Summer Olympic Sports in between Olympics thread.

[AdelaideGT]

Gout might run a race or two in Queensland interclub over coming weeks but his next major comp will be at the National All-Schools (6-8 Dec).

They will be held at his home-track - QSAC in Brisbane - so he won't need to travel interstate until maybe mid-February. So hopefully he can have a decent block of training without any media pressure during that time.

 

[X_box_X]

Those fast twitch fibres, wowweeee. The boy can run.

As a nation, we have often been outclassed in sprinting by the Americas (USA, Jamaica, Canada, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, etc) but with Australia being such an amazing, welcoming country, I can't see why we can't be super competitive in sprinting events for years to come. Gout Gout could be the first of many.

I'm not sure how it compares to other nations around the world, but Australia seems to be a first choice for many citizens of war torn countries to escape the brutality of war to migrate to Australia. Citizens of some of these nations (like South Sudan where Gout Gout's heritage lies) are genetically built differently. You only have to look at the record books to understand that historically the quickest runners in the world aren't white. Christophe Lemaitre became the first white person to run a sub 10 second 100m which was considered a monumental achievement at the time.

The most recent census recorded that 86% of Australian citizens are white so statistically we're still a while off until we consistently challenge the Americas, but I'd expect that number to shorten significantly over the next 50 years because we are a very attractive option for citizens from wore torn countries to migrate to. This obviously increases our population and we already know how well we do in the Olympics when you consider we don't even have one tenth of the population of USA.

Watch this space, over the next 10-20 years we'll have multiple athletes running sub 10 seconds for the 100m and we'll become one of the stronger nations in this event. Exciting times ahead.

 

[AdelaideGT]

As a nation, we have often been outclassed in sprinting by the Americas (USA, Jamaica, Canada, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, etc) but with Australia being such an amazing, welcoming country, I can't see why we can't be super competitive in sprinting events for years to come. Gout Gout could be the first of many.

Those places had the benefit of African genetics being imported - mainly as slaves -since before Australia even saw white people arrive.

 

[X_box_X]

Those places had the benefit of African genetics being imported - mainly as slaves -since before Australia even saw white people arrive.

Yeah I know, genetically we're years behind competing in events that require fast twitch muscle fibres but I think we'll become more competitive over the next 10-20 years.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

When the Total Runnings guy makes a video of someone, with his usual dose of hyperbole, you know that someone is doing something special. Below is his 10 minute video - yes stuff gets replayed over and over - of Gout Gout.

Its a good watch and analysis of where he stands compared to Bolt as a 16 year old and other 16 and 18 year olds, especially near the end when he talks about how fast his last hundred might have been at World Junior Championships in Lima in August when he finished 2nd, motoring home in a 20.60. The winner South African Bayanda Walaza (20.52) is 41 days shy of being 2 years older than Gout.

 

[Satan]

Raygun might have retired but her moves havent
Nfl celebrating

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

An Aussie helped get Flag Football up for 2028. Brett Gosper is Kevan's son and former CEO of World Rugby explains his role in how they convinced the NFL to help develop it and IOC to allow it for 2028

Article from a few days ago in NY Times The Athletic section. You should be able to get over the paywall but if not here is the first third or so of the article.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5903062/2024/11/07/brett-gosper-flag-football/

Brett Gosper knows all about winning pitches. The Australian’s advertising career began by being mentored by maven David Ogilvy, the Englishman widely regarded as the ‘Father of Advertising’, and would span three highly successful decades in the industry.

He worked in France, London, Germany and the United States, and by the time he moved into sports administration, he had authored slogans such as “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” for luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer and headed up global advertising agency network McCann Erickson on both sides of the Atlantic.

The 65-year-old, now the NFL’s head of Europe & Asia-Pacific, used the powers of persuasion he honed in advertising to full effect when he played an instrumental role in getting flag football — a non-tackling version of American football — into the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, putting what the NFL says is the world’s fastest-growing sport on the biggest sporting stage of all.

“I was one of the parties inside of the NFL that was able to convince the powers within the NFL that it was a worthwhile cause, that it was going to be a great development play for the NFL,” Gosper told The Athletic in the NFL’s office in central London.

“The actual process of the bid, laying out our arguments, creating the content involved, galvanising the partnership between IFAF (International Federation of American Football) and the various elements within the NFL, I was part of that leadership team. It was very much a team approach. Everyone knew that it was an incredible cause, it would create a step change for the sport, and there was complete buy-in from the commissioner and owners — all the way through the system.”

Gosper has a lifelong affiliation with the Olympic Games. His father, Kevan, won a silver medal with Australia’s 4x400m relay team in Melbourne in 1956 and was then a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1977 to 2013. He was twice the body’s vice president and key to bringing the Games back to his homeland with Sydney hosting in 2000.

While in France in the 1980s, Gosper Jr led a double life. By day, he was an advertising executive. At nights and weekends, he was a semi-professional rugby union player for Racing Metro. The vivacious team — nicknamed Le Show-Bizz — played their home games at Stade Olympique de Colombes, the site of the 1924 Games, as immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.

And then, as CEO at World Rugby, rugby union’s global governing body, Gosper witnessed first-hand the transformative effect the Olympics can have on a sport, as men’s and women’s rugby sevens, a shortened version of the traditional 15-a-side form of the game, made its first appearance at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

So, when Gosper joined the NFL as head of Europe and UK in 2021 after almost a decade with World Rugby — Asia-Pacific was added to his remit last year — his brief was to push American football’s international boundaries. He put his skill set to immediate use, calling on his first-hand experiences with the Olympic movement.

