CLOSING CEREMONY UNDERWAY
Australia’s most successful Olympic Games is drawing to a spectacular end, with the closing ceremony in Paris currently in full flow. Finishing with a record 18 gold medals (plus 19 silver and 16 bronze, making a total of 53), the Australian team ended the 2024 games in 4th place overall.
The United States topped the final table after finishing with 40 gold medals, the same number as China, but with a superior total medal count — 126 to 91. Team USA’s final gold came in the last event of the entire Olympics, the women’s basketball, and came down to the final play in an unbelievably tight final against France. The Guardian recalls how the US won by a single point, 67-66, after France’s Gabby Williams’ buzzer-beating last shot of the game was judged to have been just inside the three-point line, denying the hosts the chance to take the final into overtime.
Recapping the final day of competition, the ABC reports Day 16 saw Australia winning bronze in the women’s basketball, overcoming Belgium for the Opals’ first medal in 12 years, and in the velodrome where Matthew Richardson and Matthew Glaetzer won silver and bronze respectively in the men’s keirin. A dramatic final lap saw three riders crash out meters from the finish line, with Glaetzer’s wife later confirming to Nine he had declared “I did a Bradbury” after claiming third place in front of the crashed riders, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Elsewhere, in the final moments of the Olympics, American gymnast Jordan Chiles posted a short statement on Instagram, declaring: “I am taking this time and removing myself from social media for my mental health thank you,” after she was stripped of the bronze medal she won in the women’s floor final, BuzzFeed reports. Chiles lost her medal after authorities backed an appeal by the Romanian Olympic Committee claiming Chiles’ team’s inquiry into her score, which had initially placed her outside the medals but then saw her promoted to third, was outside the one-minute limit for such appeals, the BBC explained. Romania’s Ana Barbosu was handed the bronze instead.
Lastly, the Associated Press reports a man was arrested for climbing the Eiffel Tower hours before Sunday’s closing ceremony. The newswire said French police evacuated the area around the Eiffel Tower after a shirtless man was seen scaling the tower.
The Paralympics are up next, beginning on August 28.
LABOR, COALITION NECK-AND-NECK
The latest Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows Labor and the Coalition level at 50-50 on a two-party-preferred basis, as Parliament resumes following the winter break. The paper says the polling shows a majority of voters expect a hung Parliament at the next federal election, with Labor’s primary vote falling one point to 32% and the Coalition’s rising one point to 39%. The Oz reckons such figures suggest “there is little prospect of Anthony Albanese calling an early election for this year”.
The AAP highlights that the polling also shows a drop in popularity for both the prime minister (43%) and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (40%). The Coalition’s seven-point lead on first preferences is also not enough to put it in an election-winning position.
In other polling, the Resolve Political Monitor for The Sydney Morning Herald shows voters have marked down Labor “over its handling of the nation’s finances after a political dispute about public spending and high inflation, shifting more support to the Coalition on a key test of budget management”, David Crowe said. That polling has Labor’s primary vote at 29% and the Coalition’s at 37%.
Patricia Karvelas writes for the ABC that this week is “pivotal for Anthony Albanese as he reaches for the reset button” with the prime minister’s new cabinet facing the prospect of questions over the cost of living crisis, interest rates, housing, the CFMEU, immigration and much more.
As politicians return to Canberra, the AAP says security at federal Parliament, airports and politicians’ events will be “noticeably thinner” as federal police officers prepare to go on strike. The Australian reports the Australian Federal Police Association (AFPA) wrote to all parliamentarians on Sunday informing them that AFP officers will be removed “from key locations including Canberra Airport and Australian Parliament House during sitting weeks” as well as “withdrawing Australian Federal Police resources from federal political functions and events unless they carry a ‘significant’ threat rating”.
The Albanese government has offered public servants an 11.2% pay rise over three years. The AAP reports AFPA president Alex Caruana said the offer placed officers in the same category as desk job public servants, leaving them no choice but to take their first industrial action this century, stating: “The deal currently being presented is toxic.”
Also, in case you missed it on Insiders yesterday, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has claimed friendly nations were among the “three to four” nations detected actively working to interfere within Australian communities, the ABC reports. “I can think of at least three or four that we have actually actively found involved in foreign interference in Australian diaspora communities,” he said. “Some of them would surprise you, some of them are also our friends.” Burgess warned he would be willing to name nations publicly if the threat continued.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A fireman has caught one of the rarest sharks imaginable — a Lego version that had been lost at sea for 27 years.
Richard West, 35, discovered the toy on the top of his fishing nets 20 miles south of Penzance, Cornwall, last week, the BBC reports. According to The Guardian, the tiny shark was one of five million pieces lost overboard in the “Great Lego Spill of 1997”, when cargo ship Tokio Express was hit by a freak wave. The paper said the pieces were still washing up today.
Upon finding the Lego shark in his fishing net, West contacted the Lego Lost at Sea project, which confirmed it was the first shark to have been reported from the infamous spill. The BBC said almost 52,000 Lego sharks were lost off the Tokio Express on 13 February, 1997.
“I could tell straight away what it was because I had Lego sharks in the pirate ship set when I was little. I loved them,” West said. “It’s been 25 years since I’ve seen that face.”
Commenting on his prize catch, the 35-year-old added: “I was so excited. I was more happy about finding the shark than anything else I caught this week. It’s priceless — it’s treasure!”
