Moans and Groans – not that subject again?

For those of you still interested in the Olympics from an Australian perspective (or at least mine) and here is an update of the situation described above of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) sitting on $100M and blaming the less than expected Australian Olympic result on a lack of government funding even though its at record levels!! (these people are living in a fools paradise!)

heres some more of the story unfolding.

IT was the meeting where Australia’s Olympic boss John Coates laid bare his views on winning medals, public money for sport and the fate that awaited any government which denied him either.

Three months after the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, where Australia had performed extraordinarily well to finish sixth on the medal tally behind much larger nations, Coates came face to face with the four members of a government-commissioned panel charged with conducting a review of Australian sport. The setting was a non-descript Sydney office belonging to the Department of Health. The mood was tense.

Coates said Australia’s goal for the London Games was to win 55 medals, that anything less would be seen as failure and that Olympic sports needed more money to achieve this goal. Sam Mostyn, a company director prominent in sports administration as an AFL commissioner, asked Coates whether there was any limit on what Australia should be prepared to do to maintain its place in the Olympic pecking order.

The president of the Australian Olympic Committee prickled at the question. Of course there was no limit. He went further. No Australian prime minister wanted to be the national leader who had to explain why our athletes were winning fewer medals, Coates said. Any government that tried to reduce funding for Olympic sports would be reminded of the disaster of Montreal.

Coates made one further remark which stuck in the minds of the panel members who would subsequently produce the 357-page Crawford report. The AOC was answerable to no government in Australia. Its sole master was the Olympic movement.

A year later, when the Crawford report was published, it provoked a savage response. Coates publicly accused its authors of insulting Australian Olympians, returning to the “White Australia days” by promoting Anglo-centric sports and condemning to mediocrity our performance at future Games.

He accused the sports minister who released the report, Kate Ellis, of vacating the subsequent debate, while praising Kevin Rudd as a prime minister who understood the Games and the importance of sports performance to Australia’s international standing. Behind the scenes, AOC lawyers filed Freedom of Information requests investigating the way the panel had been appointed and possible conflicts of interests by David Crawford, a retired company director and chairman who had established the governance model for the AFL, Football Federation Australia and Cricket Australia, and his fellow panel members; Mostyn, former Hockey Australia president and Australian Sports Commission director Pam Tye and Colin Carter, a business consultant and former AFL commissioner.

The panel members received legal letters from the AOC suggesting their findings and public comments had damaged the reputation of the Olympic movement. Gemba, an independent sports consultancy commissioned to provide data to the Crawford panel, was also subject to AOC legal action.

Coates this week declined to answer questions from The Weekend Australian about the AOC’s campaign against the Crawford report. An AOC spokesman said it was “premature” to draw implications from the London medal count.

The Crawford panel’s suggestion that Australia should set “realistic” medal targets at Olympics, rather than the top-five medal tally place Coates cited in demanding an extra $109 million a year in taxpayer money for sport, prompted a withering reply from Coates. “We were fourth in Sydney, we were fourth in Athens, sixth in Beijing.” he said at the release of the report. “Now that he is telling us that eighth is good enough, maybe 10th will satisfy Mr Crawford?”

Coates may have to settle for a place well below that, if Australia’s position on the medal tally at the midpoint of the London Olympics is any guide. Last night, Australia was in 16th place. At the corresponding point of the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics, Australia was placed second, fourth and seventh.

Crawford’s point was not about medal tallies and where Australia should rank against other nations at the Games. Rather, the report argued medal counts were a dubious measure of what a modern nation should aim to get out of sport. It advocated a shift in funding bias away from the Olympics and towards the sports most Australians play and identify with, and a greater emphasis on participation and less on elite performance.

What Coates saw as a threat to Australia’s global sporting prestige now reads as a sensible, sober reflection on the events of this week. Peter Bartels, a former chairman of the Australian Sports Commission, yesterday urged the federal government to revisit Crawford’s findings in London’s wake. “It certainly needs to be reassessed in light of what has happened since it was delivered,” he told The Weekend Australia.

