Straaaaaaya! Humility, you’re disqualified. The Olympics boasting has well and truly begun

Hang on all, I’ll be right back. Just have to grab my Straya towel from Crazy Clark’s to wipe the old face. I’m sweating it up from wearing a green-and-gold clown wig 24/7. Which is fine – makes me feel like Deeks or Monners after smashing out a mara. And says I’m coming down with Olympic fever.

Right now, who isn’t? Given the Tokyo Games were stitched up by the pandemic, everyone’s raring to go for this instalment. Warming up tellies, warming up Four’N Twenties, warming up cliches.

Karl Stefanovic gets into the Olympic spirit on the streets of Paris.Credit: Nine

And there’s no better place to be doing that than Australia.

Because when it comes to tallies – and everything comes to tallies – we’re already on the board. Even before the opening ceremony we’d medalled in at least four cringeworthy criteria that set nations apart at these times.

You’ll have others. In the spirit of Nikki Webster, please share. Stick some flags on your Commodore, get thinking and get bloody winning.

One: Skiting

Nine’s pre-Games coverage set the tone for the boasting to come. Humility, you’re disqualified.

A colour story gave us an insider view of the athletes’ village. Australia has the best spot, we heard. THE BEST. Exactly why our accommodations are superior wasn’t explained but it didn’t have to be –Aussies will be bunking down there! Like, der.

Our team (the third biggest, cop that losers) has the best barista, masseurs, medicos. When our swimmers arrived in Paris, multiple news outlets called it an “Aussie invasion”. Very cool. Forget swimming, we’re here to take over. Which way to the submarine factory?

Two: Emoting

Again, Games broadcaster Nine led the way in needlessly chewing up the scenery. Days out from the official opening, it was tissues at 10 paces for colleagues Ally Langdon and Sarah Abo.

A Current Affair host Langdon got the jump. Kicking off the network’s live coverage on Wednesday, she lost it during a segment about BMX star Saya Sakakibara.

Today’s Abo wasn’t far off the pace on Thursday. She told chef de mission Anna Meares she nearly had to go to sickbay for a lie down amid the emotion when our flag bearers were announced. She was just as misty when Meares said she was missing her young family.

Wouldn’t have happened in George Negus’ day, on-camera talent emoting to become part of the narrative. And before the first Aussie flag has been hoisted – sheesh, imagine the ugly crying when that happens.

Three: The tragic backstory

Think back to the national swimming trials where TV journos were sent into stands to kill the moment for celebrating families by grilling them about past traumas. That’s a pre-Paris podium finish any day of the week.

Once sport used to be just sport. You ran fast, jumped high, had a supportive family and club. Now the narratives are like a MasterChef audition.

Makes a much better story if you were raised in a single-parent family with no electricity and had to walk 400ks to school while carrying three younger siblings with ADHD. Trained at 3am after working a double shift at Maccas and mourning the deaths of your grandparents in a Chair O Plane accident at a rural show.

Get ready for more triumphs over tragedy, people.

Four: Cultural appropriation of our own culture

Yep, from what we’ve seen so far Paris is awash with the things that truly make Australia Australian: think aforementioned clown wigs, blokes sporting dirty detective moustaches and Speedos and Karl Stefanovic (in a wig, legit) handing out Vegemite in the street.

On Today, the hosts laid out our alleged national fare on their Paris set. Big jar of Vege, packets of Savory Shapes and Tim Tams. “I miss Vegemite toast,” said Abo wistfully, as if she’s been away from home since the Mawson expedition.

One bloke doing TV interviews at an Aussie-themed Paris cafe wore an Akubra. Yeah cobbers, we wear them all the time. And do group hug dances to the chorus of Down Under, hoisting blow up boxing kangaroos.

Aaaggh. The sport can’t come fast enough.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.