As far as the Australian Sports Commission is concerned, the measure of the success of Australian sporting high performance programs is how many Olympic gold medals and World Championships we win.
This principle guides federal funding for high performance programs and the development of talent search programs for events with low participation bases that are identified as soft targets.
But I don’t judge Australia’s success on the world stage that way and I’m wondering what other Roarers think.
I like a gold medal as much as the next punter, and I believe any athlete with the ability to achieve excellence should be supported, but what I really want is to see international success in the sports we have a strong a tradition in.
For me, that means:
• Having a strong Test cricket team.
• Having men and women in contention for tennis majors and a competitive Davis Cup team.
• Having men and women in contention for golf majors.
• Winning Swimming gold medals and championships.
• Having competitive track and field athletes.
• Having a strong Wallabies team.
The vibrancy of the national competitions of our major football codes is another indicator of the overall health of Australian high performance sport.
These are the things that matter.
I think it’s about time the people living in the ivory towers of the Australian Sports Commission woke up to what Australian sporting public really cares about.
No amount of gold medals in events like women’s skeleton are going to convince us we’re going alright if we’re not doing well in the sports we follow because of the strong emotional connection we feel with them.
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