Shortly after every AFL season finishes the off-season begins. For some, it’s even more competitive than the actual season itself. The media landscape is flooded with loosely sourced speculation and rumour, much of it intended to benefit one party or another. Tim Finn sung about six months in a leaky
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Why is Australia’s Olympic team so large? Or: How did Raygun make it to the Olympics?
Everywhere you look in Paris there are the green and gold uniforms of Australian athletes. Australia is represented in nearly every sport with the exception of fencing and handball. Overall Australia is fielding more competitors than any country except the hosts France and the behemoth that is the United States.
Continue reading »Paris 2024: Day 7 – Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter: What’s the most Olympic sport?
Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter Those words – in Latin – don’t really get around much in common conversation these days. But for two weeks every two years they tend to take a bit more prominence. They might resonate a little more in English these days. Faster, higher, stronger –
Continue reading »Paris 2024: Day 6 – The life of an athlete – part duex
Reports have come back from Paris breathlessly about what the Olympics is lacking. The accommodation is substandard. The food isn’t up to scratch and unsuitable for athletes. It’s hard to get around, and the city is too distracting. Paris sounds like a good idea on paper, but in practice it
Continue reading »Paris 2024: Day 4 – The forgotten precursors of the Olympic canon
While it’s fair to say recent decades have seen a fairly stable core of Olympic sports, a surprising number of now mainstay sports were pre-figured by related games which in a slightly different world could have come to be the canon, default version of those games. Whether as fully competitive
Continue reading »Paris 2024: Day 3 – How the water became the star of the Olympics
HPN will be covering the 2024 Paris Olympics, with something coming here every day before or during competition. The Olympics has a way of finding early stars that shape the nature of the Games. Usually it’s an athlete with a breakthrough performance, or a moment of light relief taking away
Continue reading »Paris 2024: Day 2 – Busy early, then late
HPN will be covering the 2024 Paris Olympics, with something coming here every day before or during competition. Australian sports fans woke up to slightly unexpected news this Sunday morning. There were hopes that Australia would do well early in Paris, but leading the medal tally after day 1 was
Continue reading »Paris 2024 – Day 1: It’s over before it starts
HPN will be covering the 2024 Paris Olympics, with something coming here every day before or during competition. It’s over before it starts Getting to the Olympics – and competing – is often the realization of a life’s worth of hard work. But what if an Olympic appearance is essentially
Continue reading »The 2021 AFL trade period: day 1 recap
This year HPN will cover the trade and free agency period slightly differently than in past years. HPN will provide a recap of the each day’s action, with other breakdowns happening periodically. There might be more work elsewhere as well. Trade 1: Collingwood and Gold Coast pick swap It’s always
Continue reading »Is Caleb Serong the most valuable player in the AFL? Introducing 2021’s PAPLEY projections
After a furious 2021 season, featuring a drought breaking premiership for Melbourne, attention of fans of the other 17 clubs turns firmly to the second season – the offseason. The ink is barely dry on the pages detailing the season, but preparations for 2022 are firmly underway. Already there have
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