Weekend wrap from Paris as our Aussie athletes finish 4th on tally

Thanks to the challenging time difference, for the past two weeks Australians have woken up each day to the latest Paris Olympics news. The Kids News team has been up early to report on the major updates by the time classes start each weekday – here’s the best of the weekend.

AUSTRALIA’S MEDAL TALLY
GOLD: 18

SILVER: 19

BRONZE: 16

MEDAL TALLY:
1. USA: 40 gold, 44 silver, 42 bronze

2. China: 40 gold, 27 silver, 24 bronze

3. Japan: 20 gold, 12 silver, 13 bronze

4. Australia: 18 gold, 19 silver, 16 bronze

5. France: 16 gold, 26 silver, 22 bronze

DAY 16
FINAL MEDAL TALLY
After 16 epic days of competition, the final medal tally is in, with Australia finishing fourth on the table with 18 gold behind United States (40) China (40) and Japan (20), but ahead of host nation France (16).

Given our comparatively small population of 26 million, compared to America’s 235 million, China’s more than 1.4 billion and France’s 68 million, Australia has punched well above its weight at these Olympics thanks to our best ever result.

On the final day of competition, Australia won three medals: a final silver and two bronze.

CLOSING CEREMONY
At the time of writing, the closing ceremony extravaganza* is unfolding live in Paris.

The cauldron has gone dark after a dapper* Leon Marchand – France’s hero who dominated in the pool these Games – kicked off the closing ceremony. In the opening part of festivities, beamed live into the Stade de France from the National Estate of the Louvre, Marchand collected the lantern carrying the Olympic flame.

Australian flag bearers swimmer Kaylee McKeown and sailor Matt Wearn represented their country yet again during the parade of nations. One or two athletes from each country carried the flag of their nation onto the floor of the stadium, then formed an oval around the perimeter.

The closing ceremony will include the moment Paris hands over to the 2028 host city Los Angeles. We’ll have a full wrap of the closing ceremony ready tonight for tomorrow’s classes – Tom Cruise has just jumped from the roof of the Stade de France and left with the Olympic Flag.

BASKETBALL
Lauren Jackson has signed off her basketball career with the Opals winning their thrilling bronze medal match against Belgium.

Jackson created history as the first Australian to win medals at five separate Olympics as the retiring champion passed the baton to new star Ezi Magbegor, who exploded in one of the most dominant performances this Paris tournament in a 30-point, 13-rebound Olympic masterclass to spearhead the 85-78 victory.

With rising guards Jade Melbourne and Izzy Borlase showing signs of their emerging brilliance and Magbegor only 24, this is their team.

But first they will celebrate Jackson’s incredible contribution to the game after sending her off in the perfect manner.

Jackson confirmed her international career was over after being able to savour the win from the bench.

“It was amazing. It’s so special,” Jackson said. “The girls were remarkable tonight, especially under pressure down the stretch. I could never dream of this, honestly I couldn’t.

“Five Olympics and five medals. It’s crazy. The second part of my career has been crazy, the last three years what I have achieved personally and then with this team, it’s been remarkable. I could never have imagined it in my wildest dreams.”

In the gold medal game, France came within one point of downing the mighty American women’s basketball team.

On the final day of the Paris Olympics, France dared to shoot for gold medal glory as the American side was attempting to win its eighth straight gold medal.

The USA has now won 61 straight games in Olympic competition, as French player Gabby Wilson needed a three-pointer to tie scores as time ran out but put her foot over the line for a two-point shot.

In an epic 67-66 contest, America repeated the men’s result in beating a French side on its home soil to claim gold.

CYCLING
Sprint kings Matt Richardson and Matt Glaetzer took out a silver and bronze to end Australia’s most successful track cycling campaign in 20 years.

Richardson battled Dutch rider Harrie Lavreysen for the gold medal, only to lose by 0.056 seconds.

Glaetzer was last through the final corner of the men’s keirin final before a major crash involving three riders in front saw him cross the line third.

It adds to the bronze medal the Australians won in the team sprint and marked a joyous end to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

It capped a remarkable recovery for Australia’s track cyclists just three years after a shocking Tokyo campaign left a handful of riders considering quitting the sport.

Richardson’s silver and the narrow loss to world champion Lavreysen in the keirin and individual sprint has added to sky-high hopes he will become the dominant force of Australia’s track cycling squad for the next eight years.

The Paris campaign has boosted morale in AusCycling and raised hopes of challenging for more gold medals at Los Angeles in 2028.