Bartels says it is the ASC, rather than the AOC, that is responsible for public funding and performance of Australian athletes and a lack of leadership within the organisation since Beijing has cruelled its ability to perform this role. Since Bartels stood down four years ago after 10 years as chairman, the ASC has had a chairman, two acting chairmen and three chief executives. “That is not a good basis for stability,” he says.

He believes tough decisions need to be made about the funding of future Olympic teams, arguing the Australian Institute of Sport is warehousing too many established athletes with no medal prospects and the money would be better spent discovering and developing younger talent.

“We need to sharpen the focus of the AIS,” he says. “We need a heavy cull and funds redirected towards talent identification, sports potential and coaching. The future needs more strategic direction, not necessarily more money.”

As an aside, the former national track cyclist also had a message for any Olympians who saw their place at the Games, and even medals, as an entitlement. “I am disturbed at the the demeanour of a number of athletes representing Australia,” he says. “The outstanding role model for me at the moment in international sport is Bradley Wiggins. He is understated, he is overachieving and he is not asking anybody for much. He has got a degree of humility about him.”

Former Athletics Australia chief executive Danny Corcoran, one of the few senior Olympic sport administrators prepared to endorse the Crawford report at the time it was released, yesterday backed Bartels’ call for government to reconsider it and devote more attention to supporting coaches and junior athletes.

Coates won the initial battle against the Crawford report. The government did not champion the report or its findings and after a fierce, six-month lobbying campaign, the AOC secured a further $195m over four years out of the 2010 federal budget. The low-hanging fruit within Crawford’s recommendations was picked by Ellis and her successor Mark Arbib. The most difficult and important reforms to Australia’s sporting system — spilling all positions at the ASC and divesting its control over the AIS and state-based sports institutes — were shelved.

More significantly for Coates, the primacy of the Olympics remains unchanged.

Federal Sport Minister Kate Lundy agrees the Crawford report should be reconsidered as part of the post-London assessment of Australia’s elite sports performance, along with any lessons that can be learned from how comparable nations fund their sport.

Speaking to The Weekend Australian from London, the former rower says a strength of the Crawford report is its focus on grassroots sport and participation. She believes a weakness in the report is the lack of weight it attached to the role of the Olympics and other major championships in motivating participation in sport and shaping our national identity.

“The only part of the equation that I don’t think emerged in the Crawford report was how we project ourselves internationally on things like the medal count,” Lundy says. “Because it is the thing that everyone quantifies, it does become a test of a nation’s sporting prowess, whether we like it or not. For Australia, it is not just how that inspires people to play sport. It is how we look out into the world and what opportunities are derived from that.”

Lundy says there will be no “panicked response” if Australia finishes these Olympics well down the medal tally. Nor will it be a surprise if the AOC cites poor performance to demand more public money for Olympic sports.

“We have led the way and punched above our weight with commonwealth investment in the Australian Institute of Sport,” she says. “We have now seen other countries catch up and the task I have before me is where do we next innovate? It is not just about more money in a system that is not doing very much.

“I would expect that the AOC would always ask for more money. They have made that very clear over many, many decades. What I am interested in is a system that actually achieves results.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/london-games/head-to-head-battle-to-get-sport-on-track/story-e6frgdg6-1226442569869

Mr Coates and the AOC have not been getting much support at all for his demands for more money!!, and now he is putting in a gold medal performance in back pedalling!!!

The finger-pointing has started. Coates blames the swim team and applauds a review led by former head coach Bill Sweetenham and retired swimming legend Susie O’Neill.

“We are disappointed in the totality (of medals won), but you have to break it down and that identifies, principally, swimming,” he said. “If swimming was 20 but not 15 (medals) and they had won the four gold we did last time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

(Australia didn’t claim 15 medals but 10 in the pool at these Games).

Kevan Gosper, Australia’s senior representative on the IOC, doesn’t blame the swimmers but the hand that feeds them, claiming a lack of funding is the “difference between gold and silver”.

Asked if funding was an issue, Coates was dismissive.

“No,” he said.

Whatsoever?

“No.”

At the annual meeting in April, Coates had told the room: “The AOC is providing funding of $15.3 million to prepare our athletes and $15.4 million to send the team to the London Games. But the reality is we are being out-funded by the other nations and face a massive challenge at the London Games.”

