Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) athletes Damien Hooper and Jessica Fox have collected two gold for Australia in the boxing and canoe slalom events respectively, on the final day’s competition at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games taking place in Singapore. 

Hooper’s superb victory came on a golden day for Australia, with the men’s hockey team defeating Pakistan 2–1 to win gold. 

At the end of the Games, Australia finished in 5th place on the medal tally with eight gold, 15 silver and nine bronze.

18-year-old Hooper defeated Colombian Juan Carlos Carrilo 12–4 in the 75kg middleweight division, dominating the fight to win gold.  

Hooper becomes the first Australian boxer to win gold at an open or age-group Olympic Games.

Since joining the AIS program in 2008, Hooper has become one of Australia’s most successful boxing talents. The Indigenous boxer is also a graduate of the Australian Sports Commission’s National Talent Identification and Development (NTID) program.

Hooper trains under the guidance of AIS/NTID coach Don Abnett.  ‘My coach Don has been brilliant in supporting my training and development and coaching me to the next level,’ Hooper said.

In the canoe slalom 15-year-old Fox won gold, beating Czechoslovakia’s Pavlina Zasterova by 7.45 seconds.

‘I am really happy with the result,’ Fox said.  

‘It was a good race. I was a bit tired at the end but gave it everything and came away with the gold.’

In other strong results for AIS athletes during the Games, Zoe Johnson won gold in the 4 x 100-metres medley relay on day 2, followed by Mikhaela Donnelly’s silver as a member of the Australian team in the 3-on-3 basketball tournament.   

Donnelly joined Captain Olivia Bontempelli, Hannah Kaser and Rosemary Fadljevic in the Australian team, which lost narrowly to China 32–29 in the women’s 3-on-3 basketball final. 

She was excited to claim silver.

‘Just getting a medal at all and finishing this high in the competition is just such a privilege and I’m so proud of every single one of our girls. We gave it all we had and I think we deserve it,’ Donnelly said. ‘I think we just thought that if we gave up there wasn’t any point us being here anyway, we worked as hard as we could, we may as well give it all we’ve got and we did. They were just the better team on the day.’

AIS results at the Youth Olympic Games

• Damien Hooper: gold (men’s 75kg middleweight boxing division)
• Mikhaela Donnelly: silver (3-on-3 basketball)
• Jessica Fox : gold (women’s canoe slalom event) and 10th (K1 sprint canoe) 
• Alice Ingley: 9th (individual recurve archery)
• Zoe Johnson: gold (4 x 100-metre medley swimming relay)
• Dan Nott: 5th (individual recurve archery)
• Hannah Thek: 4th (3-metre springboard diving event); 11th (10-metre springboard)