Coates’ clear view of our Olympics future

Olympic supremo John Coates opens up cricket’s strength, netball’s gender issue and why an ‘Everest-style’ horse race won’t make the cut for Brisbane 2032.

John Coates in the AOC offices in Sydney: ‘We need to keep the state institutes going’ Picture: Picture: John Feder.

There were a billion reasons why cricket was chosen as one of the new Olympic sports for LA 2028 and almost certainly for Brisbane four years later.

“To get cricket on (the program) means another one billion people watching on top of the 4.5 billion that we attract already,” says Olympics supremo John Coates.

While subcontinent eyeballs, not to mention revenue, meant cricket was an easy fit for the Olympics, sports such as netball and surf lifesaving face a much tougher battle for inclusion.

The Paris Olympics next year will be the first games with “true gender equality” with a split of 50/50 expected. That ambition presents a problem for netball.

While, Netball Australia has been pushing the male version of the game in recent times – men’s Tests were staged as double headers alongside women’s matches including at the Constellation Cup and England Roses series in 2021 – its women’s elite game is far more established.

“Netball is a very popular game in Australia but some of the issues with netball has always been universality – in the number of countries that play it – and the fact that it’s pretty much female only,” he said. “Now baseball overcame that by its marriage with a softball. So that’s an issue but it’ll be an issue for Brisbane and the IOC, when they come to look at that, the pros, it’ll have a lot of them and it has a lot of support in Australia.”

“There are other sports … in the surfing world, particularly for a country like Australia and being on the Gold Coast, that will be knocking on the door.”

At least netball has some credibility, other pitches to Coates have not resonated so much.

The vice-president of the International Olympic Committee was at Eagle Farm in Brisbane recently where the long-time administrator was enjoying the races, when a keen horseracing devotee had a “serious” idea.

“There was even a suggestion to me the other day at Eagle Farm that we have a sort of an Everest type race where countries can send their best horse and jockey and they charge down the straight and whatever,” Coates said. “Elitist, gambling … it ain’t going to happen.”

Others have tossed up a return for polo, but the IOC is moving away from equestrian sports as evidenced by the removal of the showjumping component of the modern pentathlon for Paris

And with the way the economic winds are blowing, other sports will face the cut heading into the Brisbane Olympics.

With the addition of cricket, flag football, squash, softball and baseball there will be 11,242 competing in Los Angeles. But by the Brisbane Games in 2032 the athlete numbers have to be cut for budget reasons.

“We’ve now got a situation that we’re going from 10,500 athletes in Paris to 11,242 in Los Angeles and so that’s the problem for the future of the Olympic Games because we have to continue to look at cost minimisation and efficiencies in running the games,” said Coates, who is a key figure in the planning and execution of the Brisbane 2032 Games.

“But it’s pretty clear to me with Brisbane, it’s clear to our organising committee and certainly me, that we need to reduce the numbers and get back to a manageable number of 10,500.”

While the Los Angeles Games are funded entirely by America’s private sector, it’s not the same for Brisbane. While Coates is currently dealing with the federal government jeopardising infrastructure promises for the Brisbane 2032 Games, the IOC will look to cut back the size of the team for that Olympics too.

It means it will be even harder for sports who hope to make their Olympic debut.

Whatever the sports on the program for Brisbane, how the host country performs is crucial.

It’s a philosophy handed down to Coates, who was the Australian Olympic president for 31 years, by former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch.

In 1993, Coates was the vice-president of the Sydney Olympic bid when Samaranch gave him advice he still sticks to today.

“When we won the Games for Sydney, President Samaranch impressed on me and every organising committee I’ve been involved with since, has heard me say that the Games will be judged by the Australian public, not by the number of tourists who come, not by whether you have a surplus or a deficit – small deficit, I hasten – but by the performance of the home team,” Coates said.

“We’ve seen the importance of them in terms of public sentiment with the performance of the Matildas in recent times and the performance of the Wallabies.”

Coates says Olympic statistics show that “what you get four years before in results is pretty much what you get at the Games”.

“We improved leading into Sydney, China improved leading into Beijing, the Brits improved amazingly, leading in London.”

“In Sydney we medalled in 20 sports to achieve 16 gold and 58 overall medals. Last year, the AOC did benchmarking and based on what our medal events and based on the most likely equivalence so world championships, world rankings ... and we got 16 gold medals and 52 medals. But we were down to doing it in 14 sports …”

Coates said a key is for Australia to improve in other sports that have multiple events in which to mine medals.

There are good signs from the Australian cycling team that improved from three medals to five at the world championship last year, and athletics which is stronger than ever.

In August, the Australian athletics team delivered its best overall medal haul at a world championship.

Nina Kennedy led the charge with her gold in the pole vault, race walker Jemima Montag claimed silver, javelin thrower Mackenzie Little and pole vaulter Kurtis Marschall both won bronze. Australia’s high jump pair Eleanor Patterson and Nicola Olyslagers won silver and bronze on the last night of competition.

“Athletics is really doing very well for us,” Coates said.

“In what I think everyone would acknowledge is the most competitive sport of all in terms of universality. And the Africans do well. And it’s got a great spread of medals and there are some really pleasing signs in athletics.”

Earlier this year AOC chief executive Matt Carroll told the National Press Club that Australia’s smaller, traditional sports were heading towards a financial cliff because of a $2bn reduction in federal government funding.

“Brisbane 2032 can’t be seen as the end game, rather a moment in time as we build sustained success throughout all of Australian sport,” Carroll said at the time.

In March, Carroll offered a range of solutions – including calls to restore the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to its past glories when it was the envy of the world because of its pioneering research in sports science, medicine, technology and data.

Coates agrees with Carroll and said the AIS and its state-based and funded academies remain crucial to Olympic success.

“We need to keep the state institutes going because they are funded by their governments and the governments love the competition as to who is producing more Olympians. The Queensland Academy of Sport’s funding is something like $6m a year and the New South Wales Institute is around $3m-$4m,” he said.

“The other thing that I think needs further support in the Australian sports system is the ­regional academies.”

Coates pointed to the Matildas’ talent being derived from country areas as an example of how powerful Australia’s regional areas can be. But, as he says, there needs to be more help.

“I was in Townsville recently and they were expressing to me concern that, look, we do have a regional academy here that will, as soon as we produce some athletes, they can move to Brisbane,” he said. “And often kids are going offshore in a team sport, a good thing. But for individual sports, we have to make sure these regional academies of sport are properly financed so kids can stay home.”