Australians should lower their expectations for Olympic gold medals, according to a new report which urges the Government to shift funding away from the Games towards more popular sports.
The long-awaited Crawford review of sports sparked outrage yesterday from Olympic sports bodies, which said they had been targeted and could not compete with big sports like cricket and the football codes for sponsorship.
The report, by the Independent Sports Panel, recommends splitting the Australian Sports Commission from the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, which would merge with other state organisations to form the Australian Institutes of
Sport. It also calls for a renewed emphasis on sport in schools.
Its author, businessman David Crawford – who is on the BHP Billiton and Lend Lease boards – said it was unrealistic to expect Australia to keep competing with larger nations, some of which were dramatically increasing elite sporting funding. Aiming to be in the world’s top five in the Olympics medal count was not a ‘‘sensible target’’.
‘‘We should aspire to and be proud of, say, ‘top eight’ results for some chosen sports at the Olympics and have higher aspirations in others,’’ the report said. ‘‘The bias towards funding Olympic sports leads to outcomes that make little strategic sense for Australia.’’
Australia came fourth in the medal tally at the Sydney Games and sixth in Beijing, and Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates wants $110 million a year in extra funding to keep Australia in the top five.
He said the report was disrespectful and an ‘‘insult to some of our great Olympic champions’’.
‘‘It seems un-Australian to me to settle for something second best.’’
Former AIS director and champion marathon runner Rob de Castella said lowering Australia’s aspirations for elite sport was a cop out.
‘‘We have a capacity here in Australia to punch way above our weight . . . I think it’s something Australia should be incredibly proud of and not wimp out by saying that because someone’s got a bigger GDP or national population than we do
that we can’t match it with the big guys,’’ he said.
The report saidmeasuring success by medals was dubious, because it biased funding towards individual events rather than team sports, and while there was a strong case for more federal funding of sport, it ‘‘may be better spent on lifetime participants than almost all on a small group of elite athletes who will perform at that level for just a few years’’.
Mr Crawford, who proposes a $250 million annual fund for sports infrastructure, said the Government needed to develop a sports policy before it decided how to distribute funds. ‘‘We have no agreed definition of success,’’ the report said.
The new policy should consider elite performance in non-Olympic sports and Australians’ general health and fitness and participation levels.
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