Simon, well written and a strong, impactful messages! There is a responsibility on all sports, like my sport: rowing, to develop not only great athletes, but also great men & women. Rowing’s the same…we do it for love and the carrot of the Olympic Games held in front of us all, and regularly, even continuously are reminded of the importance of that carrot so that all other possible “distractions” are quarantined at the risk they might impact performance/recovery. However like any organisation with a duty of care, they “should” create better outputs than what they receive as inputs and this includes contributing members to society. I’d say Hockey Australia aren’t doing their job as the peak body for hockey if they’re not producing the best outputs from the organisation they possibly can. Part of this is athletes being incredible ambassadors for the sport after they finish playing and extolling the benefits of the sport to the broader community, in business, schools, hospitals, wherever you end up working…not to mention the parents of the next generation you work with, or the next generation that look up to you.
Until National Sporting Organisation’s can either support athlete’s financially, educationally and/or vocationally, they are merely taking and not giving, No one likes a selfish prick.

Sheek,

Good chat and good points. I completely agree that Cate had a swim she would be, and should be, bitterly disappointed with. Chappelli would tell her how he felt about it too no doubt. I think Cate will be dishing out her own version of tough love on herself given the way she clearly felt disappointed with her performance.
For her to be at the level’s she’s at, and been at for three olympics, she would have days, like Chappelli did with the bat, perform above average, and sometimes below average. The tough thing for Olympians is we don’t get another test in two weeks time, or the next tour to make amends. But all through that, there would’ve been plenty of tough love, decisions, sessions and triumphs over below average days toget to the level she did.
We could all do with some tough love. I agree. I had a few particularly good coaches, with that nous, to know when to encourage me, and when to put their fist down. I couldn’t possibly go into all of the grueling training sessions, terrible races, disappointment and criticism I’ve had to overcome over the years to achieve the standard I did. Not many can handle that, and that’s why they leave sport, especially amateur sport where there is no financial reward. So the ones left tend to be those that have graduated from the school of overcoming disappointment. But like in any workplace, they will do the soul searching in a more private setting than on camera to Ch7.
This article was to talk about the broader athlete story, and some of the reflections they’ve shared after their olympic results. Not trying to make excuses for them. That’s something they all have to deal with in their own time. That will be tough too. Having been a battler athlete that has toiled for many years, probably a stereotypical journeyman, I feel I can speak with authority on some of the good, and some of the emotionally tough things these guys and girls are going through…and after all they are humans competing in a human environment. This is often forgotten. Another point I was trying to make in the article. Even the NZ’ers we should treat like humans 😉
So as much as I agree with you that sport has been corporatised and money drives so many of the decisions, and hence outcomes, I don’t agree athletes should shove off, cause they’re not the ones benefitting from the corporate dollar. The consumers are those benefitting.
As for professional sports, that’s a whole different conversation.

Chappo

JAJI,

There’s plenty of hockey and people that watch hockey more than every 4 years…here’s my thinking…

$29m of government funds, tax sourced funds, that goes into Hockey Australia and there’s 250,000 registered players for hockey nationwide (according to Hockey Australia website). My back of the envelope calculations make that $116 per registered player. But with all those registered players, they are training at school, or their club, maybe once a week on average. Probably playing 7 months of the year on a weekend. They are all watching hockey at training and on weekend games. Their parents, friends and partners are also watching those hockey games. Along with the paid coaches, support staff, administrators, etc who pay taxes out of their pay which cycles back into the system.

Because we all aren’t consuming hockey, the public benefit isn’t seen by all, but there’s probably a lot kids, teenagers, young adults, parents and grandparents watching hockey. There’s also keeping people active, a goal to strive for, social skills, etc, etc.

For me, at $116 per head per year…that’s pretty good value.

Mike & Bill,
In my personal experience, all of the training, preparation and analysis is designed, planned, set up and worked towards competing at you best in one moment every four years. There’s a lot that goes into that, given you try to execute a plan every day for four years straight…but when it comes down to a 6 minute race in our event, or much, much shorter for events like 100m freestyle, there’s a lot of contingencies that can, and clearly do, go wrong. Now that you’ve said that’s unacceptable, where along the line of responsibilities do we hold someone accountable? The athlete, and go to the next in line and expect them to do even better? The individual athlete’s coach, the team physiologist that set up the training plan, the physio’s looking after the injuries, the team manager organising the accomodation, the head coach, the National Sporting Organisation’s Board, the Australia Sports Commission, the Department of Health?
And these people are all in paid job, paid jobs that pay taxes too.
As for it being at the taxpayers expense, I’ll go into more detail below in my response to thesheek and JAJI below, but taxpayer dollars don’t go to the athletes pockets in amateur sports. I saw pretty much two fifths of FA in the last four years, whilst having worked full-time, paying all my taxes for 16 years at Westpac .I didn’t pay any tax on the zero money I received from the government to train before and after work. The goverment funding makes it to very few athletes. It all goes to departments, which provides jobs, which also pay tax. Maybe that’s where the cuts should take place?! But then we want better results…

Yep, Winners are Grinners, but so was 20km race walker Dane Bird-Smith.
(2min mark – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L7ZIn9rS84).

