Recipe for Olympic success: just add water

The Aussies are making a splash again at the Olympics.

Mathew Belcher, left, and Will Ryan win gold in the Men's 470 class in Fujisawa, Japan, on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

The Aussies are making a splash again at the Olympics. Mat Belcher and Will Ryan, dripping wet, surged across the line at Enoshima Yacht Harbour, southwest of Tokyo, on Wednesday to win their final race and claim gold for Australia in the 470 sailing class.

Earlier in the day, Kareena Lee copped a wet fish in the chest as she pulled off a spectacular effort to finish third in the women’s 10km open water swim, taking home the bronze medal.

When it comes to Australian success at the Tokyo Olympics, just add water. Almost all of our impressive haul of medals at these Games have been won by athletes who are sopping wet.

Wednesday’s sailing gold medal made Tokyo Australia’s third most successful Games – 15 gold, just behind 17 in Athens in 2004 and 16 in Sydney in 2000.

Of those 15, 14 have been won in the water – at the swimming pool, the canoe slalom course, the sailing harbour or the rowing centre. BMX bandit Logan Martin is our only dry land gold medallist.

All up, Australia has 36 medals and 30 of them were won by people who got wet. Although Australia’s men’s pursuit cycling team, with a fresh set of handlebars, stayed dry on Wednesday to claim a bronze.

It was ever thus, of course, in a sunburnt country. We live in a land of sweeping beaches and swimming pools, so success in water sports runs in our blood.

As always, Australia’s swimmers did the lion’s share of the heavy lifting, winning 20 medals – nine gold, three silver and eight bronze.

But Belcher and Ryan and the sailing team are more than pulling their weight. Belcher is now Australia’s most successful Olympic sailor, having already collected gold with Malcolm Page in London and silver with Ryan in Rio.

And Australia has won the men’s 470 class four times since Sydney 2000 – Beijing 2008, London 2012, and Tokyo 2020.

Sailing, it could be said, is the quiet achiever of Australian Olympic sport, picking up eight golds at the past four Games – two in Beijing, three in London, one in Rio and two in Tokyo. That’s bettered only by swimming’s 19, a sport with nearly four times as many events.

It was an emotional victory for Belcher and Ryan because it is the last time they will compete together at an Olympics. The men’s 470 class has been dropped from the Paris program in 2024.

“We are really, really happy. We have been going out there and having a good time all week,” said Belcher. “We had a good time, sailed well, and had a few laughs.”

But the wettest and wildest event of the day was the 10km open water swim, where Lee powered through soup-like water in Tokyo Bay and battled jumping fish to clinch the bronze.

At one stage, she got the shock of her life when one of the fish hit her in the chest.

“It jumped up and hit me,” she said. “I didn’t know what it was at first and I was like ‘Whoa’.

“I was watching them jump out before, but I didn’t think one would actually hit me.”

True to Australian tradition, Belcher and Ryan jumped into the water to celebrate.

Lee, already well and truly sodden, jumped out.