I feel the urge to talk about how crazily insane Australia's current successes at the 2026 Winter Olympics have been.
Lemme start off by saying that I'm not really much of a sports enthusiast - I've never played sports outside of when I had to for school subjects, and there are never any sporting events that I'm really itching to watch when they're on TV. But with that being said, I still support all the relevant sporting teams and athletes when the time comes to cheer for them, and this Winter Olympics has certainly become a notable one for our country!
Now this might not come as a surprise to you, but Australia is not exactly a country known for its prowess in winter sports (yeah, shocker, I know). In fact, before this year, we had only won 6 gold medals total across previous games! (Plus 7 silver and 6 bronze medals, but let's focus on golds right now). We started in the Salt Lake City games in 2002, with Stephen Bradbury bagging us our first ever gold, in the event of short track speed skating. (Yes, that event, that Bradbury, that iconic moment.) Then we got a second gold at the same games, in Freestyle Skiing Women's Aerials. And that was it for us for that games, not even any bronze or silver!
We bagged another gold (plus a bronze) in Turin in 2006, followed by two more (plus a silver) in Vancouver in 2010. But the next two winter games (Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018) gave us only bronzes and silvers, and our sixth gold wasn't until the Beijing games in 2022, by Jakara Anthony for Freestyle Skiing Women's Moguls.
So basically, going into this games, we weren't exactly expecting much, while at the same time, still happy to cheer on all the Aussies for even just being there to compete at all. Like for example, Australia had a Winter Olympics relay team for the first time ever this year, a team of four competing in the Women's Cross-Country Relay. They came 14th, and that's still impressive for their debut! Or how about the Australian ice dancing pair who came 18th, but are still celebrated because that's the highest score and highest placing that we've ever gotten in Olympic ice dance!
So yeah, unlike perhaps certain countries (*cough*), there were many Aussies happy to applaud any of our athletes who just went out there and gave it their all, regardless of how they ended up placing.
And then, on Thursday the 12th of February, sometime around 10:30PM AEST, Day 6 of the Games, Cooper Woods won a gold medal for Australia in Men's Moguls, beating Canada in as close a race as you could get. (Literally the scores were equal and the judges had to use turn scores as the tiebreaker.) And all the Aussie commentators and sports reporters lost their collective minds, along with friends, family, and many other Australian viewers.
And then the next day (Day 7), at roughly 11:45PM (quarter to midnight) AEST on Friday the 13th of February, we get a second gold, won by 23-year-old Josie Baff in Women's Snowboard Cross. (This one I did watch live, as I had heard my mum cheering Josie on during the semifinals and had come out to see what the fuss was all about.) This was our third time winning two golds at the Olympics, but our first time winning them on consecutive days. And then, still technically on Day 7, (though it was early morning Saturday for us), we got a silver as well! And sure, there was disappointment as halfpipe snowboarder Scotty James was really hoping for a gold, and had his dreams dashed by falling on his third run, but with now 2 silver medals and 1 bronze earned across his five total Olympics, that does still technically make him our most-decorated Winter Olympian. (For perspective, our most-decorated Summer Olympian is swimmer Emma McKeon, with 14 medals earned across three consecutive Olympic games.)
But wait, there's more! Because then comes Day 8 of the Winter Olympics, and Australia makes history by getting a third gold medal in a single Winter Olympics! This time by previous gold medallist Jakara Anthony, in the new event of Women's Dual Moguls!
This is without a doubt our best Winter Olympics ever and it's actually kind of insane. And the games aren't even close to being over yet! Currently, though, as I type this (2:14PM AEST on the 15th of Feb), we're sitting at 11th on the medal table, which is way higher than I ever expected us to. The countries we're beating include Great Britain, who've won a single gold medal and nothing else, and Canada, believe it or not, who are still yet to get a gold at all! (They have got 3 silver and 5 bronze though).
Anyway maybe I'll update this if we win anything else, but basically this event is absolutely one for the history books.
