Australia’s standing in sport ‘in peril’
Australia’s Commonwealth Games chief executive Craig Phillips says the country’s standing on the world stage is in peril.
Australia’s Commonwealth Games chief executive Craig Phillips says the country’s standing on the world stage is in peril.
Phillips said potential funding cuts could jeopardise his team’s performance at the next Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 and beyond.
“Other countries used to look at us and say, ‘how do they do that?’” Phillips said. “‘How does Australia produce those results?’ But we have lost our edge there.
“And now we risk not even getting to the status quo.”
Sport Australia chair John Wylie reached out to Phillips this week as the funding crisis in Australian sport reached boiling point. Wylie has invited Phillips to raise his concerns in an effort to remedy the dire situation.
Commonwealth Games and Olympic sports are facing huge funding cuts — some more than 60 per cent — and athletes are suffering mediocre preparations for Tokyo and Birmingham 2022 because of poor financial support.
Phillips has met with many of his sports’ chiefs, some who have expressed frustration around funding being slashed by the Australian Institute of Sport.
“Kids who are aspiring to go to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and then on to the Paris Olympics are facing having their dreams interrupted or dashed — by not having adequately funded programs to support them,” Phillips said. “What we are finding in our conversations with the AIS and sports, is one of the concerns we have is that our sports’ funding will be determined on what they are likely to do at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
“We know that for some of them, they are unlikely to win many medals in Paris, but they are likely to be significant contributors in the medal tally at the Commonwealth Games.
“We have expressed our concern about this to the AIS. The conversations are ongoing. The worry we have is we won’t get that No 1 ranking on the medal tally in Birmingham because of the current funding situation.”
Phillips acknowledged the AIS was “challenged by the funding envelope” they had been given by the government. But he also believes there needs to be a longer term focus and less emphasis on gold medals in Tokyo for a stronger future for Australian sport.
“I think they are making more short-term decisions than doing long-term planning because of the funding envelope they’ve got,” Phillips said. “I think those short-term decisions will be detrimental to sport down the track.”
Phillips pointed out that for some of Australia’s most brilliant athletes the Commonwealth Games was their “first Games” — with stars such as cyclist Anna Meares and Jodie Henry breaking through. He also pointed to champion pole vaulter Steve Hooker winning gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games then winning Olympic gold two years later.
“Our history is littered with athletes who have launched their careers at the Commonwealth Games,” he said. “Over the longer term I know the AIS’s ambition is to put more sports in positions of winning Olympic medals. You’ve got to find a way of supporting aspiring Olympians, through the Commonwealth Games — develop them to become Olympic medallist.”
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