Gina Rinehart says athletes should be better prepared for retirement

GINA Rinehart believes professional athletes should be better prepared for life after sport. And Australia’s wealthiest woman — worth $US17.4 billion — says athletes need to think about the future now.

GINA Rinehart believes professional athletes should be better prepared for life after sport.

And Australia’s wealthiest woman — worth $US17.4 billion — says athletes need to think about the future now.

“They go from being a rooster to a bit of a feather duster, like politicians do when they lose office,” Rinehart told News Corp as she attended an event at the Longines Records Club at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast.

“I think to get them to think about that beforehand so it doesn’t come as a shock is quite good and if they can have something to fill their lives afterwards is good too. Warn them that they will have these changes is quite good.”

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Rinehart, 64, is on the Gold Coast as a major sponsor of several national sporting teams during the Commonwealth Games and today attended the Longines Records Club ahead of the opening ceremony tonight.

Her company Hancock Prospecting stepped in to sponsor Swimming Australia after the London Olympics, when Energy Australia pulled out of its sponsorship deal.

She also supports our national teams across rowing, volleyball and synchronised swimming.

Gina Rinehart is on the Gold Coast for the Commonwealth Games. Picture: Nigel Hallett

“I don’t do contact sports or dangerous sports,” she said, adding that swimming was a way of keeping kids off the streets. “You go outside into the streets and you see different kids entirely — drunk, the eye make-up running, skirts up to goodness knows where, they don’t have a dedication to do something and the kids at swimming are so different.”

Rinehart will be in the stands when Australia’s swim team hits the pool on Thursday night and has also been invited to speak to the team at the Athlete’s Village.

She is also not afraid to tell team officials what they are doing wrong.

“What I noticed when I was over in Budapest (at the World Swimming Championships) was that looking at it, our dives were not as fast as other countries,” she explained.

“It is harder to get more out of a swimmer in the swimming part but it is easier to correct those dives. Now we should have been winning more medals. It was our dives that were letting us down.”

She continued: “I don’t want to actually put my blame anywhere. I think it should have actually been picked up before Budapest. I picked it up and I’ve said it now so I am hoping that they are working on the dives. If they have done as I’d asked, I think that is favourable for these Commonwealth Games.”

Rinehart said her advice came from “common sense”.

“I’ve never been an Olympian,” she said. “Here it is, they are behind on their dives and it puts them back their whole swim. It is not brilliance. It is just common sense.”

RINEHART A FAN OF TRUMPONOMICS

A YEAR into his presidency, Australia’s wealthiest woman Gina Rinehart has backed Donald Trump’s economic policies.

“If you’ve ever read my speeches, articles, books, I’ve actually been saying the same things economically as he is now doing,” Rinehart said. “Cut taxes. Cut tape. Why do I want to cut taxes and cute tape? I believe that is good for investment.”

“Australian investment right now is miserable, worse than it was under anti-business Whitlam government by percentage.”

Asked if she thought Donald Trump is “a good bloke”, Rinehart said she couldn’t comment from experience.

“Speaking to people who have known him for years, yes,” she said. “What I like and the thing that is important is that this is a leader of the most important economy in the world right now. It is a democratic country … it is voted. It is cutting tape and taxes, it is getting investment rolling in, it is improving unemployment — the lowest unemployment records for 50 years — it is improving employment for women, people who are less educated, Hispanics and Negros … so the disadvantaged, some of those have better employment levels than they’ve ever had or for 50 years. So the economic policies help people. You will always get media saying he had a girlfriend here or there. Well, that was before he was in office.”

Pushed on the President Trump’s treatment of women, she said: “He had his girlfriends before he was President, it is none of my business.”

Originally published as Gina Rinehart says athletes should be better prepared for retirement