As Australia celebrates the country’s most successful Olympic Games yet, its our unstoppable female athletes who we have to thank.
Placing fourth on the global medal tally, Australia’s female athletes have won 13 out of the country’s 18 gold medals.
It started with Grace Brown, who battled wild weather in the cycling time trial to bring home Australia’s first gold—and the country’s first ever in the event.
From there, the wins came fast and furiously. Our swimmers taking home gold in multiple events, with Ariarne Titmus winning what has been described as the ‘the race of the century’ in the 400m freestyle competition, Kaylee McKeown becoming the first Australian to win four gold medals in individual events by defending her 100m and 200m backstroke titles and golden girl, Mollie O’Callaghan winning the third, fourth and fifth gold medals of her career by just 20-years-old.
However, it wasn’t just swimming where women prevailed.
In the canoe events, Jess Fox won her first kayaking gold and officially became the most decorated K-1 canoeist in the world before the Fox family celebrations continued when her sister, took Noémie home her first Olympic gold.
Exciting scenes also unfolded at the skateboarding and BMX events, where 14-year-old Arisa Trew became Australia’s youngest ever gold medallist after winning the women’s skateboarding park event and Saya Sakakibara showed us the power of never giving up when she won gold in the BMX event and became Australia’s first to do so.
Nina Kennedy also became the first woman to win a field event when she took home gold in the pole vault.
It wasn’t just in gold medals that Australia’s female athletes proved their prowess—our female athletes also took home five silver medals and five bronze.
Most notably, the women’s water polo team had their best finish since the 2000 Sydney Olympics with a silver medal, while diver Maddison Keeney also made Olympic history with her silver medal in the 3m springboard event, which was the country’s first ever medal in the event.
Runner, Jessica Hull, also took home the country’s first ever medal in the 1500m event when she won silver.
These achievements are not just remarkable for Australia as a country but hugely powerful for an entire generation of young girls.
According to research from Clearinghouse for Sport, only 32 percent of Australian girls continue with sports after the age of 15, in comparison to 50 per cent of boys.
One of reasons that account for this disparity is that until recently, there has been a lack of visible role models for girls in sport.
But if the 2024 Olympics are anything to go by, the times are changing.
Bring on Los Angeles.
This article originally appeared on Marie Claire Australia and is republished here with permission.
