Rio Olympics

[The_Brown_Hornet]

One hopes that a real review will be held after these olympics in relation to how significant sums of taxpayer funds are spent. The bulk of our successes seem to have been athletes not involved in the Winning Edge programme.

I loved the women's rugby win, but my favourite Aussie gold was Esposito in the Women's Modern Pentathlon. A real achievement by any measure and from a sport which received $25,000 in government funds.

Mine too. Your classic Aussie battler story, with plenty of sacrifice to go with it.

I've become increasingly skeptical of tax payer money being lavished on the Olympic team and actually sport in general. Every four years we hear the same people sticking their hand out for more public funding (especially guys like John Coates). At a time when our Federal budget is in a large deficit and plenty of worthy things to be funded, why should our Olympic athletes get any more than they currently do, or more controversially anything at all? I know you can't build a new highway, port, school or hospital with the money spent on our team (it's not nearly enough) but it's the principle, surely? A lot of our big time athletes are pro or at least semi-pro, have corporate sponsorship (say what you like about Gina Rinehart, but Hancock Prospecting support the Hockeyroos) and/or endorsements, so I question the need to kick in extra money. All of this in light of a significant fall off in medal performance since Sydney. That said, the haul we got in Rio and London are probably about where we sit as a nation I think. I'll fire up PowerBI and crunch the numbers when I get bored at work this week and test that hypothesis

 

[Quick Hands]

^^^The British model seems to be to provide money to grass roots as well as the elite. It's a more logical method for long term results.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Yep, they have a national lottery fund most of it and it's not a bad model. The lotteries in WA fund all sorts of non-profit things, mostly of a charitable nature, but there is no reason why it couldn't fund grass roots sport too.

 

[barbarian]

Hancock Prospecting is actually a huge supporter of Olympic sports in general Hornet - rowing, athletics, swimming, volleyball, hockey and water polo off the top of my head, might even be a few more as well.

Single handedly keep these sports afloat. Say what you like about old Gina but she's done well in this regard.
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[barbarian]

The thing about the money is interesting. I certainly see your point Hornet. But.......

We had the Olympics on around our office, and would all have a look if there was a swimming final or big event on. If an Aussie won a Gold medal, there was a buzz around the office. It sounds a bit schmoltzy, but it lifted everyone up a bit.

When the Rugby Sevens women won gold, people who have never seen 7s before were punching the air when we scored tries.

There is something intangible about an Aussie winning a gold medal, and I think it is worthy of Government investment. How much is obviously the question, but there is a place for spending on these sorts of things. It's not a hospital or a road but it does improve the lives of Australians, even if it's just for half an hour after Kyle Chalmers wins the 100 free.
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[Quick Hands]

^^^The question is whether the current funding model (a) uses precious money wisely and (b) maximises the chance of Aussie gold.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

What QH said x 2 for me.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Hancock Prospecting is actually a huge supporter of Olympic sports in general Hornet - rowing, athletics, swimming, volleyball, hockey and water polo off the top of my head, might even be a few more as well.

Single handedly keep these sports afloat. Say what you like about old Gina but she's done well in this regard.
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Good point. It's also how the US funds the majority of its Olympians, though granted they have the NCAA system too.

 

[barbarian]

^^^The question is whether the current funding model (a) uses precious money wisely and (b) maximises the chance of Aussie gold.

Yeah I agree. But there's a caveat with (b) though, because if we just wanted gold then we'd just pump money into swimming, rowing and cycling.

It's tricky, you need to support the big sports (big in terms of both achievement and participation) but you don't want to miss the Catherine Skinners and Chloe Espositos, and you also don't want to bleed smaller sports like badminton or judo dry completely due to a lack of success.

I don't have the answer, I don't know the intricacies and failings of the Winning Edge strategy well enough.
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[Strewthcobber]

Other than being a fair bit less, what is the difference between the winning edge strategy and GB's no compromise stratey. I thought they were pretty much the same?

 

[RedsHappy]

Our national ego and cultural pride were both heavily made, and are today still, heavily defined by global sporting success, we all know that. Let's not kid ourselves, we'll hate being relegated to an also-ran, 'pretty average', Olympics nation.

But now the Brits have taken over the over-achievers label we possessed and have become the new over-achievers, big time. 'The new global sports superpower' no less.

This BBC article exploring how they did it - aside from money, there's much more to it - makes interesting reading.

Obsessive attention to detail and meticulous performance analysis has played a big part.

http://m.bbc.com/sport/olympics/37150155?ftcamp=crm/email//nbe/MartinSandbusFreeLunch/product

 

[Lindommer]

I've become increasingly skeptical of tax payer money being lavished on the Olympic team and actually sport in general. Every four years we hear the same people sticking their hand out for more public funding (especially guys like John Coates).

Me too. Especially as the AOC has a "sovereign fund" of some $135m tucked away and Coates draws a salary of $700k a year.