I’m Australian but I’ve been backing another nation in the Olympic Games

IT’S Olympics time and everyone is donning their green and gold except me because I’m torn between two nations that keep meeting at the Games.

The Australian cheer squad support their team during the 2016 Rio Olympic Women's Rugby Sevens game between Australia and Canada at Deodoro Stadium, Rio. Picture: Adam Head

OPINION

LET’S get one thing straight: I’m Australian, I have lived in Sydney for more than a decade and I happily queued up, without a grumble, for every vote I have been entitled to cast. I eat prawns on Christmas Day, have downed beers on Australia Day and have even gone to the odd game of footy.

But when I was watching the Olympics on Monday, something very un-Australian happened to me.

Bronte Barratt and Emma McKeon were in the pool, wearing the green and gold, ready for the heat that could see them progress one step further on their long swim towards the podium.

Yet I was barracking for someone else. And not just someone else — a whole other nation. While Bronte and Emma were setting a cracking place in the pool I was cheering on Ellie Faulkner and Team GB.

I didn’t expect it to happen. It made me feel guilty but it seemed something deep inside me was willing Britain to win.

When Australia meets other foes it doesn’t happen, it’s just with Britain.

The root cause is easy to isolate. I am not only Australian, I’m British as well.

Like an estimated five million other Australians, I am a dual citizen. While countless other Aussie citizens have a close family link to a country other than this one.

But why, after a decade in Australia, I’m still rooting for jolly old Blighty is more confounding.

Usually, the situation doesn’t arise. Australian and Britain — in most matters — are on the same side. We even share a head of state.

British and Australian flags.

Yet the Olympics have put paid to that happy coexistence. Friends are now foes and I’m rooting for the enemy.

That Australia and Britain even allow you to be dual citizens marks them out from many other countries.

I have a friend in Australia from Japan who has married an Australian and had three kids born on Australian soil.

However, when her brood turns 18 she, or more probably they, will have to make the choice as to whether they remain Australian or take on the nationality of their mother. But they can’t have both — Japan won’t allow it. Neither does the Netherlands, Germany, China or Spain. In fact, neither did Australia up until 2002.

But all that’s changed, you can now spilt your patriotism between two, three, maybe even four countries.

So can you be a good Australian without barracking for Australia?

Some, I’m sure, will say no. That you should choose what club you want to belong to. The ‘love Australia it or leave it’ position, as I think I saw one charming T-shirt proclaim once.

But I don’t agree. Blindly loving a nation despite all its faults is no badge of honour. There are always things you can make better and Australia is no exception.

In all the paperwork involved in becoming a citizen, proving you are law-abiding and wish to uphold the political system of Australia, there is nothing that says you have to go buy a scarf and stay up until 3am to watch the Australian competing in the fencing in Rio.

And why should there be? Should this even be a yardstick? If I have made a life here, if I pay my taxes into Canberra’s coffers not London’s, volunteer in the community, help the economy and generally try and make Australia a great place, is that not commitment enough to my adopted home?

Gees, Australia used to pay British people — in the form of the Ten Pound Poms — to come here. I spent thousands on my own air ticket.

Brittany Elmslie, Bronte Campbell and Emma McKeon of Australia celebrate winning gold and a new world record in the final of the Women's 4 x 100m freestyle relay at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Picture: Getty

I never left the UK because I hated the place. When Britain does well, I’m happy for them; when they make stupid decisions — like the recent Brexit vote — I shake my head in despair.

Rather, weaned on a steady diet of Ramsay St and Summer Bay, I wanted to try this enticing land down under. And the decision has delivered in spades with the amazing opportunities that have come my way.

Besides, the Australian sense of humour is much more to my taste than that of the dowdy Brits.

However, when I go back, I get wrapped up in the frenetic bustle of my home city London and much of my family still live in the UK. The emotional connection is strong and you can’t wash that away in matter of years.

Nevertheless, I’m going to try and curtail the urge just to cheer for the Mother Country alone when Australian and Britain meet.

Who knows if my head or my heart will rule?

But, what I do know is just so long as those Kiwis are beaten, as Australia’s rugby 7’s women’s team did on Tuesday in Rio, then all is good with the world.

And if you want to know what happened to Britain’s Ellie Faulkner in the pool — she came last in her heat.

Australia’s Emma McKeon went onto get gold in the 4x100 metre freestyle. So perhaps my heart is backing the wrong horse anyway.