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Influential official Peter Bartels has backed the Crawford report, saying Australian sport needs more funding at the top and bottom ends.
The former chairman of the Australian Sports Commission and long-time Cycling Australia patron also says there are too many “sports tourists” on the Australian Olympic team.
“Given the history of the AIS … we know that by broadening the base and finding new young athletes, we’ll probably get more medal contenders than we will by sending the same people back to the Olympics two or three times,” Bartels said.
“They are maybe in the top 40 in the world, but not in the top three.
“I support the model that says we ought to sharpen the top end and make sure that those who are capable of winning whatever sport they’re in … should be given every opportunity with government funding.
“The bottom end of our talent bank, we should be using more government funding to encourage participation.”
Bartels is concerned at the size of the Olympic team and the government funds that go to some Australian Olympians.
“Progressively, over the years the size of the team that we’ve sent to the Olympics has risen very dramatically,” he said.
“(Some) athletes have worked very hard to get in that team and I compliment them on that, but their reality of gaining a top-position finish in the Olympics is very remote.
“Accordingly, they are going, learning something and having a wonderful time … but you have to wonder whether we’re prepared to fund them over several Olympics to take that tour every four years, that’s part of the problem.”
Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates furiously attacked the report, saying: “it seems un-Australian to me to settle for something second best.”
Bartels countered that “I think it’s very Australian – it’s a balanced report.”
Australian cycling had a historically-barren Beijing Olympics last year, winning just one silver medal, but the sport is upbeat about how it will fare in the wake of the Crawford Report.
Cycling Australia’s national performance director Shayne Bannan said Bartels and key sponsor Gerry Ryan had been instrumental in helping ensure that the sport remained well-funded.
“A lot of sports have been in the mode of ‘ok, let’s wait and see what happens with the Crawford Report’ – we have the ability to still move forward,” Bannan said.
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