netting two more points in extra-time. And on achieve the semi-finals- the furthest Australia’s ever been in Olympic competition- they glanced happier than joyou clappers in rapture.

Big rap for skateboarding who come in the Olympic Games after so many decades as outlier and proscribe. The average age of the athletes appears to be 13 and they are on a far cooler and unimportant wave-length than most human beings.

I like’ em, the funny little bushy skate-rats with their penetrates. disheveled melons and cool, dangerous stunts best represented by Peruvian Angelo Caro Narvaez’s backward-arsed-bollocks-bollard-stopper that “youre supposed to” encountered on the web.

And while Australia didn’t win a medal in the street version( there’s a kid looking good for the aerials ), Japan triumphed two golden and a copper, and if an Aussie can’t win you’re backing the locals who loved the meek have had a heck of a time.

Like their cousins on skateboards the freestyle BMX contingent have had a heck of a age reassuring beings their play is one, much less that it should be in the Olympics. Y et watch the two gold medal-winning, sixty-second expression sessions of Logan’s Logan Martin, flinging his bicycle and himself around the jumps and protrusions of Ariake Sports Park and you’ll concur: it is gymnastics on two pedals. It should be in Cirque Du Soleil. And Logan’s run begat Australia’s merely, thus far, gold ribbon on land.

History attained! ????

Logan Martin is the first ever Male Olympic Gold Medallist for BMX Freestyle! What a massive accomplishment … Australia loves your work Logan! ????????

Enjoy this moment !! ???? #Tokyo2020 | #7Olympics pic.twitter.com/ 9aS1CVwMHV

— 7Olympics (@ 7olympics) August 1, 2021

The fastest lover on tract is Lamont Marcell Jacob of Italy( Italy !) who shrivelled into record guiding with 9.80 in the final of the 100 m. Our Rohan Browning won his heat in 10.01 seconds and finished fifth in the semi-final with 10.09.

Brandon Starc leaped greater than any Australian in make 2:35 m more finished fifth behind Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar( Qatar !) and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi who both cleared 2.37 m and agreed to share the gold medal rather than jump off. Which was nice.

And Pat Tiernan prevailed our mettles when he took it to the favourites for 24 sips of the 25 in the 10,000 m then crumbled twice but picked himself up to cross the line.

Back in Australia’s natural element and Matt Wearn of Fremantle, a town with a southerly wind so notorious it has a name( “The Doctor” ), simply had to stay afloat and finish the last race of the men’s one person Dinghy Laser on to secure gold at Fujisawa City’s Enoshima Yachting Harbour. He did and he did. And Australia had its most gilded date with a daily honour pull of four.

And we look back our flag, fourth on the gold tally, above Great Britain, France, Germany and the Russians representing their Olympic committee, and supposed: Well. How about us.

How about when we won two gold medals on the trot on Wednesday when the latest incarnation of the “Oarsome Foursome”, our men’s four powered into gold half-an-hour after our women’s four had done the same? Rowing, sorry rowing, “couldve been”- scraping that, is- the world’s most carrying athletic to watch live, a scoot vanishes for two kilometres and makes six instants and if you’re sitting by the river you’re looking at water for all but ten seconds of that.

You’d sooner stare vacantly into opening. But on the TV when your guys are drag downwards on their nature to everlastin’ glory, clearly fantastically , it’s … it’s good. Top stuff, rowing.

Top stuff too 48 -year-old table tennis lady Jian Fang Lay who is in her sixth Olympic Games after representing Australia in Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London and Rio. She controls the racquet like she’s containing a pen( a grip known as a “pen-holder”, which is unusual) and swaps the at-bat about during points to whack it off both smooth and dimpled faces( which is considered more unusual than skateboarding at the Olympics ).

Lay would lose in the fourth round of singles and in the team’s event round of 16 but won many followers to the fast-twitching wristy sport of table tennis. Good luck to her.

And good luck to us, Australia. Another week of this and lockdowns be buggered, we’ll be rushing about our living room with Dawn Fraser in a headlock.

Read more: theroar.com.au