They're Our Best Ever

The Sunday Age

Sunday August 29, 2004

John Huxley, Athens

It could not have been scripted better. With a "golden goal", the Kookaburras snap a 48-year losing streak in men's hockey and give Australia its most successful Olympic Games. The golden moment came seconds from the end of the first half of sudden-death, extra-time, when Jamie Dwyer struck home the goal that gave Australia a 2-1 win over the Netherlands and pushed its gold-medal tally to 11. That's one more than the total set in Sydney four years ago. The victory, which came after repeated failures by the Kookaburras to live up to their status as favourites, also pushed Australia's total medal tally to 44.

By mid-morning yesterday that had been boosted to 46, as kayaker Nathan Baggaley took silver in the men's K1 500 event, and then teamed up with Clint Robinson to do the same in the K2 500.

And with at least one more medal guaranteed later in the day, the Australian Olympic Committee has already proclaimed "mission accomplished" in the headlines of its daily newsletter.

"Not in our wildest dreams did we imagine we'd do this well," team spokesman Mike Tancred said.

"It's a fantastic achievement by a fantastic team that has bonded tremendously in the three weeks they have been here. How appropriate that a champion bunch of blokes have rewritten the history books."

For the laughing Kookaburras it was a sleepless night to remember - a "historic night", said goal scorer Jamie Dwyer, who is employed, along with teammate Brent Livermore, by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority.

After tumultuous on-field celebrations and a memorable bus ride home, the victorious team returned to the athletes' village to relax, review a video of the game and have a couple of drinks. "A couple of hundred," added Dwyer, who 12 hours later was still wearing his winner's wreath.

Former Australian Rugby Union captain John Eales, in Athens as a liaison officer, "tried to sing a song". Cricket international Stuart MacGill rang from Sydney, "to say, he'd been crying for you guys". And Australian team cheerleader Lawrie Lawrence, clad only in his jocks, came over and read them a celebration ode.

Did Dwyer remember any of it? "Not about the poem," said Dwyer, before he and Livermore joined other Australian team medal winners for a special photograph.

Not all the winners were present. The cyclists, the baseballers and some of the women's softball team had already left Athens to compete elsewhere or, like pitcher Tanya Harding who plays in Japan, rejoin overseas teams.

The rest of the 482-strong team is due to leave on a charter flight at 4am on Tuesday, Athens time, returning to meet Prime Minister John Howard in a Qantas hangar at Sydney the next day.

They will return as the most successful team ever to leave Australia, having won almost twice as many gold medals as in Atlanta eight years ago, when the total haul was 41.

They should also have cemented their place in the top five of the medal table.

As chef de mission John Coates said, "It is an amazing performance."

True, but it will not avert a post-mortem into the performance of the 48-strong track-and-field team. It went into the final two days of competition with only two medals, won on the road by two walkers.

© 2004 The Sunday Age

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