Reminded of that remark, Coates said: “We did say we’re not whingeing about funding and we now have enough funding. But in my AGM speech I absolutely nailed that we received the funding and we’re happy with that. And we don’t allocate the money. The AOC does not receive government money. We agitate, we lobby for increased funding for the national federations. They are accountable to the Australia Sports Commission and the AIS. We give them some funding for international competition, we give the athletes funding direct for medals. It’s not our money that they’re spending.”

Some believe Coates has back-pedalled on his stance about funding in fear it will be cut. As for Gosper’s remarks, Coates says this: “That’s Kevin’s take on it. He’s a senior IOC member and that’s his take. My position and the AOC’s position is that it’s not an issue of funding.”

Federal Minister for Sport Kate Lundy has been telling everyone in London that silver isn’t the new black but the new gold. “The Aussies silver lining tells an amazing story of excellence and effort,” she gushed two days ago.

There is growing belief within the Australian team that the media has been too tough, even though Laurie Lawrence tells every athlete in every impassioned motivational speech that “anything but gold isn’t good enough”.

And Coates wins gold for Australia in the triple reverse backflip!!

However, at London 2012, there is unlikely to be a moment more utterly gobsmacking than the Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates declaring the key to an improved performance by Australia was to make sport compulsory in school, and to thus increase participation rates.

The federal government has treated expenditure on Olympic sports mostly as an expensive photo opportunity.
What made Coates’s comment so jaw-dropping was it involved a backflip that, on the gymnastics mat, would have scored a perfect 10. This was the same John Coates whose organisation seemingly exercised every political muscle in its successful attempt to bury the findings of the Crawford Report into government sports funding – a report that, among many sensible suggestions, strongly advocated the restoration of physical education in schools.

This was the John Coates who was dragged before that inquiry, despite the quasi-diplomatic immunity claimed by International Olympic Committee grandees during their luxurious jaunts across the planet.

Advertisement The same man whose organisation either cannot, or will not, justify the benefits its generous funding provides the broader community, beyond spurious notions such as the Olympic ”feelgood factor”, ”international prestige” and the chest-beating contests with other nations similarly obsessed with the medals table.

The man whose organisation eventually delivered a 229-page submission to that inquiry that was little more than a longwinded and costly wish list on behalf of elite performers. The AOC’s untested, perhaps even self-deluded, claims about its impact on grassroots sports were echoed in London by the Australian team’s deputy chef de mission Kitty Chiller. In defending Australia’s performance, Chiller said: ”There’s thousands of kids running around the backyard because of Cathy Freeman. Thousands on a bike because of Cadel Evans.”

Yet, what little research has been done – none of it by the AOC – suggests the Olympics have no significant impact on participation rates, beyond short-lived spikes in attendance at programs such as Little Athletics. Indeed, one study by the Australian centre for Olympic studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, showed that participation by people aged 15-plus in 14 out of 21 Olympic sports decreased after the Sydney Olympics.

One of the key recommendations of the Crawford Report was to empower individual Olympic sports, and to make them more responsible for their own administration. An eminently sensible conclusion given many of what are, between Olympics, minor sports are run like corner shops compared with the standards achieved by the major football codes.

But with elite athletes catered for in national and state institutes, and funding for Olympic sports guaranteed under the protective umbrella of the AOC and the Australian Sports Commission, there is little motivation for the administrators of marginal sports to improve those standards. For too many, marching in a blazer behind the national flag at the opening ceremony has been the objective, not merely a benefit.

As well-meaning and hard-working as many administrators might be, their sports are ill-equipped to recruit and nurture young athletes. Thus, the chance to broaden participation – with the benefit of improved public health and a larger pool from which to identify elite performers – has been lost.

Apart from some tinkering with the ASC administration, through which Olympic funding is channelled, the Crawford Report was torpedoed. It was a victim of the AOC’s aggressive, self-protective lobbying, and opportunistic politicians; the type who can stare down a foreign despot, yet – as the soccer World Cup bid fiasco also proved – go weak at the knees at the sight of a green and yellow tracksuit.

