Tasmania’s athletes make Tokyo Olympics our best Games
Tasmanian athletes claimed a record seven medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games - Here’s how our Tassie Olympians rated >>
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SPORTS guru Paul Austen is ecstatic that swimming sensation Ariarne Titmus boosted Tasmania to its most successful Olympic Games on record as the Tasmanian Institute of Sport boss declares Tokyo a huge triumph.
Tasmania claimed seven medals at the Tokyo Games, topping our previous-best of five medals from the Olympics in Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
Titmus claimed two gold medals, one silver and a bronze, while hockey stars Eddie Ockenden and Josh Beltz helped the Kookaburras win silver, and basketballer Chris Goulding was part of the Boomers’ historic first Olympic medal — a well-earned silver..
Austen said the performance of Titmus and his TIS contingent of 10 in Tokyo was exceptional.
“It is Tasmania’s best achievement at an Olympic Games,” Austen said.
“It provides an outstanding tribute to the quality of athletes to come from the state.”
In Atlanta, our medals were won by basketballer Carla Boyd (bronze), paddler Daniel Collins (bronze), swimmer Scott Goodman (bronze), track cyclist Tim O’Shannessy (bronze) and Kookaburra Daniel Sproule (bronze).
At the Sydney Games, Boyd and rowers Darren Balmforth and Simon Burgess won silver, and Kookaburras Daniel Sproule and Matthew Wells brought home bronze.
In Athens, Wells struck gold, Burgess and softballer Simone Morrow won silver, and rowers Dana Faletic and Kerry Hore claimed bronze.
Four years later in Beijing, rower Scott Brennan won gold, basketballer Hollie Grima won silver, while Kookaburras Ockenden, Wells and David Guest won bronze.
“Ariarne produced the greatest individual performance achieved by a Tasmanian athlete at an Olympic Games _ no-one has been in that space before in our Olympic history,” Austen said.
“The real measure of an athlete is can they perform on the day, which is why Ariarne Titmus sits at the highest level possible.”
Delayed by a year because of the global coronavirus pandemic, Austen said the Tokyo Games was a triumph all-round.
“For so many reasons this was the most amazing Olympic Games,” he said.
“I congratulate the Australian Olympic Committee and all the wonderful support personnel who have worked so hard behind the scenes to manage the safety and wellbeing of our Australian athletes so that they could perform as well as they have in Tokyo.”
Paul Austen rates the TIS athletes
Nathaniel Atkinson (men’s soccer): defeated Argentina 2-0, lost to Spain 0-1, lost to Egypt 0-2
“Nathaniel clearly displayed class and ability at the Olympic level, stood out as one of Australia’s key players and in the third and pivotal game against Egypt unfortunately his absence was very noticeable.”
Eddie Ockenden and Josh Beltz (men’s hockey): Defeated Japan 5-3, defeated India 7-1, defeated Argentina 5-2, defeated New Zealand 4-2, drew Spain 1-1; defeated The Netherlands 2-2 (3-0) in quarter-final; defeated Germany 3-1 in semi-final; lost to Belgium in final 1-1 (2-3)
“They had an outstanding campaign with the Kookaburras reaching the final between the clear top two teams in a gruelling tournament. At the end they could only be split by the dreaded penalty shootout which is tough - shame they didn’t get to share the gold like in the men’s high jump. Eddie and Josh performed incredibly well and no-one could be disappointed with the way the Australian men’s team competed.”
Sarah Hawe (rowing): women’s eights, 3rd in heat, 4th in repechage, 5th in final
“After a bit of a flat start, the women’s eight went well and improved during the campaign and a tremendous amount of work went into that. It is a highly-competitive event and the lack of competition preceding it, which provides that measuring stick, probably made it hard for the Australians to initially gauge their efforts, as demonstrated by how they improved throughout the regatta.”
Richie Porte (cycling): road race, 48th; time trial, 27th
“Richie represented Tasmania and Australia really well. Of the cyclists who rode the Tour de France and then Tokyo, he was among the select smaller group that had survived the first three-quarters of the race and was still in the mix until the last climb. He was clearly Australia’s best road racer for the Tokyo course. It was a big ask for him to compete in such a brutal race and I congratulate Richie for doing an outstanding job on the day.”
Daniel Watkins (paddling): C1, 16th in heat 1, 8th in heat 2, 2nd in semi-final, 9th in final
“Daniel’s international competitiveness advanced considerably. He was second fastest in qualifying and gave himself every opportunity to win a medal so that was a great result for Daniel going into Olympic competition for the first time. He would have had strong hopes of what he could achieve at the Olympics but he probably exceeded them.”
Ariarne Titmus (swimming): 400m freestyle, 1st in heat, GOLD in final; 200m freestyle, 1st in heat, 1st in semi-final, GOLD in final; 4x200m freestyle relay, BRONZE in final; 800m freestyle, 2nd in heat, SILVER in final
“For any Australian swimmer to meet the world’s best across two events and come out on top is the ultimate performance within that sport. It was an outstanding result and reward for the work and effort she has put in to be successful. For a maiden Olympics, Ariarne surpassed expectations. Even in the two events that she didn’t achieve the gold, the 200m freestyle relay, the team broke a world record and in the 800m freestyle she did a PB by two seconds, beaten only by the greatest female swimmer in Olympic history, so you could not have asked for much more.”
Jake Birtwhistle (triathlon): individual, 16th; mixed relay, 9th
“Jake had a tough Olympic campaign but he should factor in the impact the lack of racing opportunities he’d had at that level, as well as things that happened on the day. We know he absolutely gave his all and he will be better for those experiences with what comes next. In the relay he performed very well. The demands of triathlon make it very hard to get preparation right, particularly when deprived of opportunities to compete internationally, because the ability to perform under pressure gets honed in competition not in training.”
Georgia Baker (track cycling): Team pursuit, 7th in qualifying, 1st in round 1, 5th overall; madison, 7th
“The expected result in the team pursuit was unclear going into the qualification round. The Australians probably did not hit the mark, but rode better in the ride-offs giving an indication that in such a competitive event maybe they were not quite where they needed to be. Georgia produced very solid performances but the absence of international competition makes it very hard. Competing at an Olympics is unlike any other event and if you are short on competition it is incredibly difficult to reset at the event.”
Stewart McSweyn (athletics): 1500m, 3rd in heat, 5th in semi-final
“The Australian track and field team have been brilliant at these Olympics and Stewy has raced very well. Most athletes with a reasonable chance in their events have produced PBs or better and that’s all you can ask. Stewy has been performing at a very high level and has raced against the others enough to know how to run to give himself the best chance at this event, and he put in a superb effort in such a world-class field and should be super proud of his performance.”
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