Tokyo a Games too far for Rio’s team chief

Kitty Chiller will not be the chef de mission of the Australian Olympic team at the Tokyo Games in 2020.

Rio Olympics chef de mission Kitty Chiller at Coogee Beach near her southern Sydney home. Picture: Britta Campion

Kitty Chiller will not be the chef de mission of the Australian Olympic team at the Tokyo Games in 2020.

After almost a year spent pondering the decision, Rio team chief Chiller has informed the Australian Olympic Committee that she will not be available for Tokyo.

Australia’s first female chef de mission, Chiller took the reins for what became the hardest Olympic management task in history in an ill-prepared host city.

She returned exhausted and took her time to consider whether she wanted to go again.

She informed AOC president John Coates and new chief executive Matt Carroll late last week that they would have to look elsewhere.

“I have struggled with the decision — it’s been hard,’’ Chiller saidyesterday.

“I love the athletes and the Olympic movement. I didn’t want to rush it because I wanted to be sure. I have probably always known what it would be and I am so busy now with the corporate work that I have been doing that now it just feels right.’’

Chiller has found herself in ­demand as a leadership and management consultant since the Games and has now been ­approached to fill two different corporate CEO roles.

“If I do something, I do it 100 per cent and the chef role is full-on. If I knew I couldn’t give it my all, and I have this whole new life, then I knew I couldn’t do it.’’

The Tokyo Games are expected to be a much easier job for the next chef de mission. The country is advanced and well-organised, the city is well-prepared and it is virtually on Australia’s time zone, but Chiller said that prospect did not entice her.

“I am never going to find a greater challenge as a leader (than Rio), but I realise the challenge I need in my life I am now getting from other areas,’’ she said.

Chiller, a modern pentathlon Olympian who is president of her national federation, remains on the AOC executive board and Coates and Carroll have offered her an advisory role to help prepare the new chef de mission.

Chiller said that was ideal for her given her other commitments. “I can help not only the summer team, but the seven teams the AOC is sending away in the next four years (Summer and Winter Olympics, Youth Olympic and Asian Games, and the Asian Indoor Games).

Coates said he did not want to lose Chiller entirely, given the knowledge she now has about preparing for the Games.

“She’s got the lot and I don’t want to lose that,’’ he said.

“I think it would be stupid to throw it away.

‘‘She’s had one Games experience but it was the most difficult Games I have ever seen.’’

The Australian Olympic team will now have a new chef de mission for the third consecutive Olympics, since Coates stepped down from the role in 2008.

Olympic rowing gold medallist Nick Greene served in the role in London, and then Chiller took over for Rio.

Coates said it was imperative that the AOC put some succession planning in place to train up future chefs de mission and ­ensure smoother transitions.

The AOC executive will discuss the appointment of the Tokyo leader at its board meeting on August 24.

“Time is of the essence,’’ Coates said.

“I originally wanted this ­decided last November but there was a debate (in the board meeting) and no one was ready to make the appointment. It’s imperative that we do so before the end of the year.’’

There were reports earlier in the year, in the heat of the AOC presidency election battle, that some of the previous board did not want to reappoint Chiller, but she said she had never had any indication of dissatisfaction from her fellow directors.

A medal slump combined with a last-minute controversy, when nine Australian athletes were ­detained by police and charged with falsifying their accreditations to gain entry to a basketball match, meant the Rio Games was a difficult experience for much of the Australian team.

As far as candidates for the Tokyo job, the obvious one is Olympic gold medallist turned lawyer Chris Fydler, who has been a deputy chef de mission at the past two Games.

Coates said he and Carroll had begun discussing options but had yet to approach anyone.

“We haven’t decided on a person but we know who is out there,’’ he said. “There’s a few ­people we are thinking about.’’