Australia - $250m government investment and state-of-the art facilities
Australia is known the world over as a nation serious about sport but more importantly sporting success. As the Australian Sports Commission outlines in it’s strategic plan, ‘sport occupies a central position in Australian life.’ With an uncompromising attitude and determination, the Aussies have propelled themselves to the lofty heights of fourth in the medals table at the last two Olympic Games, a place Team GB will took to steal by 2012. So what is the key to their success?
It was a relatively disappointing display at the 1976 Montreal Olympiad (where Australia finished 32nd place compared to the UK’s 13th position) that prompted the establishment of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS); a state-of-the-art multi-million pound centre for sporting excellence. According to the Australian Sports Commission website, the Institute based in Canberra is internationally acknowledged ‘as a world best practice model for elite athletic development’. Indeed, centres of excellence in this country have nothing to compare to the facilities, which include a strength and conditioning centre, athletics track, two biometrics laboratories, gymnastics training hall, 50m swimming pool, synthetic all weather pitches, tennis courts and archery facility amongst others.
In a similar way to American universities, the AIS offer scholarships to talented youngsters from across the sporting spectrum. There are some differences however; the AIS is not a university, but does offer 700 Australian nationals full scholarships and will provide education similar to that of a degree. The AIS will also not except fee-paying applications – the Institute is 100% talent driven, a luxury the Australian Sports Commission can afford due to the extensive corporate partnership schemes associated with the AIS. Sponsors include Nestle, Avis and Coca Cola. A large chuck of Australia’s huge annual $250,000 sports budget is invested into the AIS.
Alongside the institute Australia funds 69 National Sporting Organisations (NSOs), with a total spend of just under $70 million this financial year. This is compared to only 27 funded organisations in the UK, and many of which only started to receive their share of the £33.5 million funding this year.
The achievements of Australian sport can be summed up by the following statistic; Australia has a talent pool of 280,000 people, compared with 4.2 million in the USA and 22.8 million in China. Government investment is therefore crucial to this demographically small countries success.
