Australia is a key member of the AUKUS trilateral security partnership with the U.K. and USA.  But in the sporting world, the nation is unfriendly to its military allies.

The Aussies’ history of bad sportsmanship continues. As Australian swimmers disrespect the U.S.A. with “smack talk” rhetoric, they are again challenging the spirit of the Olympic Games, that being “[t]he important thing is not to win, but to take part.” In deference to the Olympic Values of excellence, respect, and friendship, they must be rebuked.

There’s a long rivalry in the pool between the U.S.A. and Australia, as they often finish first and second, respectively, in Olympic swimming medals.  Back in the 2000 Summer Olympics, Australian Ian “Torpedo” Thorpe mocked the defeated U.S. freestyle relay team as he demonstrably played an air guitar.

Much more recently, tensions were notched up on the eve of the 2024 Games when Australian swimmers dissed Team USA.  American swimming legend Michael Phelps was particularly perturbed, exclaiming “I would make them eat every word.”

Australian Olympic athletes are not short of bravado, and when they’re not riling up the Americans, they are picking on the Brits, aka “Poms.”  Team GB has finished higher in the medals table than Australia in recent Olympic Games.  The margin was narrow in 2008 in Beijing, but widened considerably at the 2012 London Games, then again at the Rio games in 2016, and Tokyo in 2021.

It’s all too much for Aussie sporting hubris to bear, so they concocted accusations that GB are only good at “sitting-down” sports — a reference to their prowess on horses, bikes, rowing boats, sailing boats, and kayaks.  That’s just weird, even by unsportsmanlike Australian standards, but let’s play their mind-games. Fair Dinkum?!

It’s notable that Australian competitors excel at lying-down sports.  Yep, a preponderance of their Olympic Games medals come in the swimming pool.  And they’re all “lying down”:  breaststroke, free-style, and especially backstroke.  All horizontal in a rippling waterbed fifty meters long, and about three meters deep.

Swimming is definitely great exercise, but the sitting-down sports the Brits excel in generally require more energy.  Per Peloton’s website, one may burn 800 to 1,000 calories per hour doing rowing, compared to 600 to 800 calories for swimming.  As for biking, another Brit-favored “sitting down” sport, vigorous lap-swimming may burn about 682 calories per hour; biking, at 20 mph, burns about 1091 calories per hour.

All else being equal (duration, intensity, etc.), so-called “sitting-down” sports may represent more of an athletic challenge than the lying-down sport the Aussies prefer.  And there’s no swimming event that demands more stamina (or skill) than the absolute ripsnorter from Brit Tom Pidcock in winning the tortuous mountain biking event at the Paris Olympics.

Australia is a nation with a strong sporting identity, but they seem to nurture unsporting behavior that undermines Olympism.  Let’s hope there’s no repeat of their Tokyo Olympics antics, where they damaged rooms and misbehaved on the flight home.

If you lose, take it lying down. Fair go, mate.

Image: Alex Lomas, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered.