Medals or else puts sports on the brink

There is pressure on athletes to perform at the Olympics as budget papers confirms there will be cuts after the Games.

Finish on the podium or perish; that’s the Australian Institute of Sport’s message to some Tokyo Olympic athletes.

Olympic sports are feeling intense pressure after the Australian Institute Sport released a budget paper for 2020-21 which guarantees just six months of funding to sports has been locked in — in most cases only 40 per cent of what they were awarded in 2019-20.

One sports official said the AIS message to Olympic sports is if they “don’t deliver in Tokyo they can expect to have severe budgetary consequences”.

However, the AIS said that for the majority of sports, performances in Tokyo won’t factor heavily on future funding.

“For the vast majority of sports, Tokyo performance will not have a major impact because we are investing in a sustainable system to support their athletes and there is a longer time horizon in play,” an AIS spokesperson said.

As revealed by The Australian last week many sports had already been informed by AIS boss Peter Conde that they were facing cuts and budget papers just released for 2020-21 year confirm it.

Top Olympic sports like cycling, swimming, athletics, hockey have only been guaranteed around 40 per cent of their budget and AIS bosses have told table tennis they will not only have “zero” funding for the next financial year but until the end of 2024.

Some say the AIS funding model now makes it “impossible” for many sports like gymnastics to run their high-performance program — to simply employ coaches, on the forecast budget — on a baseline figure of $895,013.

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The current funding philosophy, which goes on medals won or forecast, fails to acknowledge that some of Australia’s best known Olympic gold medallists, diver Matthew Mitcham, hurdler Sally Pearson and aerial skier Lydia Lassila spent their formative years in gymnastics.

There are fears the drop in investment in high-performance sport will affect Australia’s chances heading into possibly another home Olympics in 2032. Brisbane are currently the frontrunners to hold the Games in 2032 but critics of the AIS funding model say a whole generation of children will be without aspirational Olympic heroes and adequate funding across many sports.

Swimming, which goes into this year’s Olympics as the most well-funded Australian sport with a high-performance budget of $10,582,352, now has a baseline funding of $4,716,176 for the first six months of next financial year. This amount could be rapidly boosted depending on the swimming’s Tokyo Olympic results. There are big hopes for outstanding freestyle talents like Ariarne Titmus and Kyle Chalmers and in the team’s relays.

But the AIS latest funding move has angered many sports.

“It is beyond belief that the AIS would provide this sort of funding uncertainty so close to the Olympic Games,” said one high ranking official. “To be only be securing 40 to 50 per cent of a sport’s funding creates anxiety for athletes, coaches and officials. At the same time ensures that a sporting organisation is not able to adequately budget or prepare for the coming year.”

“This will have a direct impact upon funding decisions that are being taken by a sport today. Despite the AIS protestations on the funding a national sporting organisation can commit to this year’s Olympic preparation.”

“It’s clear from the figures that what matters to the AIS is medals. Sports are on notice. If they don’t deliver in Tokyo then they can expect to have severe budgetary consequences.”

A cycling source told The Australian that 70 per cent of their funding is confirmed but the other 30 per cent is contestable after the games. Another cycling insider said it “has not been made clear to what extent performance in Japan will impact this”.

Athletics’ current budget for 2019-20 is $7,977,326 and now has a baseline of $3,338,663 for the six months after Tokyo.

Hockey — a sport that has been warned that their women’s team, the Hockeyroos, face a cut of 60 per cent — sees their funding going from $7,252,960 the financial year to $3,149,258 in the first six months of the 2020-21.

One sport told of how brutally and quickly they were told their funding would be slashed by the AIS. They were given less than 24 hours notice of a teleconference with the AIS, where they learned funding was gone. The bosses of the sport had no opportunity to put a case forward or present their plans for the future.

Some sports officials don’t disagree with the “podium or perish” modus operandi of the AIS, saying it is needed, but others say it means nothing but doom for their sport.

Badminton is another sport with an extremely low funding allocation for the first six months of next financial year with just $205,000.

Table tennis, which was funded to the tune of $300,000, has been told it has “zero” high performance funding for able-bodied athletes for the next four years (their Paralympic program will continue to be well supported). For a next generation of table tennis players, teenagers who are currently showing huge promise on the world stage and beating opponents four years older than them, the situation is dire for their Commonwealth Games and Olympic hopes.

Aspiring table tennis players will have to rely on “parents and sponsorship” to fund their athletic ambitions.

“Table Tennis Australia has been informed that as things currently stand, our able-bodied high performance program will be unfunded from July 2020 until the end of 2024,” a spokesperson said.

“Table Tennis has earned the maximum quota places to compete at the 2020 Olympics.”

Commonwealth Games Australia chief executive Craig Phillips said the published figures place the future viability of many sports in peril.

“The AIS approach jeopardises a generation of growth and will impact any aspirations Australia has for success in Brisbane in 2032 should Australia be successful in the Games bid,’’ Phillips said.

“It’s not too flippant to say the future of Australian Olympic and Commonwealth Games sports in Australia is at stake.’’