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What is sport really doing for Australia's identity today? Has our entire sense of self been reduced to an obsession with who can throw, kick, or run the fastest?
Ekecheiria, also known as the 'Olympic Truce', is a quaint notion dating to Ancient Greece, when three kings concluded a treaty permitting the safe passage of all athletes.
No matter how promising his younger opponents are, he said, they would just have to wait for putting their hands on the Wimbledon trophy until after he retired.
The Victorian Labor government and the Australian Grand Prix Organisation claim there are economic benefits of continuing to host the grand prix in Melbourne. We all accept the spin.
Although its chair, Graham Quirk, is not a Labor crony, being a former successful Liberal Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor (2015-2019), he nevertheless has been a long-term advocate of the Olympic Games.
On the positive side, the team is much improved since it was beaten seven-nil by a team of Under 15 schoolboys in 2016, and it did score a couple of spectacular goals.
Australia has come a long way since the 1970s when football was often described as wogball, Melbournians described the rugby codes as open air wrestling, and the northern states (NSW and Queensland) viewed Australian Rules as aerial ping pong.