Petria Thomas to lead Australia to 2026 Commonwealth Games as chef de mission, puts down medal expectations
England closed the gap in 2022 but with the Commonwealth Games returning to Australia in three years, our returning chef de mission has made the host nation’s objectives clear.
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Australia will “definitely be striving” to top the medal tally again on home soil at the 2026 Commonwealth Games as returning chef de mission Petria Thomas lays out her expectations for the Victorian games.
Thomas has been unveiled as the team leader for a second-straight Commonwealth Games after guiding Australia to 67 gold medals last year in Birmingham.
A three-time Olympic gold medallist in the pool, Thomas was the nation’s first female chef de mission at a Commonwealth Games and saw Australia lead home nation England by 10 golds and two medals on the overall tally.
After easily topping the table at the last home games on the Gold Coast in 2018, the expectations will be sky high for the home nation, with events to be staged across Victoria at Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat and Gippsland.
“What we did in Birmingham was fantastic to be honest, to go and win on English soil,” Thomas told News Corp.
“We will have a lot of pressure on our shoulders as we always do being the home team at the Commonwealth Games but I am positive that our athletes, coaches, support staff and everyone involved will really lift for a home games experience and put on a wonderful show.
“We will definitely be striving for that No.1 position on the medal tally.”
A winner of two silvers and a bronze at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Thomas knows all about dealing with the expectations of a home games.
She said her management team would lean on the athletes to “develop their own strategies” to handle the heat.
Thomas was thrown into the fire ahead of her first Commonwealth Games running the Australian side, as Covid wreaked havoc on the preparation for Birmingham.
She said she it was a “remarkable result” no Australian missed an event due to Covid.
With the 2026 games to be spread around Victoria, Thomas will have a new, if less serious, challenge to deal with.
“It will be challenging in that sense,” she said.
“They (the host cities) are not hours and hours away from each other but they are far enough to make it a challenge. We will have to come up with some solutions about how to move around and support the whole team and how we divide our management staff and support staff.”
Originally published as Petria Thomas to lead Australia to 2026 Commonwealth Games as chef de mission, puts down medal expectations
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