BESIDES THE Order of Australia Medal, flagbearer at the Olympics might just be the highest honour our nation can bestow upon a citizen. Only our finest athletes – the multi-medal winners, world record breakers and golden heroes – can ever hope to receive such an honour. In recent Games, athletes like NBA star Patty Mills, swimming legend Cate Campbell, Olympic team captain Anna Meares and the greatest Australian basketballer of all time, Lauren Jackson, have done the duty. But for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Australian Olympic Committee have gone with an option that’s slightly left of field.
Eddie Ockenden and Jess Fox will carry the Australian flag along the Seine and into the Trocadéro during the Paris Games’ opening ceremony on Saturday morning AEST. Fox is a natural choice here. She’s a four-time medallist who won her first gold at Tokyo 2020, she’s heading to her fourth Games as one of the most well-known members of the Australian team, and to top it all off, she was even born in the host nation of France.
Eddie Ockenden on the other hand, is considerably less of a household name. In fact, on the five-time Olympian’s Wikipedia page, the primary photo of him is a zoomed in shot taken from a substantial distance away, in which Ockenden appears to be blinking. So, how does a 37-year-old Tasmanian from a fairly niche sport with nary a gold medal to his name become the flagbearer for one of the world’s most successful Olympic nations? By being an absolutely crucial cog within the Australian field hockey team, that’s how.
The main picture on Ockenden’s Wikipedia page might need an update | Wikimedia Commons
Who is Eddie Ockenden?
Unless you’re really into field hockey, you may not have come across Eddie Ockenden in the past. But Australia’s newest and Tasmania’s first flagbearer has been a stalwart member of the men’s field hockey team – which is called the Kookaburras – since 2006. Ockenden has been an integral piece for the Kookaburras across multiple World Cup and Olympic campaigns and is the team’s all-time leader in caps with 414.
Paris will be Ockenden’s fifth Olympics and second as captain, making him the first Australian hockey player to compete at five Games. Since making his debut at Beijing 2008, Ockenden and the Kookaburras have medalled at three out of four Olympics, winning two bronze and one silver medal. Gold has been more elusive on the Olympic stage, but Ockenden has led the Kookaburras to two world championship gold medals.
At 37 years of age, Ockenden is on the older side for a hockey player. While he hasn’t officially announced his retirement, Paris will likely be his final Games. Ockenden will be 41 by the next Olympics, and an athlete competing in any sport in their 40s is rare. To do it on the Olympic stage in a sport as physical as field hockey would be almost unheard of. Paris, then, presents one last shot at gold for Ockenden.
Do the Kookaburras have a shot at gold?
The Kookaburras have been one of the world’s best field hockey teams for the entirety of the sport’s history. Australia has made it to at least the semi-finals at 12 consecutive field hockey World Cups and at nine of the last ten Olympics. Although, currently ranked fourth in the world, it will take a special performance from Ockenden and co. to win gold in Paris. It’s not impossible, but the Kookaburras will have some formidable opponents to hurdle in the Netherlands, Great Britain and Belgium if they want to claim their first Olympic gold medal since Athens 2004.
Did Eddie Ockenden deserve to be flagbearer?
In short, yes. There’s no metric on which we can measure how ‘deserving’ any athlete is of being an Olympic flagbearer. The decision is rarely influenced by star power, Instagram followers, or even number of medals. It’s important to remember that at the Olympics, all events are equal. No gold medal is worth more than any other. So while in your mind a field hockey player’s importance might seem lower than that of a 100-metre sprinter, Olympic committees rarely see it that way. Eddie Ockenden is one of the best Australian field hockey players to ever do it and he has the medals to prove it, making him more than deserving of being the flagbearer.
INSTAGRAM | @kookaburrasofficial
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