The Australian Olympic Committee says a revamped AIS is a crucial cog to hopes of climbing back up the medal tally despite the Canberra facility being labelled a ghost town two years ago.
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Sport Australia is still working with the Federal government on plans to redevelop the AIS site, which will likely involve downsizing the 64 hectare land footprint and selling major assets, including Canberra Stadium.
AOC boss Matt Carroll said years of deliberate funding neglect" coincided with Australia's slide down the medal rankings at the Olympics and the committee's relationship with the AIS has been reinvigorated.
Federal Minister for Sport Bridget McKenzie announced a $50 million boost on Wednesday for the AIS and Australian sport in the lead up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games - the next step is to appease athletes fed up with "pathetic funding".
The AIS will invest in new programs designed to strengthen Australia's performance at the Olympics as the campus shifts its focus to cutting edge sports technology and athlete wellbeing.
The ACT government is still waiting to find out of Sport Australia will sell Canberra Stadium, the AIS Arena or the AIS pool as part of a business case for a new-look campus.
The assets are owned by the Federal government, but selling the land and existing on a smaller site would be one way for Sport Australia and the government to raise extra revenue to fund sports.
The AIS has been criticised in recent years for a lack of sports using it as a full-time facility, but Carroll believes a revamped institute is vital to Australia hopes of re-emerging as an Olympic powerhouse.
"We’re a firm believer in the AIS being there," Carroll said at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
"We think having that institute of sport committed to sports science, sports medicine, sports technology, is critical to long-term success for Australian athletes. We’re a great believer.
"Whether it needs to be the same model as today, that’s a different discussion.
"The importance of sports science, sports medicine and technology in contributing to winning performances is clear.
"Australia once led this field when the AIS was a first in international sport. Now through deliberate funding neglect, the AIS is no longer preeminent. Is that where Australia wants to be? Second, third, way back in the field?
"This once great sporting nation – so proud of its diversity, punching above its weight, will be confined to a few sports played by only a few and the rest will be faded pictures of past heroes."
"Way back in the field" is where many past and present Australian athletes fear the green and gold will end up in the midst of a slide down the Olympic medal tally since the Sydney Games in 2000.
Gold medallist Kim Brennan has joined a chorus of Australia's greatest athletes in pleading for the federal government to dip into its treasure chest and halt high-performance sport's "pathetic funding version of the Hunger Games".
Forty-two current and former Australian athletes including rugby great Phil Kearns and Tour de France winner Cadel Evans signed an open letter warning "high performance will inevitably transform into mediocrity" if sports are starved of funds.
Government funding of high-performance sport has declined by 12 per cent in real terms since 2010 during a time in which Australia's results on the world stage have stuttered.
"When our glorious record of achievement at the Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games is substituted for a pathetic funding version of the Hunger Games, you know it’s time to say enough," the letter, published in The Australian, said.
"Our reputation as a sporting nation and as a nation of healthy, optimistic people is under threat," it continued.
" ... as our results slip so does Australia's reputation, especially as we now are bronze medallist as the most obese nation in the English-speaking world. It is a gold medal we don't want to win."
Australia has fallen outside the top 10 in the world in high performance funding, having been fourth in 2004, with the likes of Great Britain, Germany and Japan surging past the green and gold.