Indeed, for its impertinence – Coates grandiosely referred to the Crawford Report as ”well-meaning” – the AOC was rewarded with a generous funding increase, taking to $170 million the amount spent on elite athletes by the federal Government each year. Without anything so inconvenient as a cost-benefit analysis required.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/hard-to-win-medals-when-turncoates-takes-breath-away-20120808-23ue8.html#ixzz23SlJU6v1

LONDON, Aug 12, 2012 (AFP) – – A lack of funding was not behind Australia’s below par London Games performances, rather some sports had to take a serious look at themselves, Australian Olympic boss John Coates said Sunday.

Australia slipped to 10th on the medal standings from sixth in Beijing four years ago and will come away from London with seven golds, half of what the team achieved in Beijing.

As recriminations continue over Australia’s overall performance, Australian Olympic Committee president Coates said money wasn’t the problem, but that some sports administrators had allowed things to drift in the lead-up to London.

“I am absolutely certain that the sports have to look at themselves, rather than look for more money,” Coates told a press debriefing here.

“They are largely being very, very well funded by the (government-backed) Australian Sports Commission and with that comes responsibilities of delivering.”

Coates said he had written to presidents or chief executives of Australia’s Olympic sports before the Games expressing his concerns.

“I was concerned, about 18 months out from these Games, whether the sports themselves — the presidents and the executives of the sports — were taking enough ownership of the objectives that they had set,” he said.

“And it may be fair for them to rely on very good high performance managers but, and I’m not going to be specific here, but it has to come from the top.

“Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that is coming from there.”

The AOC had projected Australia winning 35 medals in London, which is what the total the team collected, but they were well down on the predicted 15 gold medals based on international results.

Australia came away from Beijing with 45 medals, including 14 gold.

Coates pointed his finger at swimming for the fall-off in gold medals.

“The significant difference …between these results and the results in Beijing is swimming,” Coates said.

“In Beijing it contributed 20 of the 46 medals there and they contributed 10 here.

“It must be possible for us to get back to where we were in swimming … if we can better coordinate it, better utilise sports science, and ensure our coaches are thoroughly up to date, it’s possible.”

Swimming Australia has announced a review into its team’s disappointing haul of one gold, six silver and three bronze in the pool in London — their lowest tally since Barcelona in 1992.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/world-cup/a/-/world-cup/14533313/olympics-drifting-not-funding-behind-australias-fall-aoc/

Not a bad effort of Olympic Gold Medal Back Pedalling – is it!!

Lets just put all those comments into one cohesive hypocritical, U-turning, back pedalling perspective and look at them again?

THE Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, has been calling for more taxpayer funding of elite sports at the same time as his organisation sits atop $100 million in funds, financial accounts show.

Besides being president of the AOC, for which he is paid $482,000 a year, Mr Coates is chairman of the foundation.

In November, he said Australia’s London Olympics medal tally would be reduced because state sports institutes were not getting enough money.

He had previously dismissed as ”insulting” a 2009 government report calling for money to be diverted to grassroots sports. And he returned to the theme last week, saying a flood of money for swimming approved in 2010 came too late to salvage Olympic gold at London.

Reminded of that remark, Coates said: “We did say we’re not whingeing about funding and we now have enough funding. But in my AGM speech I absolutely nailed that we received the funding and we’re happy with that. And we don’t allocate the money. The AOC does not receive government money. We agitate, we lobby for increased funding for the national federations. They are accountable to the Australia Sports Commission and the AIS. We give them some funding for international competition, we give the athletes funding direct for medals. It’s not our money that they’re spending.”

Kevan Gosper, Australia’s senior representative on the IOC, doesn’t blame the swimmers but the hand that feeds them, claiming a lack of funding is the “difference between gold and silver”.

Some believe Coates has back-pedalled on his stance about funding in fear it will be cut. As for Gosper’s remarks, Coates says this: “That’s Kevin’s take on it. He’s a senior IOC member and that’s his take. My position and the AOC’s position is that it’s not an issue of funding.”

As recriminations continue over Australia’s overall performance, Australian Olympic Committee president Coates said money wasn’t the problem, but that some sports administrators had allowed things to drift in the lead-up to London.

