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Athletics in Australia - Time to Say what Everyone else is Thinking.
By Wayne Goldsmith | In Hot Topics
Athletics in Australia is a joke.
Everyone knows it.
Everyone - outside of the sport - thinks it.
Time to say what everyone else is thinking.
Let’s look at the facts.
In Australia, Athletics is about the best funded, most politically protected Olympic sport there is.
Yet, time after time, at Olympic and World Championship level, the sport has failed to deliver. Sure we have had to occasional superstar - Flintoff-King, Deek, Jana, Freeman…………great people, outstanding Australians and brilliant athletes we should all be proud of.
However, they are a few, rare precious gems in a pile of rocks.
Look at the medal chances we have (had) for Beijing 2008:
- A walker - a great athlete in his own right. No problems there.
- A 400 hurdler trained in England by a Pom.
- A Pole Vaulter trained by an Foreign born, educated and trained coach.
- A couple of distance runners trained by an Australian coach but based most of the time overseas and who works outside of the system.
So the majority of our medal chances have got there by working pretty much outside the system.
So what’s happening with all the money? That’s the 5 million dollar question!
It’s not the athlete’s fault. They are giving their best - and they deserve every ounce of energy, enthusiasm and expertise we can give them.
It’s obvious the sport has no idea what’s required to be successful in high performance sport as they continue to trot out the same lame excuses after each major championship.
Here are some the rippers we have been expected to swallow for the past 20 years:
- We are not doing well because athletics is such a tough international sport and we face tough competition from the rest of the world. REALITY: Get over it. It’s about winning. It’s about beating the best in the world. That’s what you are getting 5 million bucks a year from the government to do. If you believe the competition is too tough - tell that to Flintoff King and to Freeman and Deek and Mottram and Pittman - they found a way to win. That’s the business you’re in: winning at the highest level.
- Australia’s obsession with football means athletics can’t get the best athletes the country has to offer. REALITY: Little Athletics has produced more than enough young athletes to develop a world class elite senior team year after year after year. However many of the most talented young athletes leave athletics and go to football in their mid teens why……because of the outdated, dull, boring, anachronistic training and competition schedules offered to them once they leave Little A’s. That’s not football’s fault…that’s Athletics’ problem. Offer a better “product” and the athletes will stay in the sport.
- We’re building for the future. It’s a young team. REALITY: We have heard this same story about every team selected since Betty Cuthbert was in kindergarten. When will the future arrive?
- You don’t understand the culture. REALITY: So what’s the culture? Isn’t it to train hard, give it your 100% commitment, to accept no compromises and strive to beat the rest of the world? What don’t I understand?
- We’ve only here to have a good time and enjoy the competition. REALITY: Sure - enjoy the experience of competition and the joy of being at an Olympics….but win! The two are not mutually exclusive.
Look at this sport. Plenty of money. A massive junior talent base in Little Athletics. A dream run with all the funding agencies in spite of failing again and again and again.
Yet several Australian records have stood for more than 30 years! Can you imagine any business or company or sport which doesn’t move forward for over a quarter of a century still being in business?
Here’s just a few from the current Athletics Australia web site list of Australian National Records:
- Men’s 200 - set in 1968 (40 years ago)
- Men’s 400 - set in 1988 (20 years ago)
- Men’s 800 - set in 1968 (40 years ago)
- Men’s 1500 - set in 1991 (17 years ago)
- Men’s 110 Hurdles - set in 1995 (13 years ago)
- Triple Jump - set in 1982 (26 years ago)
And the women’s records tell a similar tale:
- Women’s 100 - set in 1994 (14 years ago)
- Women’s 400 - set in 1996 (12 years ago)
- Women’s 800 - set in 1976 (32 years ago)
- Women’s High Jump - set in 1989 (19 years ago)
- Women’s Shot Put - set in 1984 (24 years ago)
- Women’s Heptathlon - set in 1990 (18 years ago)
So in spite of the introduction of sports science, sports medicine, technological advances in shoes and equipment, better nutrition, recovery programs, increased exposure to strength and conditioning, the Academies and Institutes of Sport, the AIS, being able to be funded to fly to competition opportunities in Europe, we are not able to beat records set by our country men / women who didn’t have access to any of this stuff.
Are we kidding? How can anyone possibly justify this?
I can hear them now, “This guy doesn’t understand the sport. He doesn’t know how hard it is to win in athletics. The competition is just too tough”.
Yep - that’s right. I am a dummy. Even though we have invested tens of millions of dollars in Athletics in the past 20 years, and provided athletes and coaches with world’s best sports science and performance enhancement opportunities - and they consistently fail - I must be wrong. Well look around - there’s several million people who agree with me!
It is not the fault of the athletes.
It’s the coaches. It’s the clubs. It’s the leadership. It’s the management of the sport. It’s the politics and the personality squabbles. It’s the sport itself.
Athletics in this country will not make any real progress until they accept they have done and continue to do a substandard job, stop making excuses and start giving everything they have to embracing a winning attitude and creating a winning environment to give our athletes the opportunities they deserve.
Are they up to the challenge?
