Olympics in review: The top 13 Aussie moments from Tokyo 2020
Well, it was worth the wait.
They were a year late, and there were plenty of times we thought they might never happen, but Tokyo 2020 is an Olympics Australia will remember for a long time.
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With a record-equalling 17 gold medals in the bank, here are 13 of our best moments from the Tokyo Olympics.
Emma McKeon wins 100m freestyle
Just an extraordinary haul. She won seven medals in Tokyo, the equal-most by any woman in any sport at one Olympics in history.
She won gold in the 50m and 100m freestyle, the 4x100m freestyle relay and 4x100 medley relay, as well as bronze in the 100m butterfly, 4x200m freestyle relay and mixed 4x100 medley relay.
Her five career Olympic gold medals draw her level with Ian Thorpe as our most successful Olympian ever.
Her progression to be a contender, let alone a winner of the 50 free was extraordinary, but surely her best individual moment came in 100 free.
She broke the Olympic record and became only the second woman ever to swim under 52 seconds.
Women’s 4x100m freestyle relay world record
If there was one gold medal you could have put in the bank before the Olympics even started, it was the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, and we proved why.
A new world record, eclipsing the time set by Australia at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Meg Harris, Bronte Campbell, Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell became the first relay team to get under 3min 30sec.
It was a blistering performance.
Cate Campbell in the women’s 4x100m medley relay
If this was Cate Campbell’s final performance at Olympic level, what a way to go out.
Less than an hour after the disappointment of finishing seventh in the 50m freestyle final, Campbell turned in a swim (and a changeover) for the ages.
America held a quarter of a second advantage on the final change, which Campbell completed in an astonishing 0.04sec reaction time, before powering through her 100m freestyle leg in 52.11sec to edge out Team USA by 0.13sec.
It was a phenomenal swim from an athlete who has ridden the high and lows of the Olympics throughout her career.
Ariarne Titmus in the 400m freestyle
You could easily argue this was the moment that ignited Australia’s Olympics and fuelled a week-long run of success at the pool.
Her battle with American legend Katie Ledecky had been the most talked-about rivalry leading into the Games, and Titmus delivered in spades.
But this effort to beat Ledecky in the 400 free – the first time the American had ever been beaten in an individual Olympic final – not only set the tone for Titmus, but for the entire Australian swim team. It gave them the confidence to beat Team USA.
Titmus backed it up with another individual win over Ledecky in the 200 free.
Kyle Chalmers in 100m freestyle
In the avalanche of gold in the pool in the first week, this guy’s performance got a little lost.
Since winning gold in the 100m freestyle as an 18-year-old in Rio, Chalmers has endured a torrid time physically.
Shoulder surgery seven months before the Olympics, 12 cortisone injections in his left shoulder, cortisone in his right shoulder, three facet-joint epidurals in his back, three heart surgeries.
That he even made it to Tokyo was amazing. Most would have considered it all too much.
To not only make it, but get within six one-hundredths of a second of defending his 100m crown against his big rival, American Caeleb Dressel, was extraordinary. Amid all that, his time of 47.08sec was an equal personal best.
His interview after the race was honest and heartfelt and one of the moments of the Games. It was a reminder that’s it’s not always about winning.
That effort came after an astonishing performance in the final leg of the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay, when his time of 46.44sec almost single-handedly won Australia a bronze medal.
He might not have won the gold he’d hoped for, but Kyle Chalmers had an Olympics we should remember for a long time.
Jess Fox winning gold
Penalties cost her gold in the K1 final and you might have started to think Olympic gold was somehow going to keep eluding Jess Fox.
But a brilliant performance a couple of days later in the C1 made the wait worthwhile.
The win was made even better by watching her being able to celebrate with her family in Tokyo and her father, Richard Fox, who (extremely calmly) called his daughter to victory for Channel 7.
McKeown and Seebohm feel-good moment
She’d just won the 200m backstroke, capping off the double after winning the 100 back earlier in the week, and emerging as one of the biggest stars of the Australian swim team.
But it was Kaylee McKeown's act of inviting veteran Emily Seebohm, a bronze medallist in the 100m, onto the top step of the dais to share the moment as the national anthem was played that will be remembered for a long time.
"She deserved to be on that gold medal podium as much as I did. It meant the world to both of us." McKeown said.
Andrew Hoy becomes Australia’s oldest medallist
It is nearly 40 years since Andrew Hoy made his Olympic debut in Los Angeles 1984.
But in Tokyo, at the age of 62, he was still there, not just competing, not just making up the numbers, but making history.
He became Australia’s oldest Olympic medallist when he brought it home in the team eventing final to grab silver with Kevin McNab and Shane Rose, and then backed it up later that night with an individual bronze in the individual jumping final.
He now has six medals from eight Olympics, and who’s to say this amazing sporting chapter can’t continue yet.
Rohan Browning wins his 100m heat
This was the moment people all around Australia sat up on the couches and said: “Wait, what just happened?”
We’ve waited a long time for a genuine star sprinter but we’ve got one now, and while it might have only been a heat, Browning’s win stamped himself as a name you’ll be hearing all about for the next few years.
He had been expected to compete well, but this win was not something the general population had been anticipating.
A slow start in the semi-final cost him a shot in the final, but he kept powering home and with the chance hopefully to get some consistent international competition over the next three years, his appearance in Paris in three years’ time will be eagerly anticipated.
Sam Kerr leads Matildas’ comeback
It looked all over. The Matildas were 2-1 down in the final minutes of their quarter-final against Great Britain when superstar Sam Kerr stepped up to the plate to level scores and send the game into extra time.
We looked in trouble again when the Brits were awarded a dubious penalty, but a save by Aussie goalkeeper Teagan Micah kept things even, and then a minute later Mary Fowler scored a stunner from outside the box, her left foot finding the top right corner of the net.
Then in the first minute after the extra time break, Kerr struck again, this time with a header, to make it 4-2.
The Brits scored late to make it a nervous last couple of minutes but we were never really losing that one.
We couldn’t get it done against Sweden in the semi-finals to make it through to the gold medal playoff, but this was a remarkable performance.
Golden morning in the rowing
A quarter of a century after the original 'Oarsome Foursome' won gold in Atlanta, it was not one, but two fours teams taking Australia back to the top of the rowing world.
It started with the women’s team who broke away from the pack early with Netherlands, and then held off the fast-finishing Dutch team to win by just 0.34sec.
Half an hour later the Aussie men were a boat length in front of Great Britain with 500m to go, before the Brits veered off course and narrowly avoided a collision with Italy in the next lane, guaranteeing another Aussie gold.
Peter Bol
From his second placing in the heats, to his never-say-die attitude to ensure he finished fourth in the final, Peter Bol’s attitude, effort and the symbolism of his performance made his Olympics one to remember.
He had to take the lead in the final to ensure there was pace in the race, and his fighting performance to hang on for fourth made Australia’s wait of 53 years for a finalist in the event worth it.
He won’t just be a poster boy for Australia’s Sudanese community in the next few years, there will be great anticipation about what he can achieve in Paris.
Keegan Palmer lights up skateboarding final
Look, times have changed at the Olympics. Weightlifting, which has been contested at every Olympics since 1920, is struggling to maintain its spot on the program amid the constant controversy within the sport.
It’s not hard to see why when you look at the success of some of the sports included in Tokyo.
Surfing was a welcome addition, sport climbing had people buzzing, but it was skateboarding that really took off when Keegan Palmer grabbed gold for Australia.
His incredible last run in the final, which scored 95.83 from the judges, had not just him jumping, but people all over Australia and the world.
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