Australia has never won more gold, and dude, we have never been this cool.
For that, we can thank a couple of Chesty Bond paddlers and a skinny kid with a sandy mop of hair who skates with the freedom that our nation in lockdown so desperately craves.
As our men’s hockey team prepares to play Belgium in their gold medal match, Australia’s 17th gold medal of these Games – equal of our best haul since the modern Olympics began – was won by 18-year-old Keegan Palmer, an Aussie-American skateboarder with a style as smooth as a Shinkansen train.
The reaction of Keegan Palmer.Credit:Getty Images
Palmer’s spectacular and seemingly effortless winning run at the skate park came within a few minutes of kayakers Thomas Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen holding off Germany’s world champion team to become the first Australian pair to win the 1000-metre event at an Olympics.