ATHLETICS
Jessica Hull will celebrate her Olympic silver medal with Taylor Swift.

After barely 45 minutes sleep following her 1500m heroics, Hull revealed she is looking forward to letting her hair down watching her favourite singer perform in London at Wembley Stadium.

She booked the tickets a month ago hoping there would be something to celebrate.

“We’re going to Wembley on Thursday and that should be pretty cool,” Hull said. “I have been a Swiftie for a long time, I’m a hard core Swiftie. I saw her way back when she did the Red Tour in 2012.

“I’m so glad we planned something fun to do.”

An Australian woman had never won a medal at an Olympic Games in the 1500m before and you have to go back to 1960 on the men’s side, when the great Herb Elliott won gold in Rome.

Hull wouldn’t change a thing about the 1500m final, despite being caught out of position a couple of times, which allowed defending champion Faith Kipyego to slip away and win again.

“I don’t think Faith was beatable,” Hull said. “So I think coming runner-up to her was as good as I could have been last night. I was thinking back to how calm I was in the moment, I was never stressed.

“And when I watched the race back … there were a few times where I would be like, ‘Oh my positioning was a bit dodgy there’ but I never felt that in the moment.

“I was pretty relaxed and just so confident in what I was doing. It just became second nature.”

And Kipyego herself has played a role in Jess’s success.

“It’s just really cool to have been a part of the sport while she’s been in it,” Hull said. “Because she really has made the 1500 like a family for these women. She’s been on such a different level that I think all of us have had to kind of band together and be like, ‘All right, how are we going to catch her?’

“She’s also … encouraged us to get better and (it’s) kind of like she raised the bar so high that we kind of had no choice but to get better.”

The impact this result will have down the track is what excites Athletics Australia’s high performance manager Andrew Faichney.

“It was the first middle-distance track medal (for Australia) since 1968 so … that in itself, says a hell of a lot,” he said.

“They’re … hard to win and we’ve now got a silver medallist in the 1500. It’s pretty … amazing to be able to win a medal in that event.

“It’s so exciting for the future and the next wave, to see these athletes walk into that cauldron and own the place, and deliver on a medal that they expected.”

Hull’s brilliant season included lowering her national record by more than five seconds last month at the Paris Diamond League, when she pushed Kipyegon in a world-record breaking race. She backed that up five days later to set a new 2000m world record.

WATER POLO
The Aussie Stingers’ campaign at the Paris Olympics has been one to remember.

Despite going down 11-9 to Spain in the gold medal match on Saturday, even before the game was played they already felt like champions. They entered the pool with contagious smiles on their faces, lapping in every second of a moment that was 24 years in the making.

Spain’s ruthless efficiency in attack, and an inspirational showing from their goalkeeper Martina Terre, proved the difference between gold and silver.

But it was another spirited performance from the Stingers, who valiantly tried to mount one last comeback in a tournament filled with thrilling finishes.

“It’s mixed emotions,” captain Zoe Arancini said. “Disappointed not to get the gold but elated to get the silver.

“This team has worked so hard for a silver medal, and I couldn’t be more proud of them. And they’ve really embodied the Aussie spirit of fighting till the end, and I’m so proud of this group.

“I can’t quite believe (we’re on the podium). I think it’s relief, exhilaration. I think I’m still processing it.

“This is the top moment of my career and humbled to share it with a special group of girls.”

Additional reporting for Kids News by Diana Jenkins
POLL

GLOSSARY

• extravaganza: a spectacular, a huge and impressive show
• dapper: stylish, chic, well-dressed

EXTRA READING

Kids go for gold in Spelling Bee

Faster, higher, stronger – younger!

Paris Olympics: first week highlights

Paris Olympics: week two highlights to Day 13

REFLECTIONS

1. What has been your favourite Olympic moment so far?
2. What do you regard as the biggest win for a country other than Australia?
3. Which athlete has inspired you most by overcoming injury to compete?
4. Who got Australia to the top of the medal tally on day one?
5. Whose loss at the Olympics have you felt most deeply?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
To celebrate the world’s biggest sporting event, Kids News has produced a dedicated Paris Olympics Education Kit.

The free digital kit comes with a workbook of 35 classroom activities designed to help students from Year 3 onwards learn all about the Olympic Games, from its ancient beginnings to the modern spectacle it has become.

Activities are created by a teacher for teachers and are aligned to the national curriculum.

