A GOLDEN RETURN

Australia’s most successful Olympics team returned triumphantly to Sydney Airport today and in a Qantas hangar we saw an unusual sight: At the Welcome Home ceremony there were Prime Minister Howard and Opposition Leader Latham sharing the podium and both making brief effective patriotic speeches.

I say “the most successful Olympics team ever” because we won 17 Gold Medals which beat the sixteen in Sydney four years ago and thirteen in Melbourne in 1956. And I will brace myself for the “get a life” pedant who e-mails me every day at length pointing out that the medal tally should not revolve around Gold. Presumably that would mean if a country won no Gold medals but 100 Bronze they would top the ladder.

Athens was a triumph for Australia. I don’t want to sound too jingoistic but how come a country of only twenty million people can compete against more than 200 countries and come in fourth behind the United States, China and Russia. That is awesome.

The Welcome Home reception was moving. I know it’s the Qantas jingle but I still Call Australia Home gave me a tingle as the athletes, sporting their medals, walked off the two jumbo jets.

A few personal observations. Margaret Jackson, chairman of Qantas, was the first speaker. The Aussie airline has been a major sponsor of our Olympic teams for about fifty years. And do you know what? She can’t pronounce the airline’s name. Repeatedly Jackson called it “ Qan’as”. She also made a ballsup of the name of the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin. She quoted some bloke called Pierre de Cobernay.

Howard and Latham kept their speeches short and in appropriate form for the occasion but Latham again harked on Australia’s “ unique larrikin spirit”. Which I don’t believe a lot of us share.

John Coates, our Chef de Mission, and that doesn’t mean cook, proclaimed the Athens Olympic Village the best ever and paid tribute to such athletes as Ian Thorpe and Jodie Henry and Petria Thomas.

And finally… I know our athletes are there to run and jump and swim but how many Gold medals could be awarded for the number of times they say “you know” when being interviewed. Or the new, infuriating expression that starts every answer: “Yeah/no”.

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004