Australian athletes given $115 million funding boost through to 2022
A row between sporting bodies over how to carve up taxpaper funding during the global pandemic has ended with a promise of $115 million for Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games sports. See who gets the cash.
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Anxious Aussie athletes have been guaranteed over $100 million in extra funding to prepare for major international events over the next two years, ending a spat between officials over how to carve up public money or cash-strapped sports during the global pandemic.
Under the new agreement, the Australian Institute of Sport will provide more than $115 million to Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games sports for the 2021-22 financial year.
Most sports will receive close to their existing levels, with swimming once again the biggest beneficiary at almost $12 million, but the biggest increase is for Paralympic sports, which will get a $3 million raise, up 40 per cent since 2012.
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“These are merit-based investments reflecting the achievements of our Paralympic athletes,” Australian Sports Commission chair John Wylie said.
“But they are also further recognition of how they inspire our nation.”
The $115 million boost comes on top of the funds already committed to the end of the 2020-21 financial year, but is being handed over early after the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games so sports can start planning for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics and the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Longer-term funding for the lead up to the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics will be revealed at the end of 2021.
“We’re in a unique situation where this current Games cycle has extended to five years, so we will only have three years between Tokyo and Paris,” AIS chief executive Peter Conde said.
“In the meantime, by giving sports high-performance funding certainty through to June 2022, we are giving sports and athletes the best possible chance to succeed on the world stage at major upcoming international events.”
The new funding announcement has been welcomed by Australia’s three peak sporting bodies, who last month called on the Federal Government to intervene in a row with the AIS over how to carve up the funds.
As exclusively revealed by News Corp, Australia’s Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games committees had accused the AIS of breaking their promise on an agreement that helped secure an extra $50 million of taxpayer’s money, but all have backed the new funding plan.
“We believe this is a significant moment in the evolution of Paralympic sport in Australia,” Paralympics Australia President Jock O’Callaghan said.
“We are proud and thankful that the Federal Government recognises the value and impact of growing investment into Paralympic sport and has entrusted us with greater responsibility to lead and grow our movement even further.”
Commonwealth Games Australia President Ben Houston also praised the announcement.
“Our sports now have certainty through to Birmingham and can confidently prepare their athletes for the Games in 2022,” he said.
“Para-sport is fully integrated at the Commonwealth Games, and Birmingham will see the biggest program in Games history, so the funding boost will help our para-sport athletes immensely.”
Federal Sports Minister Richard Colbeck, who had earlier said that the Government would not interfere in how the funding was distributed, commended the sporting bodies for reaching an agreement.
“The funding decisions of the Australian Sports Commission strike a balance in providing
certainty and flexibility as athletes look ahead to the Paris 2024 Olympics,” Minister Colbeck
said.
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KURT FEARNLEY’S INSPIRING MESSAGE TO AUSTRALIA’S PARALYMPIANS
Sport tells the world a lot about our country and, for me, there is no greater representation of what it means to be Australian than our strong and enduring national support for Paralympic athletes.
Thursday marks 20 years since the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Paralympics, an event that fundamentally changed Paralympic sport around the world.
It was my first of five Paralympic Games as a competitor. Australia topped the medal table, it brought millions of Australians into the Paralympic sport family and it created a successful legacy.
It prompted the rest of the world to accelerate support to their own Paralympic communities and, in truth, over two decades many countries have caught up.
So Wednesday’s announcement from the Australian Institute of Sport of a $3 million increase across 13 Paralympic programs next year is huge. It’s part of a 40 per cent increase in AIS Paralympic funding over the past eight years and it helps protect a legacy that all Australian Paralympians have battled so hard to build.
I have been lucky to experience first-hand the rising profile of Paralympic sport.
My home town community of Carcoar, population just 200, raised $10,000 for my first racing wheelchair to propel my sporting career. By the end of my international career, here I was, this guy in a wheelchair asked to represent Australia’s sporting community by carrying the flag into the closing ceremony for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. It blew me away.
I want other Paralympians and other Australians with disabilities to feel that support and pride in the future. We need to make sure Paralympic athletes continue to be developed through multiple sports so people in wheelchairs, those with cerebral palsy, with vision impairments, amputees and intellectual disabilities are given the opportunities to participate in sport and then the pathways to succeed.
That’s why this funding announcement is great news in what has been the toughest of years for so many. It gives us the opportunity to remain one of the strongest Parasport communities in the world, to show people with disabilities can excel across all fields, including sport.
To be a successful Paralympic athlete today you need to commit your heart, soul and life to sport. The postponement of this year’s Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games would have devastated many athletes working towards that goal.
But my message to you is this: we are a community built on hardship. The Paralympic family is one that has had to crawl their way out of the backfields of rehabilitation hospitals to become one of the biggest sporting events in the world. You have built this success despite person after person saying you can’t. It has been done through pure strength and grit.
So control what you can and just be ready to show the country how resilient and brilliant you are when the opportunity presents itself. Be ready to tell the story of what it means to be Australian.