Are they capable of being totally honest with themselves?
Are the able to stop blaming football and the competition and the perceived lack of talent?
Are they able to face the reality, accept no excuses and finally develop a world class athletics culture in this country?
I really hope so. The athletes deserve it.
Wayne Goldsmith
August 14, 2008
Tags: Athletics, Track and Field
Comments
6 Responses to “Athletics in Australia - Time to Say what Everyone else is Thinking.”
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Its simple Wayne, not enough of our athletes are cheating. We are too honest and have a country of mostly honest athletes.
People have been cheating since the 50s in droves and even some of our greats probably never got caught.
Wayne,
I have posted this article on a couple of athletics websites to see what response it might receive.
Oztrack
http://www.athleticoz.com
Reality is your article does simply present some scary facts. I am sure you would get some reasons/excuses why but regardless there is a need for a fresh look at our sport and a need for change.
There are some excellent coaches in our country I honestly believe but I think our sport needs to take an objective look and then provide some support to those that are the future. We can’t just keep rolling along and thinking that things will improve. BRING ON THE CHANGE!
I would love the opportunity to try and make a difference and show that we can do it better but for now I will simply work as a private coach trying to reignite a sport that has a solid history but I would prefer to try and be instrumental in building a new exciting future.
Regards
Matt Beckenham
http://www.mattybsfit4fun.com
Well first of all $60 thousand dollars and the most important position in Australian athletics is totally wasted while Max Binnington is in the position of High Performance Director. That guy is useless and the sooner they get rid of him or he leaves the better.
Our talented teenagers go to team sports because our development program is shit. Instead of sticking with the IAAF qualifying standards for world youth and world junior championships Australia decides to raise the standards and sets further criteria to turn it into an ‘elite’ competition, but the purpose should be to develop. They simply aren’t encouraging the talent to stay in the sport.
Team sports are also easier for young talented kids who don’t have the dedication required to turn a talented kid into an elite athlete. It is much eaier training in a team environment, doing the same training as everyone else and the more talented kids become the better players. It doesn’t work like that in athletics. It’s not like swimming where the talented kids can make olympics at 16. It’s not like AFL where talented kids get 35,000 dollar contracts at 18.
All the talented kids get snapped up. You say we shouldn’t use that as an excuse but how can athletics compete with afl when they’re dealing with a 17yo superstar? It’s not uncommon to see an 18 or 19yo playing senior footy. It is uncommon to see 18yo all over the world, not just australians, competing in the track and field program at a world championships. And even if they are most of them get knocked out in the first round. In AFL they might only get 6 kicks in the game but their team might win so they get instant success.
You cannot compare results in athletics to swimming or cycling. At the Beijing Games 98 medals were handed out in the swimming program. Those 98 medals were shared by only 21 countries. Now after only 4 days of athletic competition 54 medals have been handed out to 24 countries. that’s around half the medals handed out and already the medals have been shared to more countries than in the swimming. Athletics is a tough gig.
Our sport is struggling to get any credibility in this country. Why? Our best male athlete is a racewalker, I got no problem with the event. But it’s not marketable. Our best female athlete doesn’t appear to be liked by too many australians outside athletics although she’s a great lady. Our best male distance runner competes about 2 times a year in Australia.
But I agree the main reason we are struggling is our athlete’s aren’t pushed hard enough. There is no competitive culture in the sport in this country. There is no NCAA competition like the americans have. I was wondering why our walkers have continued to do well since the early 90’s and i put it down to their strong event group at the ais, the best walkers in he country have all trained at the one place and thats great. Our swimmers, nearly everyone on the olympic team trains with atleast one other person on the olympic team. Our 6 400m relay runners selected for the olympics train in 6 different cities in australia. The majority of our athletes just don’t live in a competitive environment.
I’d for one like to know where this 5million dollars goes to!
Wayne,
Looked at objectively, you are on the money. I remember a Machiavelli quote you offered me:
There is nothing more difficult, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in succcess,
Than to take in hand the introduction of a new order of things,
Because, the innovator has for enemies of all those who have done well under the old conditions,
And,
Lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
Whatever, today’s administrators (some of whom have done well personally under the conditons of the past) have the responsibility of our performance record.
We have reaped and are reaping what they have, at least in part, created.
I think some coaches would do more, and the athletes certainly want success .. I am not as convinced they would (some exceptions) accept the challenge.
Time to invest in a new approach .. too many changes have been ignored or resisted by very average administration.
Well done to the athletes and coaches, usually operating “outside” the structure .. their names are obvious to those who follow the sport
Take a chance .. what is there to lose by trying something new? .. we can hardly sink lower.
Being in the team isn’t enough.
It’s time for significant change .. it’s change or die .. of course, we may already be dead.
Ouch, but so true. At least a walker and pole vaulter saved the day this time
Great Article and some great responses, Im an OZie living in the Uk and couldnt belive the skeleton atletics team we sent to beijing!!
Then the Poms beat us on the Medal Table!!!!Couldnt belive it!!!
Wayne you are right we need to change something or the scrape aand start again to save Athletics in Australia…….