Was he making up the numbers because he was 2nd runner up with a bronze medal?

Everyone who has been able to get to the standard of being an Olympian goes through too much to be making up numbers. I don’t expect every athlete out there is asking for universal respect, but when they’re asked about their performance by the media, which could include a Gold Medal like a few of the examples I referenced in the article, they are highlighting some of the broader perspectives that have got them to that moment….which may be an alternative story the regular medal focussed narrative that comes from the media. Further to that, respect, universal or not, comes from more than a result. It can help you earn it, but it can just as quickly be lost (the part of the article about the dickhead gold medalist).

I don’t think I ever mentioned that it is ok to be making up numbers. Elite sport is not a participation event. Although not everyone can win given all the contingencies at that level, I agree, Olympians should be racing/playing to win.

Agree Wombat…there should always be analysis, review and appraisal of performance to drive growth. And if there isn’t a plan with a realistic chance of success, the decision has to be to, albeit difficult, the decision to change the investment approach.
Also agree Australia were spoiled with success (one of the reasons I put the hours and years into my sport was from being inspired by the racing, attitude and the success of the Oarsome Foursome at the Olympics in the 90’s when I was a teenage boy trying to work things out) but Australia was spoiled with results because we were also spoiled with funding. We could possibly get back to that level like TeamGB has, but there’s got to be a strategy on making the funding sustainable too, not just funding sport with tax dollars.
(https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/15/brutal-but-effective-why-team-gb-is-winning-so-many-olympic-medals)

As the Anna Meares quote eludes, any athlete at the Olympics has had to compete successfully to there. Along the way all Olympians have overcome reasons that could’ve prevented them from being there, whether they be competitions, qualifiers, competitors or off the field.
Likewise, athletes going to the Olympics don’t know how they’re going to compete until they get there. Should they not even turn up? If they are the best from their country, doesn’t that entitle them to compete at the Games, like the best players from a footy club are picked in the team to run out each weekend to play? We don’t see footy teams at the bottom of the ladder deciding to forfeit their games cause they’re not going to win. We should set high standards. All athletes do.
I’m also highlighting in the article the way athletes pressured to win a gold medal, but feel like they have to explain or behave a certain way when they don’t. Cate Campbell’s plea to still be loved was an exposing moment for what many athletes feel when they don’t succeed at their chosen event. My articles is a reminder to her, and other athletes that sport doesn’t define them.
I’m not suggesting in the article there shouldn’t be a critical analysis of the performance of Australia, and a determination to improve. I’m providing some insight to a broader sporting narrative than the binary view of medal/no medal is a pass/fail. All that might do is provide a wider perspective and greater discussion, including how to set up strategies to improve, by understanding the path so far.

Brains, you’re right, there isn’t enough people interested in Rowing, or other Olympic sports…until the Olympics comes around. Then its a cocktail of sporting highlights for the full-time sports fan that has a part-time interest in the Olympic sports, or the part-time sport fan that loves seeing Aussies represent! Olympic sports, such as rowing, have historically been funded solely by the government (read: taxes) and there’s only so much of that to go around. Without the public’s interest in Rowing outside the Olympic period, there’s no media interest outside of the Olympic period and the money only goes to sports the media can sell to the public, so the media can make their money…my head’s already spinning!! NZ Rowing is high profile across the dutch, due to their success, and is well funded. I don’t know if they have more, or less (maybe it depends on the value of the AUD/NZD!!) but there’s more to a successful rowing program than just pumping dollars into it (see comments above to James)…but as an athlete that’s lived on handouts, it would sure make a foodtruckloads worth of difference to your training if there was a few more ways to get by…

James, I don’t know the preparedness of all the girls. But I know most athletes, to get to the level we compete at, are unlikely to allow themselves to slip too far down the sedentary slope. I know a couple were training for a marathon, which would be a huge volume of training on its own. I know a few of them had discussed the possibility of a last minute call up since the qualification race, so I suspect it has been at the back of their minds all along. That’s a tough one, cause in order to manage your hopes and expectations, I know I wouldn’t give those thoughts too much air-time…but then the last minute call up happens!! It must be a dizzying roller coaster of emotions for this group of athletes!!

I don’t agree James. They clearly have very successful programs. Their results prove this. I don’t believe their success comes from technical coaching alone. Both these programs have invested heavily into years of a structure that suits their country’s athlete’s development pathways, high-performing individual athletes and supporting those athletes to have long term approach to their international sporting aspirations. This has the effect off attracting and keeping more athletes competing in the sport for longer, and the result of this is longer periods of improvement and greater competition for the top rankings in the national team. All these areas, combined with high-quality coaching, have created high performing rowing organisations in both NZ and GB. For Australia to catch up, and even overtake, there will need to be a new strategy that is well executed.

Thanks Alex! I’ll be a proud Aussie watching our Women race…and knowing them, they’ll race hard!! Only 7 counties make it to the start line of an Olympic 8’s event…and those girls made sure we are one of them!