Simon Smale is an online sports reporter who specialises in covering a wide range of different sports.
He has been with the ABC since 2018 and, as well as reporting and blogging major events, is a regular contributor to ABC Radio, as well as commentating and hosting coverage of football and rugby union matches.
Simon covered the 2022 Winter Olympic Games from Beijing and the 2024 Summer Games from Paris.
Prior to becoming a sports journalist, Simon worked on three different continents as a geologist.
As Paris signs off on a Games that featured the very best of what the sporting world can do, Australia can bask in the glory of staggering achievement.
Matthew Glaetzer has waited his whole career for an Olympic medal. Now, after a decade of bad luck, some finally goes his way in a dramatic keirin final that sees both he and Matthew Richardson win medals.
The women's marathon served as the concluding athletics event at the Olympic Games for the first time at Paris 2024, and it was won by a performance that did its historic status justice.
COVID was not supposed to play a major role in the Olympics anymore — but Paris 2024 has shown that for the athletes, it's still an issue.
Jessica Hull has come on in leaps and bounds over the past 12 months, going from an also-ran at major championships to being an Olympic silver medallist.
How you respond to missing out is just as important as how you respond to success. On that measure alone, these Aussie Stingers are true champions.
Arguably the greatest marathon runner in history, Eliud Kipchoge, could not claim a third straight Olympic title, pulling out of the race won by Ethiopia's Tamirat Tola.
The Paris Olympic marathon is not only the conclusion of the athletics events at the Games, but the end result of decades of struggle for female athletes for recognition.
Matthew Richardson is building a mighty impressive CV in the velodrome, but up against a man with few peers in Harrie Lavreysen, he fell just short of Olympic glory to a legend.
As soon as Oceania marathon record holder Brett Robinson knew that his Paris Olympic Games dream was over, he knew he wanted to be the one to tell his replacement, Andy Buchanan, the news.
Caitlin Parker and Charlie Senior become the seventh and eighth boxers from Australia to win Olympic medals. But they fear they may not get another chance.
As Moesha Johnson powered to a superb silver medal in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games open water swim in the River Seine, officials were celebrating simply getting the event underway.
In Tokyo, Australia was embarrassed and bloodied by faulty handlebars. Just three short years later at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Aussies are back on top.
Matt Glaetzer has had more Olympic Games near misses than anyone and his decade-long quest for a medal is a study in perseverance and Aussie grit.
Fox sisters sweep the canoe slalom medals in Vaires-sur-Marne, with Noémie stepping out of Jess's enormous shadow to claim a joyful gold medal.
There are only eight athletes representing Palestine in Paris. This swimmer has stories to tell, and the Games are her opportunity.
The shortest race, an indeterminable wait, the finest margin of victory. The men's 100m final at the Paris Olympics stretched and bent time into an impossible puzzle that only Noah Lyles could solve.
Some fans arrived to the Montmartre climb a full seven hours before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games road race was due to pass. And they had one hell of a day.
At the Paris Games of 1924, Scottish Presbyterian missionary and sprinter Eric Liddell completed one of the most romanticised feats in Olympic history. His is just one instance of athletes not competing on a Sunday.
Katie Ledecky fourth-straight victory in the 800m has assured her Olympics immortality — but who is next in line to create greatness in the pool?
Paris 2024 has embraced its most famous landmark in the most spectacular way, giving rise to one of the most iconic of Olympic venues.
Saya Sakakibara has endured things as an athlete that many would ever recover from — but her Olympic gold medal is a testament to her strength, and that of her entire family.
Is it the Parisian water, the type of lane ropes or maybe the construction of the pool itself that's slowed our swimmers down? Or is all this talk of a 'slow' pool really just a bunch of hokum.
Led by the two greatest 200m swimmers of all time, Australia came together once again to create an unstoppable winning machine at last.
The Australian men's water polo team is hell-bent on riding a wave of good form all the way to the knockout rounds, after a hard-fought, dramatic 9-8 victory over hosts France and their legions of fans.