Surfing

20-year-old Molly Picklum is celebrating her first World Surf League championship tour victory after topping the women's competition at the Sunset Pro in Hawaii.

After beating compatriot Tyler Wright in the semi-finals, Molly went head-to-head with Caroline Marks (USA) in the final and won on Monday morning AEDT.

#HurleyProSunsetBeach Women’s FINAL
Results:
🇦🇺 #MollyPicklum - 10.90
🇺🇸 @Caroline_Marks3 - 9.90@hurley pic.twitter.com/Z9U3QWppWQ
— World Surf League (@wsl) February 20, 2023

The young Aussie scored 10.90 in the final and the 21-year-old from America managed 9.90.

With two events completed on the World Surf League championship tour, Molly now shares the women's no.1 ranking with Carissa Moore (USA).

In the men's competition, Jack Robinson finished third after his semi-final score of 16.10 wasn't enough to beat Griffin Colapinto's (USA) 17.90.

Having won the opening event of the season, Jack remains the men's no.1 ranked surfer in the world on total points.

The third round of the championship tour will take place in Portugal on 8-16 March.

Athletics

Australia’s distance-running quartet of Oliver Hoare, Jess Hull, Stewart McSweyn and Abbey Caldwell have secured a world cross country championships bronze medal in the mixed 4x2 team relay at Bathurst, New South Wales.

On a Saturday at Mount Panorama that threw up high temperatures, only Kenya (gold, 23:14) and Ethiopia (silver, 23:21) finished ahead of the Aussies (bronze, 23:26) in the mixed team relay.

Jess was the standout from an excellent team display. In the second leg of the relay she pushed the Aussies into the lead and the team held their nerve to remain in medal contention, showing the world some cross-country excellence Down Under.

“We wear the guernsey with pride and we all executed good races. To compete with the powerhouses of Ethiopia and Kenya hopefully puts Australia on the map and shows that we are part of the big-three of distance running now,” Stewart said.

The result gives all four of the Aussie athletes their first ever world championships medal and Australia’s fourth world cross country medal from the 44 editions of the championships.

“There is no pressure when you have three superstars with you, you know that everyone is so professional that they will do their jobs,” Jess said.

Oliver embraced the pressure and enjoyed the home-crowd support.

“There is always pressure when it comes to racing on home soil when you have the resumes that we have and the anticipation of what was to come,” he said.

“That’s why we do this sport, we handle the pressure the way we handle it and being at home, I know personally that people have come here to cheer us on.”

Cycling - BMX

Olympic champion Logan Martin has started the season-opening BMX Freestyle World Cup with gold in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.

His best run of the final, his first run, scored 93.50 after he pulled off a 720 double bar spin and triple tail whips in opposite directions.

Logan wasn’t able to improve on it in his second run due to a fall, with the rest of the field unable to topple the Aussie from top spot on their second runs.

The next BMX Freestyle World Cup is set to be held in the 2024 Olympics host country, France, between 17-21 May this year.

Canoe Sprint

Alyce Wood made an impressive and winning return to competition this weekend at the Canoe Sprint Grand Prix 2 in Penrith, NSW.

Racing for the first time since becoming a mother in June 2022, Alyce’s comeback regatta included victory in the women’s K1 500, victory in the K2 500 with Kailey Harlen and second place in the K4 500.

“I’ve sacrificed a lot for my family and put a lot on the line for this dream of being a three-time Olympian and hopefully going and winning some medals for Australia,” Alyce said.

“This is the first step to this process and I think that I underestimated how much being officially on the team means to me.

“I’m a mum now, and got my little daughter Florence in the stand – it’s been a big 18 months and so to come back and be able to put together a race I’m really proud of, it’s cool.

“Anything that happens here on in, I’m really proud of myself and proud of my family and to be in a women’s squad and a squad in general now that’s really pushing each other to new limits is really exciting.”

In the men’s competition, Olympic champion Tom Green made it four wins from his four events at Sydney International Regatta Centre.

The 23-year-old edged his K2 teammate Jean van der Westhuyzen by 0.37s in the men’s K1 500 final, adding to his K1 1000, K2 500 and K4 500 wins from earlier in the regatta.

Full Grand Prix 2 results here.

“So far everything’s going to plan. K4 was a cracker, K2 was a cracker and just coming here to finish off the K1 1000, so far I can’t complain,” Tom said.

“I really wanted to go into this season trying to get that K4 and also the K2 [selection] – I really wanted to race that at worlds so we had to come here and perform, and same with the K1,”

“I just want to kind of nurture all three of them and just train as much as I can to be able to be good at every single one of them.”

Riley Fitzsimmons was third, with the Avoca paddler rounding out a successful return to racing having been a member of the victorious K4 500 team on day one and finishing second with Jackson Collins in yesterday’s K2 500.

“I’d taken the last year off kayaking just to regather myself after Tokyo,” Riley said. “Coming back this year the aim is to get as much race practice as I can.

“It’s looking like I’ll probably go over to the World Cups this year which is really exciting. I haven’t raced a World Cup since 2019, so it’s been a fairly long time and I’m really looking forward to getting back over there into international racing.

