Why is Australia so good at sport?

Despite some recent evidence that points to greater inactivity by more Australians, with some research suggesting that only 19 per cent of children meet the recommended one hour of physical activity a day, 2019 data from the AusPlay survey showed that Australia had extensive participation in a number of international sports.

Including participation from all ages, both recreation and competitive, swimming had 4,505,531 participants, Running/Athletics 3,334,693, cycling 2,359,660, Football 1,767,288, Tennis 1,202,011, Basketball 1,017,968, Golf 1,015,150, Netball 901,903, Cricket 798,618, Surfing 508,015m, and Gymnastics 489,058.

While such numbers alone cannot guarantee international success, they indicate that many Australians are interested in sport, and that the love of competition still persists and is likely to be passed on to the next generation.

For example, with our Indian immigrants to Australia, it may well be that their love of cricket will lead their children to play for Australia, including against India which has become one of the most formidable national teams in recent decades.

Andrew Gaze, one of Australia's past basketball greats, was also right to state on television that winning an OG medal is not everything as the commitment to an ultimate goal over the years is also a uniting force, yet such commitment to a sporting journey can ultimately lead to eventual international success.

It did, with Gaze rightfully joyous after Australia won its first ever male global basketball medal at Tokyo, one of our greatest ever sporting achievements in such a competitive global team sport.

Contrary to Tatz's simplistic view of Australia that suggests that our competitive sporting streak is some form of masculine aggression, Australians today embrace many international sports people yet our competitive streak to do well in the beautiful world of international sport remains.

Our prowess in international sport also shows us that we do have the ability to succeed with any issue when we create interest and reinforce certain behaviours over time, albeit just how we do so are always issues for debate.

To conclude, our roots in international sport do owe much to the competitive traits of being part of the British empire, which helped us embrace the competitive nature of international sport to help gradually shape our national identity, but Australia (like the UK and New Zealand) has an enduring love of world sport that will long encourage international success and help define the social fabric of our nation.