Is there a sweeter sound than that of a whingeing Aussie? As Team GB won their 16th gold medal — matching the number won in 2000 by Australia when it hosted the Games — the chuntering Down Under grew.

No Australian likes coming second, especially not to the Poms. The last time Australia ended an Olympics behind Britain was in Seoul in 1988, a grim time for Australian sport with England also holding the Ashes.

The moaning has started already. “Britain has three times our population so it should win three times as many medals,” said Richard Charlesworth, a former MP, who coached the Australian women’s hockey team to gold in 1996 and 2000. “Anyway, the Brits invented most of the Olympic sports so you should be doing well.”

John Coates, the president of the Australian Olympic Committee, was also embarrassed. “Their new-found cockiness has got some substance to it,” he admitted. “They are certainly serving it up to me.” Mr Coates was the man who sneered after Rebecca Adlington, the swimmer, won Britain’s second gold medal last week that Britain wasn’t doing too badly for a country with “few swimming pools and not very much soap”.

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One of the frequent complaints is that the British have bought their medals. Ryan Bayley, the cycling sprint champion in Athens, said: “We don’t have the funding of the British. Basically, they can buy whatever they want.”

Shane Sutton, the Australian cycling coach who has been working with the all-conquering Great Britain team, has been called a traitor and was forced to declare that he is still Australian “through and through”. Britain has 14 cycling medals so far, eight of them gold. Australia has one.

The present overall lead of five gold medals over Australia could increase before the Games finishes. With Britain having a good chance of success in the triple jump, women’s BMX cycling, kayaking and sailing, it is possible that 20 or more golds could be reached. Australia, by contrast, has only five good chances left for gold. Team GB may not hang on to third place in the medal table — Russia could pass them — but bragging rights over the Aussies are almost certain.

Mr Coates may yet take some champagne off Lord Moynihan, his British counterpart, though. The men had a wager before the Games of a bottle for each medal difference between their two nations. Although Britain has apparently won the gold rush, Australia leads by 35-33 in the overall reckoning. But what Aussie is ever satisfied by bronze medals?

A taste of sour grapes

‘Something utterly jaw-dropping has happened at these Games . . . the Brits have overtaken Australia on the medals table. This darkness has descended, and yet there has been no declaration of national emergency.

Once, not so long ago, Australians were a proud people who walked tall with jutted jaws. The Poms were a source of amusement, a fallen imperial master weeping over a dog-eared scrapbook, its tattered images of Steve Redgrave, Seb Coe, Mary Rand and those blokes from Chariots of Fire fading by the day. As much as it hurt, you’d hear them say: “Why can’t we be good at sport, like you Aussies?”

Triumphal, you’d smile, pat their bowed heads, and offer an almost heartfelt, “There, there, at least you’ve got Amy Winehouse . . .”

Now there’s not a hutong in Beijing you can disappear down without a smug cockney voice trailing you on the breeze, Bazza McKenzie impersonation in full swing. “Jeez cobber, what’s happened to the Aussies, mate, ay? Bloody crook, fair dinkum!” Oh, the shame.

What really hurts is the knowledge that, when they were down on their scabby knees pleading for any sporting morsel to be thrown their way, we came to their rescue. Here you go, poor Poms, have our coaches, our programs, our secrets to success . . .’

Sydney Morning Herald 19.08.08