There are few moments in life when you know, there and then, that you will remember them for ever. Getting married is an obvious one. The birth of a child. Standing in the middle of a mosh pit, seeing your favourite band.
Then there is sport, which hovers agonisingly between memorable and better to be forgotten. The legacy of a kick, a catch, a last-breath tie-break writes itself as it transpires. And so it may only be later, dazed and slightly numb, that you realise the gravity of what you were witnessing.
It is, in many ways, the unknowability of sport that captures us.
Could Australians have known, gathered in pubs and homes and live sites around the country, that after 120 minutes we would remain on the edge of our seats in the Matildas’ Women’s World Cup quarter-final against France? That it would take 20 heart-in-your-mouth penalties to reach a result, that we would emerge victorious, and that it would be Cortnee Vine who scored?
That match could have gone so many ways – one ending in heartbreak, another writing itself into the history books.
Mary Fowler’s hammering penalty that rocketed low and left into the net could have gone wide, or been saved. France’s Vicki Bècho, who stepped up before Vine, could have scored, giving her team another chance to reach the semi-final.
But it was as it was written, with millions of Australians enraptured (except Barnaby Joyce, who was watching the wrong game).
Looking back to the World Cup that united the nation, the penalty shootout encapsulated so much of what the tournament represented: the fighting spirit, the underdogs, the powerful showing of our rising stars.
What is it, though, that makes a great sporting moment? With the passage of time, what becomes a legacy, and what drifts into the background?
In a sense, legacies are defined by both the individual and the nation.
Of Australia’s 25 million people, only 100,000 were packed into the MCG last September to witness Collingwood become AFL premiers in a – to some thrilling, and others terrifying – four-point win over Brisbane.
Not all of them were as ecstatic as I was about the result. And even fewer were gathered on Collingwood’s Smith Street in the late hours of Saturday evening, belting out the theme song to the tooting of horns and clinking of beers, watching their 13-year-old nephew on the shoulders of a complete stranger, relishing in his first premiership.
Those are the personal victories. Then there are the national – the moments that bring Australia together and unite us for highlighting what is good in our country, what we can be proud of.
I’m thinking of Cathy Freeman in 2000, the newly crowned Olympic gold medallist, draped in the Aboriginal and Australian flags. Or of Ash Barty being presented with her first Australian Open trophy by her hero Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 2022, months before her shock retirement.
Or of AFL great Nicky Winmar’s enduring gesture more than three decades ago at Melbourne’s Victoria Park – using one hand to pull up his Saints jumper to reveal his black skin, and the other to point at his body with pride and defiance. The photograph has been cemented in the history books as a marked, and still relevant, stand against racism.
Other moments are remembered for the pure, batshit adrenaline of them. When you don’t expect to win, when for all intents and purposes you shouldn’t win, yet you do. When you’re punching above your weight.
Or when everything depends on it.
I’m thinking, here, of those tennis matches that drag on into the early morning, players dripping in sweat, commentators on the edge of their seats, tie-break after tie-break until one final, blissful shot, the player collapsing on the court like a sacrifice.
The underdog coming from behind, battling to remain in the game and then – in the final moments – scoring that unbelievable goal that sails the team to victory.
Sometimes it’s not even about winning but defying the odds. Who could forget Peter Bol’s family watching on in delight during the Tokyo Olympics – a source of light as so many of us remained in lockdown?
Or John Aloisi’s winning penalty for the Socceroos in 2005 to send Australia to their first men’s World Cup for more than three decades? When it’s not even about winning but actually getting there that means everything.
The joy of sport is how these moments arise in the most unexpected places. How, for a fleeting instant, a whole spectrum of Australians can be gathered together, on the edge of our seats, with our shaky breaths, to replay again, and again, and again.
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