“I probably was helpful in the sense that I’d been there, and I knew what the right touch points were. We were dealing also with an organising committee, we’re dealing with the IOC, and you have to please both of those entities,” Gosper said.

“An organising committee is looking for something which gives their Games a personality different to other Olympics. They’re looking for something that will engage their local audience, particularly, which is why these additional sports were invented as a concept, giving the local organising committee a chance to engage their communities in a way that maybe the run-of-the-mill, let’s call, Olympic sports won’t always do. So in that sense, the experience I’d had before was helpful.”

The NFL says flag football — a non-contact version of its sport where ball-carriers are deemed to have been tackled when one, or both, of two flags attached to their waist is pulled off by a defending player — has 20 million players in 100 countries. It opens the door for boys and girls to learn the game’s fundamentals without getting into the more physical blocking and tackling aspects, and Gosper has no desire for it to be one-and-done at the U.S. hosted 2028 Games.

...........

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Bruce McAvaney has signed with 7 to cover athletics for the next 2 years as 7 expands its domestic coverage via 7+ streaming service.

Rumours are that he might also comeback to 7 for the footy. Not sure if its to call games or to be the host of 7's Thursday nights and Friday nights cover like he did with the last 3 weeks of this year's finals series.

Part of the reason Bruce has signed up is the recent success of Oz athletes at Budapest World champs in 2023 and this year's Paris Olympics and the stunning results at world junior championships in Lima in late August.

Bruce McAvaney returns in significant Channel 7 announcement

‘Our athletes are demanding world attention, and I firmly believe the sport is heading for a golden age.’

7news.com.au

The Seven Network has strengthened its role as the home of Australian athletics, announcing a two-year extension to its long-term partnership with Athletics Australia. Building on the momentum from the success of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the World Under 20 Championships, 7plus Sport will bring the best of the sport into homes across Australia through the network’s live streaming and broadcast video on-demand platform.

To be led once again by Bruce McAvaney and streaming exclusively on 7plus Sport will be four of the country’s most prestigious meets, including Oceania’s one and only World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet, the Maurie Plant Meet, as well as the 2025 Australian Athletics Championships.

“I can’t remember a more exciting time in Australian athletics,” McAvaney said. “The performance by our team at the World Championships in Budapest in 2023 was surpassed by what happened in Paris just a few months ago and then backed up by an extraordinary result at the World Juniors in Peru. “Our athletes are demanding world attention, and I firmly believe the sport is heading for a golden age.”

 

[Satan]

Bruce McAvaney has signed with 7 to cover athletics for the next 2 years as 7 expands its domestic coverage via 7+ streaming service.

Rumours are that he might also comeback to 7 for the footy. Not sure if its to call games or to be the host of 7's Thursday nights and Friday nights cover like he did with the last 3 weeks of this year's finals series.

Part of the reason Bruce has signed up is the recent success of Oz athletes at Budapest World champs in 2023 and this year's Paris Olympics and the stunning results at world junior championships in Lima in late August.

Bruce McAvaney returns in significant Channel 7 announcement

‘Our athletes are demanding world attention, and I firmly believe the sport is heading for a golden age.’

7news.com.au

The Seven Network has strengthened its role as the home of Australian athletics, announcing a two-year extension to its long-term partnership with Athletics Australia. Building on the momentum from the success of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the World Under 20 Championships, 7plus Sport will bring the best of the sport into homes across Australia through the network’s live streaming and broadcast video on-demand platform.

To be led once again by Bruce McAvaney and streaming exclusively on 7plus Sport will be four of the country’s most prestigious meets, including Oceania’s one and only World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet, the Maurie Plant Meet, as well as the 2025 Australian Athletics Championships.

“I can’t remember a more exciting time in Australian athletics,” McAvaney said. “The performance by our team at the World Championships in Budapest in 2023 was surpassed by what happened in Paris just a few months ago and then backed up by an extraordinary result at the World Juniors in Peru. “Our athletes are demanding world attention, and I firmly believe the sport is heading for a golden age.”

special

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

‘Never had anyone like him’: Legend declares Aussie teen sensation ‘ahead of Freeman’

‘Never had anyone like him’: Legend declares Aussie teen sensation ‘ahead of Freeman’

www.foxsports.com.au

McAvaney told Code Sports that it was clear that Gout had a “rare gift” that could be nurtured into something Australia hasn’t seen before.

“Has there been anyone more exciting?” McAvaney says. “Freeman was but he’s at a more mature stage than Cathy was at 16 in terms of what he is doing.

“We have never had anyone quite like him and the potential is unique within this country I think.”

But it was earlier this month that Gout made everyone realise he could well be the real deal after running a 20.29 in the heats of the 200m at the All Schools Queensland track and field championships.


To put the performance in perspective, Gout not only smashed the Queensland Open 200m record, the Australian under-18 and under-20 records as well as the Oceania under-18 and under-20s records, but also registered the equal seventh fastest time in history by an Australian. While Gout broke his own under-18 records, he lowered Aidan Murphy’s under-20s record of 20.42 set in 2022.

For the record, Peter Norman’s 1968 run in the final of the Mexico City Olympics is the fastest ever time by an Australian at 20.06.

Norman (20.06, 20.22, 20.23 — all at the 1968 Olympics), Dean Capobianco (20.18, 20.21 and 20.29 in 1993) and John Dinan (20.19 in 1986) are the only faster times by Aussies in history.

All three men were in the 20s when they achieved their times.

To think the Brisbane-born speedster is still developing, McAvaney believes Gout could be anything, even though there will be some difficult times along the way.