Swimming

The Aussies finished the world short course championships at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre on Sunday night with a Team-record 13 gold medals, behind only 14 gold won by the USA.

A fierce battle for top spot on the medal tally came down to the final event, the men’s 4x100m medley relay, where in extraordinary circumstances both Australia and the USA shared a world record and gold in a dead heat (3:18.98).

The Australian quartet of Isaac Cooper, Josh Yong, Matt Temple and Kyle Chalmers were trailing in third place at the 300m mark, and a strong anchor swim from Kyle showed his class to chase down the USA’s last swimmer Kieran Smith.

It meant the Dolphins have won 25 medals across the six days (13 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze) of competition which featured dominant individual performances from some of our Tokyo 2020 Olympic stars.

Emma McKeon (4 gold, 3 silver) and Kyle (3 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze) took away seven medals each, one more than any Australian has achieved in prior short course world championships.

On Saturday night Kaylee McKeown made her own history, adding the women’s 200m short course world title to her Olympic, Commonwealth Games and long course titles – the first Aussie woman to ever hold them all at once.

Also on the same night Mollie O’Callaghan, Chelsea Hodges, Madi Wilson and Emma set a world record in the women’s 4x50m medley relay in a time of 1:42.35. It was Australia’s third women’s relay world record of the week, after also making history in the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays. All up Australia secured a medal in 11 of the 12 relays in Melbourne.

20-year-old world short course championships debutant Lani Pallister became the first female swimmer to win three short course freestyle events at a world champs, with individual gold medals in the women's 400m, 800m and 1500m.

Read more here and view results here.

Snowboard - Halfpipe

Dual-Olympic medallist Scotty James has made an incredible start to his halfpipe season, performing one of the finest runs in halfpipe history to win gold at the World Cup event in Copper Mountain, USA on Saturday and Valentino Guseli finished seventh in the final.

Read more here and watch Scotty’s historic run.

Freestyle Skiing - Moguls

Jakara Anthony has continued her perfect start to the World Cup season in the single moguls discipline, winning her third straight event in Alpe d’Huez, France.

The 2022 Olympic champion recorded the seventh World Cup victory of her career, in yet another dominant performance leading from start to finish across all three rounds.

Competing under sunny skies in the French Alps, Anthony had the highest turn and jump points in the final to score 79.70 points to finish 3.89 points ahead of French skier Perrine Laffont while American Elzabeth Lemley took third with 74.75 points.

The 24-year-old from Barwon Heads in Victoria is undefeated in three starts at the iconic Tour de France stage location, having won two single mogul World Cup events there last year.

“Three competitions and three wins on this course is pretty crazy” Jakara said.

“It’s heaps of fun in there, it doesn't look as hard as it is, it’s pretty difficult to ski in there so you really have to be on your game.”

In the men’s event all three Australians made finals. Led by 2018 Olympic silver medallist Matt Graham who narrowly missed advancing to the super-final in seventh place, with teammates Cooper Woods and Jackson Harvey finished 15th and 16th respectively.

Snowboard - Cross

In the space of two weeks 19-year-old Josie Baff has won the first two World Cup medals of her career, this time finishing with the silver medal in Cervinia, Italy.

Josie led for most of the hotly contested final, and when challenged held on to secure the silver medal, finishing just behind Charlotte Bankes of Great Britain.

The result meant Australian athletes have now won ten medals this month to make it our most successful start to a northern hemisphere winter, with five individual athletes in separate disciplines recording World Cup wins.

She showed great speed throughout the day, winning her round of 32 and 16 heats to reach the semi-final. Against strong competition in the semi-final featuring multiple Olympic medallists, Josie finished in the top two to advance to the big final.

“Pretty overwhelmed, I am very happy with how I rode today, and after yesterday it was nice to be back on the podium for the second time,” Josie said.

“I am grateful for my wax technicians, my board was flying out of the start, I couldn't have done it without them and my coaches and whole team.”

“My goals have been top eight’s consistently, so hopefully I can keep that up and the podiums are a nice touch and a good reward showing my hard work is paying off.”

Belle Brockhoff made her World Cup return on Saturday and finished 4th, with an injury keeping her out of the racing on Sunday.

Heading into the Christmas and New Year break Josie is ranked second in the world.

Sailing

Varying conditions and a gusty southerly set down a challenge for athletes on the final day of Sail Sydney, with consistency the key for podium finishes.

No stranger to the top of the podium, reigning Olympic champion Matt Wearn finished first in the ILCA 7 class, just ahead of fellow Western Australian athlete Luke Elliott and teammate Finn Alexander.

“It's always nice to kick off the summer with Sail Sydney and it’s been great to get some good training in and time on the legs,” Matt said.

"It’s just nice to be back on the boat and sailing with the boys again and having them push me hard. I’m happy to come out the other end feeling good so I'm excited for the season ahead.”

In the ILCA 6 class, Nazli Cagla Donertas claimed first place, closely followed by Tokyo Olympian Mara Stransky and Australian Sailing Futures athlete and Sydney local Evie Saunders.

In the 49erFX class, Victorian Tess Lloyd and her Tasmanian crew Dervla Duggan came home strong to finish on top of the podium just in front of teammates Laura Harding and Annie Wilmot.

Read more here and access full results here.

The next stop for many of the athletes will be Sail Melbourne, which will be hosted by the Royal Brighton Yacht Club from Saturday 14th - Wednesday 18th January 2023.

Fencing

The Australian junior women’s foil team of Mayuri Muralidharan, Sophia Glasson, Neve O’Neil and Ella Tang won a World Cup bronze medal in World Cup competition on Sunday.

They defeated Kazakhstan 45-37 in the bronze medal bout.

Equestrian - Dressage

Tokyo 2020 Olympian Simone Pearce and Fiderdance competed in the FEI Dressage World Cup in London.

The pair finished sixth in the Grand Prix and seventh in the Freestyle event.

Full results here.

Table Tennis

The men’s and women’s 2022 Oceania Cup singles gold medals now belong to Min Hyung Jee and Nicholsa Lum respectively after winning all-Australian gold medal matches.

At the event in Papua New Guinea, Min Hyung Jee defeated Yangzi Liu 4-3 for her first Oceania singles title.

Nicholas Hum’s 4-1 win over Chris Yan means he can add the Oceania World Cup title to his Oceania Championships crown from earlier this year.