“Where I’m at right now, I’m extremely happy. From sitting on the couch last year and watching the boys race overseas, I really wanted to get back into it.”

Canoe Slalom

Jess Fox has proved why she is considered the greatest canoe slalom paddler of all-time at the 2023 Australian Open.

Despite starting as the third competitor, behind younger sister Noemie Fox and US young gun Evy Leibfarth, Jess was determined to return to form in her preferred discipline, the same boat in which she won gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

She crossed the line in a time of 104.84, securing her the Australian Open gold medal.

“I was really happy with that run. It was finally the run where everything feels flowing and you’re powerful and strong and online and attacking it so I was really pleased to put that run down,” Jess said.

Full Australian Open results here.

“Especially after yesterday where it didn’t quite feel like I was racing to my potential in the kayak so it was a nice run.

“I’m pretty happy with my racing in the last couple of weekends. There’s still a few things where I know there’s room for improvement which is always good.

“We’ve got a few more months before we head overseas for the training and World Cup season, so we’ll be looking to better that and arrive ready to race at the World Cups.”

Jess backed up her Australian Open canoe title with a win in the kayak cross, in the event formerly known as extreme slalom. Kayak cross will make its Olympic debut at Paris 2024.

“The kayak cross is an extra event on the program and it’s definitely beefed up my training load and my racing load at the World Cup races especially where it’s got to fit in those three days.

“It’s really tough physically and mentally, but it’s good training, it’s good practice and I enjoy it so I’ll keep doing it.”

In the men’s canoe final, Victorian paddler Tristan Carter took first place, ahead of Tokyo Olympian Dan Watkins in second.

Judo

Three weeks after Aoife Coughlan won her first ever Grand Prix gold medal in Portugal, she has become only the second Australian to receive a medal at an IJF Grand Slam event with bronze in the women’s -70kg division.

Competing in Tel Aviv, Israel Aoife found herself in the bronze-medal at the hands of Miriam Butkereit (GER) in the semi-finals.

Then Martina Esposito (ITA) stood in Aoife's way at a shot for bronze. The Aussie Olympian held her opponent for ippon a minute into the contest.

Fellow Aussie Katharina Haecker competed in the women’s -63kg division and finished fifth.

Fencing

Veronika Vasileva has created Australian fencing history, becoming the first Aussie to win a medal at a Junior World Cup.

The 17-year-old won silver in Batumi, Georgia.

Full results here.

Badminton

In the first Oceania mixed team championships held since 2019, Australia has maintained their dominance in the event by winning the tournament for the sixth-straight time.

With New Zealand hosting this edition of the tournament in Auckland, the host nation went undefeated on their way to a showdown with Australia for the gold medal.

As did the Aussies, who were led by continental champions Kenneth Choo and Gronya Somerville.
In the gold medal match-up, Australia swept their way to a 5-0 victory.

First up, Gronya and Kenneth prevailed against Edward Lau and Anona Pak 18-21 21-14 21-14 in the mixed doubles.

Jack Yu's defeat of Abhinav Manota in the men's singles and Tiffany Ho's come from behind win over New Zealand's Shaunna Li gave Australia an unbeatable 3-0 lead with the women's and men's doubles remaining.

Full results here.

The tournament victory earns Australia a continental qualification spot for the BWF Sudirman Cup Finals in China from 14-21 May.

Triathlon

Australia celebrated more Oceania success in New Zealand last week, as Callum McClusky won the Oceania Cup opener in Wanaka and Emma Jeffcoat got the bronze.

Callum finished in a time of 48:21, holding off the host nation's Kyle Smith (48:22) and Tayler Reid (48:23) with only a second and two seconds to spare respectively. The Aussie’s 5km run time of 14:24 vaulted him to victory.

Emma started fast, as she was the first woman to complete the 750m swim, and ultimately came in third (54:13) behind New Zealand's Nicole Van der Kaay (53:40) and Brea Roderick (54:00).

Football

The Matildas have landed their sixth win in a row, taking down world number seven Spain 3-2 in Parramatta, NSW on Sunday night.

Goals to Cortnee Vine, Clare Polkinghorne and Caitlin Foord were part of a scintillating first-half performance.

Spain continued to look for ways to get back into the contest in the second half, scoring goals in the 73rd minute and five minutes into stoppage time.

Speaking post-game, Sam Kerr took notice of the second-half performance.

“I think it’s a good thing that we’ve copped two goals ... and we’re disappointed (to do so) against a top team,” Sam said.

“We’re happy with the win. When you come off the pitch, when you set high standards, you want to keep a clean sheet. At the end of the day we won - it would have been nicer to do it with a clean sheet.”

“We wanted to try different players, different things and different formations, which we did within the game.”

“At the end of this week, we can lift a trophy but we see it as finishing top of the (World Cup) group."

The Matildas play their last Cup of Nations fixture against Jamaica on Wednesday in Newcastle, kicking off at 7:10pm AEDT. Get your tickets here.

Weekend Wrap: Young Aussie surfer ascends to world no.1, historic athletics medal achieved in Bathurst and more