The kit content covers:

• The Ancient Games
• The Modern Games
• Olympic values
• Olympic Torch and the Olympic Flame
• The Opening and Closing Ceremonies
• Life in the Olympic Village
• Medals and mascots
• Sports and teams
• Host nation Paris/France profile
• The Paralympics
• Australia’s Olympic heroes
• The Winter Olympics
• Australia’s Olympic Games

The workbook is supported by feature stories on the Paris Olympics, collected and published on our Education Kits topic page HERE.

We’ll cover breaking Olympic news stories each day but these feature stories will assist your students to answer the questions in the workbook.

The Olympics Education Kit is FREE to teachers who sign up to the weekly Kids News newsletter. New subscribers can email Kids News to request the kit code at any time in this second week of the Games at kidsnews@news.com.au

VCOP ACTIVITY
Choose one or more of these VCOP activities to complete each day.
Girls in sport
There are many sports in which we’re seeing an increase in female participants. What sports have you noticed, or maybe joined yourself, where you have seen an increase in the amount of girls now playing? How do you feel about this? Why do you feel this way? Do you think it’s a positive shift? Why/why not?

Use your VCOP to express how you feel towards girls taking up more sporting roles. Explain why you feel this way. Use your emotive language to express your point of view.

You’re a hero in my eyes
Sometimes heroes go unnoticed. They are everyday people, who make a big difference to those they meet.

Write a letter to a hero in your eyes. Explain to them why they are your hero and that you have noticed them. Your letter can be anonymous or you can personally sign it off.

Remember when writing a letter:

• start with a greeting: Dear Sir,

• then on a new line, write the body of the letter.

• finish with a closing: Kind regards,

• and finally, sign the letter.

Try to include detail and emotion in the letter to connect with your target audience: your unsung hero.

Walking in their shoes
The Olympians that have headed over to the Olympics have been training tirelessly to represent Australia. Imagine how they must feel as their dreams of competing in the Olympics come true. It’s time to walk in their shoes and imagine what they must be thinking and feeling. Write a descriptive piece recounting your experiences. You may like to include: training in your chosen sport; being selected for the Olympic team; travelling to an exciting destination; life in the Olympic Village and the moments before, during and after your event.

My Olympic hero
Write a letter to one of the Olympic athletes. Explain to them how proud you are of them, why they are an Olympic hero to you, and that you have noticed them. Your letter can be anonymous or you can personally sign it off.

Remember when writing a letter:

•start with a greeting: Dear Sir,

• then on a new line, write the body of the letter.

• finish with a closing: Kind regards,

• and finally, sign the letter.

Try to include detail and emotion in the letter to connect with your target audience: your Olympic hero.

A new Olympic category
The Olympic committee has decided they should revise the Olympic sports and make sure they haven’t left out any competition. Write a letter to the Olympic Committee trying to convince them that your own talent should be classed as a sport and included in the next Olympics. Remember to include clear reasons why your talent should be included, use persuasive and emotive language, and back up your reasons with detailed explanations.

Athlete profile
It’s time to shine a spotlight on our Olympic athletes. Create a template for a character profile that we can fill in with all the information you want to know about some of our athletes. Make sure the layout has subtitles, and perhaps questions under each subtitle, to help us fill it in.

Extension: Let’s test your layout. Can you use the character profile layout and fill it in with information about yourself? Check to see if you included enough categories. Will we learn a lot about you, or do you need to add more sections? Share your fact file with your class, so they can learn more about you.

Olympic word splash
Let’s create a word splash. Sit with a partner, and between you, write the word OLYMPICS in the middle of a piece of paper.

Decide who goes first. Then take it in turns to write a word around the central word that you both associate with the Olympics. Keep a tally of how many words you can come up with. Your partner can challenge you to justify how or why your words are associated with the central word.

Did you come up with any wow words that you should share with your class and add to the vocabulary display? Can you use them in a sentence?

Olympic poem
Imagine you are an athlete about to complete, or who has just competed in their Olympic event. Write a description of the scenes as a poem to explain your experience.

You can either start each line the same: I see, I feel, I touch, I taste, I smell, I am – 0r, you can use “show don’t tell” to describe each of the senses.

Acrostic poem
Think of a word that you associate with the Olympics, (athlete, medal, compete, glory, Paris, Olympics etc.) and create an acrostic poem to share about the Paris Olympic Games. Try and include varied words throughout your poem to maintain the interest of the reader.

I’ve always wanted to know

If you had the opportunity to talk to one of the athletes and ask them five questions, what would you ask them?

Come up with five different questions. Challenge yourself to use different question stems (question openers words) to write your questions, and don’t forget to end with a question mark.