Rio 2016: Golden Aussie Olympic form a result of ‘Brazilience’

BRAZILIENCE is the magic word of these Olympics and those that don’t have it might as well leave the room now.

Australia's Mack Horton poses on the podium with silver medallist China's Sun Yang.

BRAZILIENCE is the magic word of these Olympics and those that don’t have it might as well leave the room now.

Australia used the word – a combination of Brazil and resilience – a couple of years ago in its first pre-Olympic bonding meetings and now is the time to raise it again.

It should be put in on every noticeboard in the team tower, whispered to the whingers and reinforced to the resilient.

The many athletes responsible for our nation’s strong start should be told that they have got Brazilience and good on them for that.

Mack Horton holds the Australian flag.

The Games may only be a few days old, yet already we can say that Rio 2016 is to the Olympics what Delhi 2010 was to the Commonwealth Games – a rough and ready playground where the toughest triumph and sensitive get ground to sawdust.

This is a Games where pure talent may at times be your fourth most important quality behind adaptation, temperament and tenacity.

Gold medallist Mack Horton displayed Brazilience in the way he boldly called his key rival Sun Yang out for being a drug cheat. From that point he owned the challenge ahead of him.

On day one in the rowing when the wind has turned the Lagoa course into a glorified washing machine, many were panicking – but not old sweat Sally Kehoe at her third Games.

Australia's Genevieve Horton and Sally Kehoe.

She watched the early action from her hotel room and only needed to be convinced of one thing – that conditions were the same for everyone – to boldly tackle the choppy waters with calm maturity before joking that her year out with surf boats helped her get used to the choppy conditions.

That’s Brazilience right there.

The road cycling demanded Brazilience beyond the nth degree.

No one tipped Belgium’s Greg van Avermaet as the likely winner of the men’s road race but on what has been branded the most brutal course in Olympic history – only 40 of 144 finished – the little scrapper just kept riding boldly as carnage happened around him.

A gold star for Brazilience.

Gold medallist Belgium's Greg Van Avermaet.

In Delhi in 2010 the Australian team became divided into two camps – the whingers who were distracted by the foreign food, the dodgy shower curtains and little things that went wrong and the “get on with the job’’ types like Alicia Coutts.

The familiar story of a lot of Australian gold medallists in Delhi was their unspoilt natures and robust temperaments and Games star Coutts, raised by her mum after her father died of cancer when she was seven.

Coutts was the embodiment of that spirit and one which must flare again to prosper in Rio.

Originally published as Rio 2016: Golden Aussie Olympic form a result of ‘Brazilience’