By Doug Conway
November 20th 2009 @ 1:39am
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$1 billion question: gold medals or grass roots?
For the first time since the 1970s, Australia’s Olympic ambitions stand on the edge of a precipice. Only this time we have some say over whether we go over the brink, and how far we might fall.
It could all happen in slow motion, over time, unlike the last plunge over the cliff.
The debacle of the [...]
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Redb said | November 20th 2009 @ 8:00am | Report comment
One thing that is often forgotten about 1976, it was a time of rampant drug cheating by East Germany and quite a few others.
Dave1 said | November 20th 2009 @ 10:05am | Report comment
Didn’t people used to criticise the eastern bloc countries back then because they were funded by heaps of government money?
True Tah said | November 20th 2009 @ 10:28am | Report comment
Yeah but that funding was the detriment to the general population. Ok if you are an elite athlete, but average Yuri on the street had to go without.
Redb said | November 20th 2009 @ 10:32am | Report comment
they were like athlete factories with govt money, select sport, inject steroid, next please.
Mushi said | November 20th 2009 @ 2:50pm | Report comment
How’s that so different from our model? Okay so we don’t use steroids as much (well if you exclude the cycling) but we outspend so many of the nations we “beat” on training academies which target elite youths.
Mushi said | November 20th 2009 @ 2:51pm | Report comment
Yep nothing like western sports…
simonjzw said | November 20th 2009 @ 11:30am | Report comment
I’m all for providing a better sporting infrastructure and programs that encourage us to be active.
I’m also in favour of doing what we can to encourage excellence, be that in the arts, music, drama, science or sport.
Getting the balance right is the trick and I think Crawford is on the right track.
The encouragement of exellence in sport is through “High Performance” funding and having worked in that industry I can tell you it is way too skewed towards Olympic Medals. Any sport not in the Olympics is considered unworthy of funding in the Australian High Performance system. In fact I’ve heard those in the industry suggest we should direct our funding to “soft” Olympic events to keep our medal tally up. Is a high medal tally really that important?
As an Australian I find that while I’m proud of our Olympic achievements and medallists I’m equally proud of many other achievements by athletes and teams in non Olympic settings. Stephanie Gilmour, Mick Fanning, Geoff Ogilvy, the Australian Cricket Team, the Socceroos, Lleyton Hewitt’s Wimbledon success, the Australian Netball team…. just to name a few. It’s about time we provided these sports with comparable support to that received by Olympic Sports.
And if John Coates and his cronies could get their snouts out of the Olympic trough for long enough I’m sure even they wouldn’t disagree that school sport needs reinvigoration and better integration with community sport. Or that local facilities aren’t in dire need of development.
Well done David Crawford!
Al said | November 20th 2009 @ 6:08pm | Report comment
The equation between big budgets and gold medals is so widely recognized that Olympic Gold has already lost it’s value. Let’s celebrate future Olympic achievements in the full knowledge that Australia has a refined sports funding policy that strikes a balance between our elite athletes and getting the potatoes off the couch!
Ian Whitchurch said | November 20th 2009 @ 7:29pm | Report comment
I was looking for something else about the East German model Australia adopted after Monreal, but this quote is just too good
http://gh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/3/414
“From the 1970s onwards, mushrooming trendy sports, such as wind-surfing and karate, came up against the narrow-minded and repressive policies of the SED, which were guided by the belief that sport should exist only to serve the Socialist project. The state concentrated its provision exclusively on Olympic sports.”
Does any of this sound familiar ?
Pippinu said | November 22nd 2009 @ 11:27am | Report comment
Interestingly, I wrote my very first Roar article on the Olympics, which touched on Government funding, back in July last year:
http://www.theroar.com.au/2008/07/24/the-olympics-wake-me-when-its-over/
Here’s one quote:
” Is it because millions of taxpayers’ money gets wasted on preparing “athletes” for events that normally we wouldn’t frequent even if they were for free? ”
Interestingly, I too referred to Archery in that article – how prescient!
Re-reading it – it’s quite an entertaining piece – I encourage you all to have another look at it!!