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New Cycling Australia (CA) chief executive Adrian Anderson is in Great Britain, looking at how his counterparts have built one of the sport’s most successful organisations.
The former AFL football operation manager’s fact-finding trip to British Cycling comes a month after he and multi-millionaire Gerry Ryan were appointed to the two most important CA positions.
Despite the sport’s ongoing boom in Australia, CA has financial problems and the Australian Sports Commission also wants tighter governance.
Ryan, now CA president, said while British Cycling receives 60 per cent of its funding through the national lottery, it also generates significant revenue through membership and participation.
“You always look at success stories and try to take out what they’re doing,” Ryan said.
“That’s what we want to try and do – to increase the revenues from outside of having to rely on government funding.
“Hopefully by the end of January, we can present back to the board a potential model for cycling.”
In the past decade, British Cycling has morphed into a powerhouse.
It dominates track cycling and has close ties with Team Sky, one of the strongest outfits in professional cycling.
Sky riders Sir Brad Wiggins and Chris Froome have won the past two Tours de France, with Wiggins the first British rider to achieve the feat.
Ryan has also confirmed that Anderson is an interim chief executive only and will leave the post in February.
Anderson wrote an open letter in a CA newsletter this week, saying the organisation faced challenging moments in coming months as changes were made.
Ryan has been involved heavily in cycling for more than two decades as a sponsor and he owns the Orica-GreenEDGE team.
He is upbeat about CA’s health and future.
“One thing we’ve discovered is there are some very good people working for CA and what we need as a board is to give them a direction,” he said.
“People think cycling is broken – it’s not. It just needs a good service and that’s what we’re doing.
“I have a little philosophy, that if you’re doing business in the same way in 12 months’ time, you’re going backwards.
“Sport is an entertainment industry and we have to give people what they want.”
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