Marlee was left in tears watching our Aussie ‘golden girls’

If crying while watching the Olympics was an Olympic sport, I’d bring home the gold.
Seeing athletes who’ve sacrificed their whole lives for this one moment and this one dream, pulls at my heartstrings harder than just about anything else.
But Paris 2024, she sent my emotions to a whole new level. And that is quite simply thanks to our Golden Girls.
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Team Australia had its most successful games ever, bringing home 18 gold and a total of 53 medals. And 13 of those precious golds were awarded to women.
From our youngest gold medalist ever in 14-year-old skateboarder Arisa Trew, to household names and Olympic veterans like Ariarne Titmus and Jess Fox defending their titles, the girls uplifted and inspired the nation with their excellence.
As I saw so many of our female athletes ascend the podium, whether it be our Opals with their ‘rose gold’ (Bronze) in basketball, 1500m runner Jess Hull with her silver, or Nina Kennedy’s historic first gold for an Australian woman in a field event with pole vaulting, while I sat in awe of their individual accomplishments, the tears came flowing harder than ever because of the bigger picture this represents.
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For decades, many female athletes and their allies across sporting codes have been fighting to be heard, to be seen and to be respected.
And what the success of our female athletes on the world’s biggest sporting stage suggests is that the tide has well and truly turned.
Our golden girls are household names that the next generation of Australians will grow up knowing – and importantly – they will grow up knowing them as incredible athletes and role models for all, not just incredible athletes and role models ‘for girls’.
I know first hand the impact these moments can have, when, in a sporting nation like ours, you see a part of yourself in the most highly regarded athletes as they bring the nation together.
As a young Aboriginal girl watching Cathy Freeman win gold in the Sydney 2000 games, with our flag draped around her shoulders, a light came on inside me and I knew then, I could strive for anything.
These women and girls we’re celebrating today, and their predecessors, captured the attention of Australia, by breaking down the door and forcing us to turn, stand and applaud with their sporting prowess.
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Now, as our girls return home from Paris and many of us don’t tune into swimming or running or canoe slalom events for another four years, it is absolutely vital to reflect on how we hold on to this momentum and use it to create more positive change into the future.
Why? Well, from a sports fan’s perspective, it is of course a fantastic thrill to watch our girls win and gain us bragging rights!
But vitally, a whopping 80 per cent of Australians see sport as an integral part of our culture and in the face of the devastating epidemic of violence against women which we have seen peak in Australia 2024, I don’t believe it’s a stretch to say, the more that female athletes are shown equally to their male counterparts and celebrated in this way, the better it is for shifting attitudes for gender equality and protecting women, particularly for the next generation.
While individual performance is heavily reliant on the skill and the work of that individual, elite sporting success across codes for so many women is a reflection of fundamental change and growth in support across the broader spectrum of sport.
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Our women are dominating our sporting consciousness right now and that’s despite the gender pay chasm in Australia, that remains at around 31 per cent for full time female athletes, compared to their male counterparts
And although research released in the Change our Game report by the Victorian Government this year reveals that early corporate supporters of women’s sport, are reaping what they sowed with more than $650 million in customer value annually, sponsorship and branding opportunities in elite women’s sport, are still only valued at 12 per cent of their male counterparts.
Imagine the heights the next generation of golden girls can reach both at the Olympics and beyond, if the potential of women’s sport can be valued by corporate entities and the gendered gap in support and earnings can finally be closed?!
However, while we’re a way off from seeing it’s impact, funding program’s like the Albanese Government’s Play Our Way, which saw $200 million dedicated to bettering facilities for female sports and came off the groundswell of ‘Tilly Fever’ and the women’s FIFA World Cup on Australian soil, is a good example from government of how we play the long game and set up pathways for future generations.
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A similarly positive revelation is the work of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in their world- leading shift in scientific research.
Whilst in Paris, the AIS executive general manager of high performance, Matti Clements, attributed some of the success in our women’s programs to the focus of the peak body on prioritising women’s health.
Noting a history of skewed high performance data, as research has previously been conducted on male athletes and females have been treated as merely ‘another version’ of a male athlete, Australia has lead the way in understanding what is required specifically for female athletes to reach their true potential.
It may be safe to say that in the last 18 months with the attention on the Matildas then leading into this Olympic games, this data may have become outdated, there is a looming threat in the 2022-23 research by the Victorian Government which revealed media coverage of women’s sport accounted for just 15 per cent compared to the 81 per cent of sports coverage focused on men. Or to put it this way – for every five articles written about a male sport, there would be one about female sport.
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The in-between years of international sporting events, could offer an easy opportunity for us in media or the public consciousness to lose interest or knowledge and that sense of urgency around the stories of women’s sport.
But the exciting news is, there are so many more stories yet to be told and heard and that insatiable desire for more adrenaline rushes, medals and opportunities to cheer on a whole new group of golden girls in our domestic competitions and codes, now awaits you!
We are undeniably headed in the right direction and we can’t afford to take a step back now.
So as we’re relishing in the gold medal glow post Olympics, don’t be too quick to forget about our female athletes, the joy they’ve brought us and the impact their stories are likely already having on the next generation of Aussies.
Keep showing up for women’s sport, it’s better for Australia on and off the track, field, court and pool!
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