The Squiz 

A magnifique weekend for Australia has capped off our best-ever start to a summer Olympic Games. On Saturday, we breezed past the 11 gold medals we’d won by the Games’ halfway mark in Athens in 2004 – our previous record at the same point – and as we start today, we’re sitting pretty with 12 gold, 11 silver and 8 bronze. That puts us at fourth on the medal tally…

How have we pulled that off?

Talent, great performances, and a bit of luck… Cameron McEvoy – who’s known as ‘the Professor’ by teammates thanks to his physics/maths studies – won gold in the 50m freestyle sprint on Saturday – our first man to ever win in the 50m if you can believe it. And true to his nickname, there’s been a lot of scientific analysis of the ‘McEvoy Method’ he used to do so… Doubles pair Matt Ebden and John Peers locked in the second-ever gold we’ve won in tennis in Olympics history – in front of their delighted families. That brings us to our female athletes… Kaylee McKeown will go down in history as the first Aussie to win 4 individual Olympic gold medals after defending her 200m backstroke crown. And how about Saya Sakakibara, our BMX golden girl? Her backstory is worth a gold medal alone… 

Are we on track?

If things go well this week, our athletes could bring home the most gold medals we’ve ever won at an Olympic Games – pipping our previous record of 17. But whether we’ll win the 54 total medals we’re expected to is another thing… Data analytics company Nielsen’s real-time projections have us bringing home 15 gold, 23 silver and 16 bronze – so we’ll have to cross our fingers and see. In the meantime, you might like to have a browse through some of the best photos from the Games so far, or there’s always Team USA’s #1 supporter Snoop Dogg facing his fear of horses head-on… And as we did last week, the Paris Sprint will keep your talking points match-fit on the things that happened overnight and what to look forward to in the coming 24 hours. Pace yourself – the Olympics is a marathon, not a sprint…