That smell in the ACT Academy of Sport gym in Lyneham isn't just sweaty teenagers hard at training. It's the smell of an oily rag.
For 20 years ACTAS has been filling a crucial role in Canberra's production line of sporting talent.
And it's done it on the cheap.
Aside from a few heady years leading into the Sydney Olympics, when the quest for gold on home soil bolstered the coffers of sporting bodies Australia-wide, ACTAS has had to do a lot with a little.
Its funding from the ACT Government for 2008-09 was $1,834,000. Its budget about the time of the Sydney Games was about $2million and it goes without saying that costs have gone up more than a touch in those years.
Tonight ACTAS celebrates its 20th birthday with a dinner at the Hellenic Club in Phillip.
And while there's bound to be talk around the tables about what the academy could do with more money, you can bet more of the talk will be about what they have already done.
For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times