A Dribbler Farewell to the Tokyo Olympics
by Jonny Ogilvie
As the sun sets on the Olympics in the land of the Rising Sun, I’ve got a few dribbles to sign off on;
Safe to say plenty of people here were naysayers about the games. It’s appropriateness about being held during a pandemic, care factor assuming the Aussies would get pumped, or generally it not being one of the major sporting codes. I was one of them, and was happily proven wrong. They have been incredible.
The Aussie team are a bunch of throbbers. Every one of them went down swinging, that’s all we ask. Some won, some didn’t, and that’s ok. They all possess a level of hand-eye coordination, physical ability and mental toughness that 99.9% of people could only dream of. They did us proud.
The culture and pride shown by the Aussie teams should be the gold standard amongst sporting teams. Plenty of NRL/AFL teams bang on about having culture; look at the swimmers chanting at the top of their lungs, Patty Mills crying after finally getting it done, or the Hockeyroos being distraught after going out early. It was a case of ‘get on board, or get fucked.’ We can all appreciate that.
The fact Australia punches above its weight at these events is incredible. Population size has nothing to do with it, but funding sure as shit does. They can’t compete in that regard with the US, GB, or ROC, but they still turn up and let those wankers know that they’re gonna have to work.
Any ‘pundit’ criticising athletes can get in the bin; most of those cunts couldn’t perform a tumble turn without drowning, shoot a jump-shot without rolling an ankle, run a race without popping both hamstrings or try a side-step without tearing both ACLs. Leave the dribbling to the dribblers.
Anyway, to sum it all up, the last two weeks have been awesome and I can’t wait for Paris 2024. I think we as dribblers have a duty to keep an eye on all the Aussie athletes we’ve come to know over the last few weeks; Peter Bol, the Swim team, Ash Moloney, Jess Fox, etc. They get shoved to the side during non-Olympic years, and I think they deserve better.
Aussie Gold forever.
Olympic Rings tattoos soon.
Dirty Merger Countries never.
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