{"id":554372,"date":"2026-07-22T17:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554372\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:28:07","slug":"commonwealth-games-2026-olympic-champion-nina-kennedy-leads-team-australia-as-flagbearer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554372\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Games 2026: Olympic champion Nina Kennedy leads Team Australia as flagbearer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sound of Scottish bagpipes welcomed Team Australia to its Glasgow headquarters, before world and Olympic champion\u00a0pole vaulter<\/a>\u00a0Nina Kennedy<\/a>\u00a0was officially announced as Australia’s Commonwealth Games 2026<\/a> flagbearer for the Opening Ceremony in Glasgow on 23 July.<\/p>\n

The reigning Commonwealth champion becomes just the fourth Australian track and field athlete to carry the nation’s flag at these Games. She will lead a team of 255 athletes into the Opening Ceremony, giving her fellow teammates a glimpse of her flag-waving technique on stage during the announcement.<\/p>\n

“I knew this was coming, but it doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking,” Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

“This role could have been given to absolutely anyone,” she continued. “This team is so strong and there are so many deserving athletes that this could have gone to, so I truly feel very honoured, very humbled to be given this role. I just want to say thank you for choosing me.<\/p>\n

“I hope that I can represent our team, the Australian athletics team especially, and everyone back home the best I can.<\/p>\n

“I’ll be waving this thing with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of smiles. Tomorrow’s going to be really fun. I want to wish everyone an enjoyable and successful Games.”<\/p>\n

Kennedy’s Commonwealth journey began at Gold Coast 2018, where she won bronze in the women’s pole vault, her first medal at a senior multisport Games.<\/p>\n

Since then, the Australian record holder has added Commonwealth gold, World Championship gold and Olympic gold to her growing collection, and is now targeting the prestigious five-metre mark.<\/p>\n

Being chosen to carry the flag, however, is an honour she believes she will appreciate even more with time.<\/p>\n

“In the midst of my career, it’s so easy not to appreciate amazing experiences like this,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I’m finally getting a little bit more mature and learning to just be grateful and soak everything up while it lasts because sport can be so fleeting.”<\/p>\n

Kennedy will lead Australia into the Opening Ceremony alongside Para swimmer Tim Hodge, who has been selected as the nation’s King’s Baton bearer.<\/p>\n

The women’s pole vault competition at the Commonwealth Games 2026 takes place on 31 July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sound of Scottish bagpipes welcomed Team Australia to its Glasgow headquarters, before world and Olympic champion\u00a0pole vaulter\u00a0Nina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-554372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}