Cycling Australia still fighting $2m black hole debt

NEW Cycling Australia chief executive Nick Green says the worst budget pain is over after telling every department — including high performance — to make cuts.

Australian Road Cycling Championships at Buninyong near Ballarat. Men's race. Simon Clark (middle) decends down Gear RoadAustralian Road Cycling Championships at Buninyong near Ballarat. Men's race.

NEW Cycling Australia chief executive Nick Green says the worst budget pain is over after telling every department — including high performance — to make cuts so the organisation can fight its way out of a $2 million black hole.

Having secured a bailout loan from the Australian Sports Commission and its state affiliates last year providing it commit to financial and structural reform, Green says CA enters this week’s national road championships in Ballarat with a solid foundation which includes a new commercial TV deal.

But it has come at a cost with staff cuts across the board and its high performance program — which has continually met ASC performance criteria — forced to take a hit.

In April CA departments were told to reset budgets for the new financial year and high performance, which is responsible for delivering medals at world championships and major Games, had to slash $500,000 from its bottom line.

The result is:

CANCELLING a planned six-week trip to Europe for the national sprint team under coach Gary West for racing and altitude training in June.

NOT renewing some staff contracts with the road and BMX programs, in line with wider staff cuts at CA.

PUTTING its annual women’s road development tour of Europe on hold which has drawn public criticism from professional riders Tiffany Cromwell and Chloe Hosking.

REDUCING total state institute funding by about $150,000.

High performance manager Kevin Tabotta said tough decisions had to be made but he has warned that future results would be compromised if the HP unit was not smart about “re-resourcing the system”.

He told his team to make a list of “must haves” and “nice to haves” for this year so all disciplines could share the burden of financial cuts.

“We were basically told ‘reset your budgets, this is what’s happening, this is the financial hit you’ll take for now and we’ll work with you in re-establishing the strength around the program,” Tabotta said.

“We’ve taken a little hit but we’re still on our feet.

“This is not of any fault of our high performance program, we were in a very strong position and very highly regarded at the AIS level.

“But we’ve looked across the whole gamut of our programs from para-cycling to our juniors, road, track, BMX and gone to every coach and asked every program to wear some of the burden and implement measures to ensure we can all fight on for another day.

“Our coaches have all been briefed and are acutely aware that they have to work on reduced budgets.

“Internally there is a really strong commitment and understanding that this is not something that was our making but we are part of the solution.”

The cancellation of the women’s road development program — which CA hopes to reinstate as early as next year — comes as budget cuts make it unsustainable to continue while bankrolling the Orica-AIS women’s team in a shared funding agreement with GreenEDGE for the past three years.

Coach Kevin Tabotta talks to a cyclist.

Tabotta said initially CA decided to “super-size” the women’s program by funding both but it was no longer possible given the current changes.

“It used to be six girls, six months overseas, now it’s seven to nine girls in a program that has been professionalised and now we can provide full funding support to these athletes,” he said.

Asked where the pathway for emerging female cyclists who needed development would come from in the short-term, Tabotta pointed to a greater relationship with international teams, its state institutes and a stronger National Road Series calendar and teams.

Green, who took over as CEO of the financially-stricken organisation in October, said CA’s high performance program had delivered its best ever results across all disciplines last season, in line with the ‘winning edge’ criteria it is required to meet.

But he said it did not make it exempt from budget cuts and taxpayers should demand their money is being invested wisely in terms of delivering results.

“We have over the last 18 months needed to make some operational and administrative cuts and investment in a number of different areas — also in our high performance, that includes some training camps overseas, development funding, and cuts in operational programs across all disciplines,” Green said.

“We make decisions around where we invest our money, how we do it and what depth do we continue to invest our money.

“The organisation — and it’s been publicly stated — had been through some challenging times but pleasingly we’re out of that in some degree.

“I think we’re at the bottom of it and I see it on a daily basis the opportunities for this sport, both domestically and internationally, are just enormous.”

Green hopes cuts to high performance will be reconsidered when CA has re-established itself commercially and pointed to a new TV broadcast deal with Channel Nine and Foxtel announced yesterday as a step in the right direction.

He also said two new international women’s races on the Australian cycling calendar at the Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race this summer was proof of the sport’s growth.

“Those two events are internationally sanctioned and UCI-approved events so that is a real development,” he said.

“You tap that on top of the enormous corporate support that is out there for cycling and the absolute abundance of recreational riders who ride on a daily basis.

“I was driving on the Great Ocean Road over the Christmas holidays and there were more bikes than there were cars.

“There are eyeballs watching this sport, there are more people than ever before riding bikes and people are engaging with the sport.”

Originally published as Cycling Australia still fighting $2m black hole debt