As it happened: Trew Australia’s youngest champ; Khelif into gold medal match; major 1500m upset; Boomers crash out

Another day, another gold, don’t you just love it. Especially when it’s our youngest gold medallist in Olympic history – 14-year-old Arisa Trew, the new women’s park skateboarding champion.

When Tony Hawk says his sport is lucky to have you, well, that’s solid gold right there.

Otherwise, we had one hell of a 1500-metre final where American Cole Hocker upstaged Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Gabrielle Thomas did it easy in the women’s 200 metres.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is through to the gold medal bout as the Games’ gender saga rolls on, Australia’s beach volleyballers are closing in on the podium as well and the Boomers are heading home after an overtime loss to Serbia.

In summary: it’s the Olympics baby, there’s always something doing. And Day 12 is no exception – keep up with all the action, led by Australia’s red-hot gold medal hope Nina Kennedy in the pole vault, right here.

Until next time.

Those attending the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome on Wednesday night missed an unlikely reunion between two of track cycling’s most bitter rivals: Australia’s Anna Meares and Great Britain’s Victoria Pendleton.

Meares, Australia’s impressive chef de mission, walked into the broadcast tribune where Pendleton was calling, tapped her on the shoulder and they embraced and chatted.

What she told her will shock those who remember the fierce contests, the endless stories in the media, and even Meares’ own autobiography, which detailed their long-running feud.

“You were the best,” Meares told Pendleton.

As Meares told me later that night: “She undersells herself immensely. I just wanted to hammer that home: she was literally the best. And I had to be so much better to be in the competition. It’s nice we both came away from London with a gold medal each, even though it was in each other’s discipline.”

Read Andrew Webster’s full column from Paris here.

The two years before Tokyo alone would have been enough to send any cyclist into retirement. First, there was the physical and emotional toll of a thyroid cancer diagnosis. Then, after the surgery and treatment, came a torn calf. Then, an oblique injury, and finally a bulging disc in his neck.

Despite it all, Matthew Glaetzer made the Australian team for a third Games in Japan, and the ache for an elusive Olympic medal outweighed all the pain that had come before it.

But a medal did not come at the Izu Velodrome in August 2021. And with a history like Glaetzer’s – a wretched timeline of tormenting near-misses stretching back to his debut Games in 2012 – you’d forgive him for being done.

At the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome on Tuesday, right on cue, Glaetzer’s sprint team ended up in the bronze-medal race. This time, Glaetzer did not miss.

Read Emma Kemp’s full recap of Glaetzer’s thoroughly deserved breakthrough medal here.