Australia’s performance in Brisbane Olympics ‘threatened by underfunding’
THE Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has called on the government to make up an A$2 billion (S$1.77 billion) shortfall in sports funding over the next decade, or risk failure at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
AOC chief executive Matt Carroll on Monday (Mar 27) asked the government to also create a ministry for sport, rather than let it remain as “the forgotten poor cousin” in the Department of Health.
“Successive sports plans over many years have not achieved their ambitions, because they have been funded to fail,” he said.
“On the forward projections – based on the work we have done with our 44 member sports – Australian sport will fall over a financial cliff. Sports are fighting each other for a share of a cake that keeps getting smaller...
“Our analysis shows that... there’s a A$2 billion shortfall in direct funding to sports across the 10 years leading to Brisbane 2032. That’s not nearly enough to retain the current levels of sports performance, let alone to maximise the Brisbane 2032 opportunities.”
The country will also host the Commonwealth Games in Victoria in 2026. The event will be a key staging post on the path to producing the sort of medal tally expected of a host nation when the Olympics arrive Down Under for the third time.
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Australia finished third behind the US and Soviet Union on the medals table when Melbourne first hosted the Olympics in 1956. In 2000, when the Games were staged in Sydney, it came up fourth behind the US, Russia and China.
Carroll said a similar showing in 2032 would be unlikely without a major funding boost.
“Unless this situation is rectified, Australia will be staring failure in the face at the 2026 Commonwealth Games and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” he said, “because our home teams will have been undermined by inaction”.
Carroll also called for a statement of purpose on sport from the government, to acknowledge that sport not only garners national recognition at the elite level, but also plays a major role in combating social harms, such as inactivity and obesity.
The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), once a trailblazer in the use of sport science to improve performance, also needed increased funding, he added.
“To return the AIS to its global position, the AOC calls for increased investment in the AIS, so it is home to the best and brightest in the sports science, medicine, technology and data disciplines,” he said.
Carroll concluded that time was of the essence: “The Olympic and Paralympic medals Australian athletes win are years in the making... There is one certainty in all of this: The Olympic flame will be lit in Brisbane on Jul 23, 2032 – whether we are ready or not.” REUTERS
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