The Guardian said Tracey Williams set up Lego Lost at Sea as a “bit of fun” but it grew significantly with thousands of followers on social media as a global community of beachcombers monitor where the Lego and other cargo spills are popping up.
Say What?
I am so proud, proud for them, proud of them, proud to be here with them.
Anna Meares
The chef de mission of Australia’s Olympic team paid tribute to the team in her final press conference in Paris. The 2024 games were the most successful in Australian Olympic history, with 18 golds. Much of that success has been due to female athletes. The Sydney Morning Herald said Mearles paid special tribute to their success on Saturday: “I think the simple visibility of women in sport is making an impact, and we’re seeing that impact. My daughter has asked me: ‘Mum, can I play this sport?’ And how nice as a parent that I can sit there and say: ‘Yeah, baby, you can’… As a female athlete and as a woman, we know what it’s like to feel excluded. I’m certainly not going to act in that capacity to our male teammates … But it’s undeniable that our women have been exceptional at these games.”
CRIKEY RECAP
Australia’s richest person is “almost like this godmother figure”, two-time 2024 medalist and sport headline writer’s dream Elijah Winnington told a press conference. “I don’t know many other financial backers would come to the swimming every single night, waving the Australian flag and standing up for every single person’s race. Without her financial support, we would have nothing other than prize money.”
The mining magnate responded to Australia’s early flurry of medals by holding a lavish celebration of “Gina Inc” — a boat party down the Seine featuring a dress code of gold Rossi Boots and, less strictly observed, white shirts from Rinehart’s beef producer, S. Kidman & Co (meals via Rinehart’s 2GR wagyu beef). Oh, and if you were an athlete you had to be able to accessorise with a medal — no podium finish, no invite.
Rinehart has dropped roughly $10 million a year on swimming, beach volleyball and rowing since 2012.
This is about Murdoch’s belief that Lachlan is the best champion of his real legacy: the creation of a business that seeks to disrupt, usurp and generally mess with anything progressive on a global scale. We should care about this because Murdoch has done much of this under the guise of journalism, or some corrupted form of it that, on balance, has done more harm than good. At times it’s been a scourge on democracy.
For decades News Corp has demonised groups and causes it has disagreed with. It has targeted progressives, the LGBTQIA+ community, Muslims, scientists, environmentalists, refugees and immigrants, as well as countless others. The journalism has often been unbalanced and sensationalised, involving phone hacking, gotcha stories and ambushes.
Let’s not forget the page-three girls, the brazen regime-changing crusades in support of right-wing politicians and against progressive governments. There’s even been sustained collusion with known liars, some of whom have held very high office. For decades, far too many of Murdoch’s news outlets have debased the craft of journalism across three continents.
It’s not that James or Lachlan are particularly villainous, at least as far as billionaires go. It’s that they’re all too typical of the very rich. “They are different from you and me,” F. Scott Fitzgerald told us a century ago, “soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand”. It’s a personality type perfectly captured in Succession’s portrayal of the fictional Roys.
Just about every feud within media-owning families ends (as the Fairfaxes did) with break-up and sell-off. (One of Rupert’s growth hacks was exploiting these feuds in old media families.)
Similarly, the sale or break-up of News Corp and Fox remains the most likely outcome of the current Murdoch family bun fight. Plenty of the worthless properties — many in Australia — won’t survive the transition. But the poison of oligarch ownership will endure whoever ends up with the parts left over.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Ukraine’s shock raid deep inside Russia rages on (The Economist)
Trump campaign blames Iran for hacked emails (The Financial Times)
Landslide at Uganda rubbish dump kills at least 18 people (Al-Jazeera)
Israel expands evacuation orders for Khan Younis in southern Gaza (The New York Times)
Banksy confirms seventh London artwork in a week (BBC)
Far-right disorder had ‘clear’ Russian involvement, says ex-MI6 spy (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The Olympics, a triumph of ambition, Llift France from its gloom — Roger Cohen (The New York Times): Even if political problems flare again in the coming weeks, as they almost certainly will, a core pride at a remarkable accomplishment, impossible without the contribution of all sectors of society, appears likely to endure for a long time.
It is as if the renowned schools of France that produce world-class engineers and world-class analytical thinkers found a way to fuse with the creators of French artistic beauty, turning Paris into a sumptuous, efficient stadium and its sometimes surly inhabitants into some of the kindest people on earth.
Things worked; the party grew; people relaxed. The dismissive French “bof” and shrug gave way to a universal smile. Paris became a city of cheers and murmurs. Inclusiveness — of French people of every origin, skin colour and creed — was a core theme from the opening ceremony onward in a society torn by tense debate over immigration. The embrace extended to visitors from all over the world.
Beneath the veneer of the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais, Paris had a problem — Jordan Baker (The Sydney Morning Herald): Instead, it was the epicentre of complaints. The food was cold, athletes said. The British complained about uncooked meat. A much-proclaimed emphasis on sustainable plant-based meals left athletes hungry for protein. British swimmer Adam Peaty said there were worms in the fish. “A disaster,” said the German men’s hockey team.
“They started running out of food,” said Australian tennis player Daria Saville on social media. “Some nights, I’d just have canned tuna and rice in the Australian building.”
There’s an old cliché about Europe that goes something like this: in heaven, the couturiers are French, the mechanics are German, and everything’s organised by the Swiss. In hell, the French are the mechanics, and the Italians are the organisers. During the Paris Games, the French skirted close to their stereotype of style over substance; they may have hosted the most beautiful Games of the modern era, but there were some mechanical failures under the bonnet.
