Slidin' Clyde, the
Bobsleigh Brumby. If Clyde Rathbone ever takes up his invitation to trial for the Aussie bobsleigh team, headline writers will be in a snowy heaven.
A Wallaby reinventing himself as a Winter Olympian captures the imagination and, let's be honest, it has plenty of comic value.
But so too would a gymnast taking up shooting, a beach sprinter conquering face-first tobogganing or a sailor taking up aerial skiing if they weren't already successful precedents.
With counties such as China and Russia able to tap incredibly deep talent pools, Australia is being forced to think more creatively about where to find its next champions.
The Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Institute of Sport are devoting increased resources to talent transfer programs, which attempt to channel athletes from one sporting career to another.
It is a recognition that while an athlete might reach the expiry date in one sport, a long career may await in another.
Of the AIS's overall talent identification resources, about 30 per cent is now channelled towards these transfer programs, while the rest support traditional systems.
The new focus comes at a time when Australia's spot on the top perch of world sport is looking shaky.
After finishing fourth on the Olympic medal tally in 2000 and 2004, this year Australia just held on to sixth.
Given the concerns about the future health of Australian sport, the terminology used in the field of talent transfer is highly appropriate.
On one side of the equation are ''donor'' sports. On the other are ''recipients''.
Sports which draw in large numbers of young athletes and which have an early peak age make up the donor list. Niche sports or those in which athletes can perform at an elite level in their their late 20s and 30s are candidates to be recipients.
Typically compatible donor and recipient sports have key skills or physical requirements in common.
Rowers are well placed to transfer to cycling, in which leg power and aerobic capacity are just as important. Surf lifesavers have adapted to swimming or kayaking.
The early-blooming sport of gymnastics has produced successful divers and aerial skiiers, who require similar flexibility and daring.
Winter Olympics gold medallist in 2002 Alisa Camplin was a keen sailer and gymnast before she took up aerial skiing.
Former AIS gymnast and 2000 Olympian Alex Croak took up diving after she abandoned the balance beam. She made her second Olympics this year.
Croak said yesterday, ''I retired from gymnastics because I'd achieved everything I wanted to, I was pretty injured and I just felt it was time to finish.
''I took 18 months off but I got a bit bored of doing nothing, so I decided to take up diving. I guess I didn't feel done.''
There seems also to be scope for gymnasts to move into less obvious sports. Former Australian champion Allana Slater took up shooting after she retired in another bid for Olympic competition.
Given the discipline required to be a gymnast and the fact their careers can be over by 20, AIS talent identification manager Jason Gulbin said the sport would continue to be a prime donor.
''Allana doesn't know if she'll get to an Olympic Games in shooting, but she's not going to die wondering. She's going to give it a try,'' Gulbin said.
''And that's great because if we think about the investment we make in athletes over a 10-year period, I'm talking government funding, if we can shift the athletes sideways, we can make better use of that investment.''
Slater and Croak, both 24, are still young women, and while they are embarking on their second careers they still fit into a conventional age band for peak performers.
Reinventing much older athletes runs contrary to traditional ideas of talent identification, which is targeted at athletes in their teens or younger.
Sport has long worshipped the potential of youth and in many cases older athletes who sit at the top of their sport are viewed with suspicion. Witness 41-year-old United States swimmer Dara Torres, whose fifth Olympic selection was accompanied by a round of questions about doping.
However there are sports that will happily welcome an elite athlete after the sun has set on a first career.
The invitation to Rathbone to trial for the bobsleigh team came in the full knowledge he might be 30 or more before he quits rugby. Even then his superior leg drive and speed could make him an ideal recruit.
Gulbin said, ''It's not like you're running 100m where your niggles and injuries are forever haunting you. In bobsled you can limit your extended intensity so it actually suits people who have the initial power but can't hold their top-end speed, which can happen with ageing.''
Bridie O'Donnell made the switch from rowing to cycling aged 33. Unlike Rathbone or Croak, she hadn't made it to the peak of her sport, but always felt she belonged among the elite in some discipline.
A hard trainer but ultimately one not blessed with the ideal physiology for rowing, in 2006 O'Donnell heard cycling was looking to expand its talent net and jumped at an opportunity to trial.
Incredibly this year the qualified medical doctor became the national time-trial champion, beating career cyclists and Olympians Sara Carrigan, Oenone Wood and Kathy Watt. She missed out on Beijing, but has London 2012 in her sights. There she would be 38.
''When I took up cycling it was like finding true love,'' O'Donnell said.
''It felt easier and I never lacked the motivation to train hard. Being older I think you appreciate it more, whereas when you're 20 you feel like you have forever.''
O'Donnell's message to other older athletes is to look at the positive sides of ageing, or maturing as it is probably better called.
''We're changing the way people think about their own capabilities. I've just raced the road world championships and [Frenchwoman] Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli is still racing aged 50.
''I think we sometimes have too much excitement about the potential of youth in sport. We shouldn't shut the door on people in their 20s or 30s.''
While many athletes will continue to shift between sports of their own accord, Gulbin's hope is that in the future Australia unearths transfer champions in a more a systematic way.
He said donor and recipient sports could develop stronger links to encourage and assist the transfer of interested athletes at the end of their first careers.
The Australian Sports Commission's website now hosts an electronic talent identification tool, ETID, which invites any aspiring athlete to submit various test results to assess their athletic potential.
Elite athletes, or ''high rollers'' as Gulbin calls them, can apply for a one-on-one assessment. Their inquiries are kept confidential, a protection for high profile athletes who might still be on contract while they are exploring their options.
The athletes who transform from one thing to another will always be a small minority in Australian sport. Junior development, traditional club structures and academies for young elite are still our best hopes of producing top Olympic teams.
But with more nations investing heavily in sport and with countries such as China, Russia and the US drawing from massive talent pools, keeping top athletes ticking over for longer is a smart counter move.
''We need to put all options on the table,'' Gulbin said. ''Some of them are a bit innovative and creative. No one knows what the return rate on them will be like, but if we put our hands in our pockets, then it's absolutely certain we won't progress.
''We really are at that crossroads in Australian sport where we have to roll up our sleeves, be creative and try to strengthen and shore up what we have in place and look at a range of options that will give us an international advantage.
''If we avoid this it's at our own peril.''