Leading Olympic sports get funding guarantee until mid-2018

The leading Olympic sports have had their current government funding levels guaranteed until mid-2018.

AIS boss Matt Favier: ‘If the government cuts, there will be some difficult decisions.’

The leading Olympic sports have had their current government funding levels guaranteed until mid-2018, three months after they were warned that they could face cuts of up to 20 per cent in the next financial year.

Australian Institute of Sport director Matt Favier confirmed last night that the “foundation sports’’, those that have won medals at two of the past three Olympic or Paralympic Games, would stay at their 2015-16 funding level.

Those sports include swimming, sailing, cycling, athletics, rowing, shooting, canoeing, hockey, basketball, the winter sports and some Paralympic sports.

“In December we were only prepared to confirm 80 per cent of that level, but since then our board has agreed that the foundation sports need certainty so they can plan for 2017-18,’’ Favier said.

However, there is a sting in the tail.

Favier said the federal government had not yet confirmed if the Australian Sports Commission would take a cut in the May budget.

Any cut then would result in deeper cuts for the minor sports that have not yet had their funding confirmed.

“If the government cuts, there will be some difficult decisions,’’ Favier said.

The federal budget is on May 9, three days after the Australian Olympic Committee election, where Olympic gold medallist Danni Roche is challenging incumbent John Coates for the presidency, and funding uncertainty may well feed in to that result.

Coming off a record season of success, winter sport appears to be the big winner of the latest funding decisions.

Olympic Winter Institute chief Geoff Lipshut received notification yesterday that the current funding level for winter sport would be guaranteed until after next year’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics and that it would receive an boost of $720,000 to prepare the athletes for the Games.

Late last year, Lipshut expressed his concern that Australia’s promising Winter Olympic campaign would be compromised as the AIS looked at funding cuts in line with the federal government’s demand for efficiency dividends from all agencies.

However, winter sport has now been included with swimming and sailing in the AIS’s highest category, those sports that have a “high probability’’ of achieving gold medals based on the evidence of their recent performances.

Lipshut was relieved to have certainty for the last year of the Winter Olympic campaign.

Australia’s winter athletes have excelled in the current Australian season, winning a record 39 world championship and World Cup medals, up from the previous best of 25 in 2011.

Lipshut noted that the winter sports had achieved those medals for a bargain basement price compared with the summer sports.

The Olympic Winter Institute and Ski and Snowboard Australia received a combined total of $3.3 million last year, less than most of the medal-winning summer sports.

“Swimming gets $10 million and sailing gets $9 million and we would love to get that level of funding,’’ Lipshut said.

However he said $720,000 could make a material difference to Australia’s medal tally next year. He said it would enable the institute to provide better medical and coaching support to the leading medal contenders, particularly reigning world champions Scotty James (snowboard half-pipe) and Britt Cox (moguls).

“We want to do a lot more for Scotty,’’ Lipshut said.

“He was outstanding at the world championships. He’s the only one I have ever seen who is in (dual Olympic champion) Shaun White’s class and he’s one of ours.’’

Lipshut said he hoped to have physiotherapists travelling fulltime with the leading medal contenders to both training camps and competition next season to ensure they arrived in PyeongChang in good order.