Winter sports suffer in funding cuts

The government trumpeted an extra $50m for sport but will not result in extra funding for high-performance sport.

Dual snowboard cross world champion Alex Pullin at Newport Beach yesterday. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

There is more funding uncertainty ahead for Australia’s Olympic sports after it emerged that an extra $15.5 million allocated to the Australian Sports Commission for the next financial year will only stave off funding cuts for a year as it prepares for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

In the federal budget announcement on Tuesday, the government trumpeted an extra $50m going to sport but none of that will result in any extra funding for high performance sport.

The $15.5m that will go to the ASC will merely offset reductions forced by the 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend that the government requires from all its agencies, and the $34.5m for the Commonwealth Games will go directly to the Defence Department to pay for Games security next year.

The actual outcome is that Australia’s sports system continues to wallow. The national team’s diminishing medal returns at the last two Olympics indicate that the current level of funding is leaving Australian sport less and less competitive at international level.

AOC president John Coates is particularly concerned about the Olympic sports that receive no government funding, including six of the seven winter sports.

“With less than one year to go to the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang I’m very disappointed that there is no indication of additional assistance for the Olympic winter sports, many of which are currently receiving nothing,’’ Coates said.

The Australian winter sports team is coming off its best inter­national season, having won five world championships medals and a record 35 World Cup medals.

Moguls skier Britt Cox and snowboarder Scotty James won world titles, aerial skiers Dani Scott and David Morris won minor medals, and dual world snowboard cross champion Alex “Chumpy’’ Pullin won his third world medal.

But the Olympic Winter Institute receives only about half the funding of summer sports with similar medal returns, like athletics and rowing ($7m-$9m). OWIA chief executive Geoff Lipshut said the winter sports deserved more funding based on performance but the Australian Institute of Sport was struggling to make it happen due to the budget constraints.

“They know we are underfunded and that makes it hard for us to employ the right coaches,’’ Lipshut said.

“You can’t buy athletes but you can buy coaches, and that’s one of the few things that makes a material difference to performance.’’

New AOC chief executive Matt Carroll will have a meeting with Sports Minister Greg Hunt in Canberra today and will begin to make the case for extra funding.

He argues that both sports participation and high performance sport contribute to the community through health, social cohesion and aspiration.

He is concerned that the government spending projections on sport for the three years after the Commonwealth Games show significant cuts.

“But I’m of the view you don’t complain about things, you do something about it,’’ he said.

“The Tokyo Games is a fan­tastic opportunity for Australian sport. It’s in our time zone and we have a great partnership with ­Japanese sport. It’s a great opportunity for business to engage with Japan.

“Sport opens doors. If the government looks at it differently, it’s not just an investment in people winning medals, it’s an investment for the country. But to make that as effective as possible requires success and the small amount of investment, when you look at the size of the federal budget ($464 billion), would make great gains for the country at multiple levels in Asia.’’

The only prospect of relief at this point is ASC chairman John Wylie’s proposal for a national sports lottery, which he hopes will deliver $50m a year from next year. The government has backed the proposal and has also created a future fund for new Olympic sports that have medal potential in Tokyo in 2020 (surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing). However it remains to be seen if that will be enough to arrest the slide.