Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate all the Olympic athletes for their outstanding efforts at the Tokyo games, especially those from my electorate of Menzies: swimmer Brendon Smith and sports climber Oceana Mackenzie. Oceana began climbing at the age of eight and is currently the Australian national champion across all three climbing disciplines. This was the first time that sports climbing was included in the Olympics, and she did an outstanding job. Given she's only 19 years of age, I'm sure this is the beginning of a very successful international career. Congratulations also to 21-year-old swimmer Brendon Smith for his bronze medal in the 400 metres individual medley. He qualified with a stellar performance here in Australia, and at his debut appearance in Japan bettered the Australian record and broke the Commonwealth record in the heats, taking home the bronze medal in the final, which also marked Australia's first medal at the Olympic Games. It was the first Australian medal in that event since Rob Woodhouse's bronze at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Because of COVID, training was difficult, and Brendon had to train in his own backyard swimming pool for much of the time, tied to a rope which was tied to the cubby house and just stroking away. The family put hot water from the kitchen in the backyard pool to try and help the situation, not that it helped a lot. Maybe if it had been a bit warmer he might have got the gold! But congratulations to him, to Oceana and to all Australian athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.