An emotional Kitty Chiller has declared she wants to stay on as Australia’s Olympic team boss for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Chiller endured a torrid debut in the job, tasked with improving team culture while also dealing with many security challenges thrown up by the Rio Games and her high-profile performance came in for criticism at times.
However she believes strong groundwork has been laid and she revealed on return home from Rio on Wednesday that she hoped to stay in the job.
“If people think that I have something to offer I would love to be involved,” Chiller said.
“We’ve set up a great culture in this team now and I would love to continue to build on that in the next four years.”
Australia recorded its worst medal haul in Rio since Barcelona in 1992, with eight golds and 29 in total.
However Chiller pointed to the youth of the team as a reason for hope, despite what she labelled a Games of missed opportunities.
“This was a games where we demonstrated the strength of our youth,” she said.
“Sixty-five per cent of our team were Olympic rookies, 43 per cent under the age of 25, the depth and strength of our team and our youth is our future and Tokyo looms large.”
Having engaged in pre-Games sparring with tennis stars Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic over their behaviour – both opted out of Rio – Chiller maintained her hardline disciplinary stance at the Games.
Swimmers Emma McKeon and Josh Palmer were publicly disciplined for breaches of team rules, although Chiller later relented on McKeon and let her go to the closing ceremony.
The biggest issue came when Australian Olympic Committee CEO Fiona de Jong had to negotiate the release of nine Australian athletes from a Rio police station following alleged tampering of accreditation passes, seemingly aided by a team official.
A teary Chiller exonerated the athletes of blame and apologised to them, while an AOC investigation into that matter was to start immediately on arrival home.
Chiller’s performance will be reviewed by the AOC before it decides on its chef de mission for the Tokyo Olympics.
The difficult campaign clearly took a personal toll and Chiller was teary on the team’s arrival in Sydney.
But she said the team culture was the “biggest success”.
“It was a lot of investment over the last three years and it’s paid off, every single team member bought into it,” Chiller said.
“What you see here today is evident of what you see every day in the village.
“All the athletes supporting each other, working with each other, celebrating and commiserating, it generally was one team.”
BrainsTrust
Guest
She was responsible for the enviroment. They moved into a new building that would not have passed inspection. For some reason they also had to have gas appliances. Electricity and Water are not going to kill you silently but gas will. "Landlords are putting their tenants' lives at risk from carbon monoxide poisoning or potential explosions by failing to carry out annual gas safety checks, according to a report from Gas Safe Register. Landlords are legally required to organise an annual gas safety check to be carried out by a registered Gas Safe engineer, but more than a third (41%) of tenants report that their gas appliances had broken down several times in the past five years, indicating that landlords aren't taking their responsibilities seriously."
sheek
Roar Guru
She was the chef the mission, not the coach of every bloody, single athlete competing. She could only control the environment the athletes lived in. She wasn't responsible for their performances. She imposed discipline because Rio was a dangerous city due to the massive imbalance of wealth & corruption. She did a laudable job under very difficult circumstances. More difficult than any Olympics I can remember bar 1972, the year Israeli athletes were executed by Palestine terrorists. She has my support.
SVB
Guest
This woman has made herself far more important than she really is. Congratulations to her. Now everyone knows who she is. She should now get a job with Qantas, or some other company that needs an annoying PR person.
andrew
Guest
Listening to the swimmers get out of the pool and all (bar 1) recite the same "i am so proud of myself" mantra, whether they finished first or last, might be a good culture as far as personal health and well being, but it doesn't breed a culture of pushing ones self to be better than the person next to you, which is what racing is all about. Her plan failed and while i commend her trying to speak up for the athletes prior to the Games, it seemed to be as much about showing she was in charge as much as it was her care for the athletes and their well being.
Winston
Guest
I'm pretty sure her KPI is not the medal count so any attempt to blame her for the bad medal haul is just ridiculous. The only exception to that is Kyrgios and Tomic because she basically made them refuse to go (not that either of them would have won anyway).
1st&10
Guest
Based on results - NO -- Comment from The Roar's iPhone app.
Birdman
Guest
Yeah, yeah, nah. Kitty staked her rep on a 'no dickheads' and good culture mantra being the key to a big medal haul and came up well short. Next!