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Oarsome Foursome Olympic rowing great Nick Green has the tough job of ensuring Cycling Australia can at last capitalise on the sport’s ongoing boom.
Six months after the two-time Olympic gold medallist was first linked to the role, Green was confirmed on Tuesday as CA’s new chief executive.
His appointment comes a week after Australia’s peak cycling body announced former cricket boss Malcolm Speed would head its new board.
CA was on its knees financially late last year, thanks mainly to a disastrous commercial venture.
In November, Orica-GreenEDGE team owner Gerry Ryan took over as president and former top AFL official Adrian Anderson became chief executive.
But they were always short-term appointments to help CA ride out its initial problems.
The body has since undergone an overhaul of its governance and administration.
Anderson left in May and Melinda Tarrant held the role while the board restructure took place.
Despite being better known for rowing, Green has strong cycling connections.
He has worked for the last six years at Victorian Major Events, which has brought the 2010 world road championships and 2012 world track titles to the state.
The body has also created the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Rd event, which will be held early next year.
Green also worked directly with cycling at the London Olympics, where he was chef de mission of the Australian team.
While CA still has plenty of challenges, Green said it is a career opportunity.
“I’ve spent 20 years building up for this opportunity, with the wealth of experience I have,” he said.
“All of that brings to a point where this opportunity is the right fit for me.
“I’ve had exposure to cycling on a whole lot of fronts for a (long) period of time.”
Green has largely kept out of the public eye since the London Games, where the Australian team had some significant issues.
He will not have the role again at the Rio Games in 2016, but has no regrets.
“It was fantastic,” he said.
“My times at the Olympics were like any Olympic Games – there were some highs and lows, there were some behavioural issues, there were some challenges.
“I loved the time there.
“The reality was we got the medals we thought we were going to get … we didn’t get the bonuses.”
Cycling Australia is in the strange position where the sport itself has never been healthier, but the governing body is trying to recover from becoming a basket case.
Australian riders continue to shine internationally and recreational cycling has boomed in popularity.
But CA has needed a $2 million loan to shore up its finances.
“The challenges now are identifying how we harness the great things in the sport and actually grow it strategically in a direction that benefits a number of aspects of the sport,” Green said.
“Clearly, the organisation needs to grow its financial base, like most national federations.
“We will be developing initiatives that not only get us to Rio, from a high-performance point of view, but also start to grow the base.”
Green will start his new job on October 20.
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