“I am absolutely certain that the sports have to look at themselves, rather than look for more money,” Coates told a press debriefing here.

“They are largely being very, very well funded by the (government-backed) Australian Sports Commission and with that comes responsibilities of delivering.”

Coates said he had written to presidents or chief executives of Australia’s Olympic sports before the Games expressing his concerns.

“I was concerned, about 18 months out from these Games, whether the sports themselves — the presidents and the executives of the sports — were taking enough ownership of the objectives that they had set,” he said.

“And it may be fair for them to rely on very good high performance managers but, and I’m not going to be specific here, but it has to come from the top.

“Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that is coming from there.”

I suspect Mr Coates was told in no un-certain terms by the Government, Media and public polls and responses to get his hand out of our pockets!!!, and stop trying to push Australian expectations in matching the performances of much richer and larger countries by trying to outspend them.

And of course all the while getting paid very well himself and hoarding a $100M of taxpayer’s previous funding! How rich is that!!!

Congratulations to the UK for a successful games without trouble, and host nation performance, just avoid being sucked into spending more and more to fund “elite sports” winning “gold” medals once every 4 years “over all else”.

regards

Mark Pilkington

Edgar B

Exactly, I saw hundreds of shots of the watching crowds go wild, when Team G.B. came 1st, 2nd, or third, even in some where we came last, One may as well say that the camera crews were being selective by showing far too many shots of the spectators.and not enough of the athletes.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

@Student Pilot
But there are many examples of selective coverage. I noticed the 10km runner from Britain, who just happened to be black,

Your point being?

:D:D:D

@Student Pilot

@Moggy C

Whats Manchester United without it’s fans?

Bankrupt.:D

Jim.

Lincoln .7

@Student Pilot

But there are many examples of selective coverage. I noticed the 10km runner from Britain, who just happened to be black, got a way bigger slice of the coverage from the BBC than the other gold medal winners. Resulting outrage? None, they thought it was something to be proud of!

@Moggy C

Whats Manchester United without it’s fans?

Always amuses me when a Manchester United fan (It always is a MUFC ‘fan’, usually one who has never been to see them play) says

“We slaughtered Arsenal on Saturday”

What’s this ‘we’ Tonto?

Moggy

I like the beach volley ball

Nekid rollerblading next :confused:

I like the way people get on the bandwagon when things are going well then abandon ship (To mix metaphors) when it starts to turn to poo. Also how it makes Joe Blow on the street feel superior if their side is “Winning” 😀
Mazing how you won’t get politicians to stand beside a mere bronze medal winner but line up to stand beside a gold medal “Winner”.
Been trying to find how a local girl went, because she ONLY came 9th no mention in any of the media. Bloody hell, that’s 9th in the world from a girl from the bush. To me that’s a great achievement but evidently not to the press. Sad.

I like the beach volley ball but the wife keeps turning it off !!!!

Cant think why ????:diablo::diablo::diablo:

Me too Tony, I found the Velodrome cycling rivetting, better than having to watch those bl***y soaps my wife watches :diablo:

Jim.
Lincoln .7

I too don’t follow sport but the cycling has been engrossing… I find myself watching them all

Mark.

Whilst I fully know where your coming from re the money aspect, one has to remember one thing, you can give each contestant £1.000.000. each. but if they are not fully fit, or trained, it’s money down the drain, it takes them 4 yrs to get fit, recover from injuries whilst training in the run up to the games, but the bottom line is, if your not up to standard, or the determination, dedication, you won’t win.
Be it Brits, Ausralians or from whatever Country they came from, I take my hat off to them all. Like you, I don’t follow sport, but due to reasons beyond my control, I had nothing to do other than watch the games.
I am proud to be a Brit, whether even if we had come last even, Our athletes gave it their best, and proved, if you want something bad enough, you will get it.
Well done “Team G.B.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

It is now my day off. It will give me time to fully appraise and digest this most interesting column.
Thank you and goodnight.

smiles,

I hadnt considered the thought the reference to moans and groans and not mentioning a subject might somehow relate to the Olympics? but I can now see how that might be assumed.

However Australia’s performance or lack of it in London is not causing me to moan or groan, or have sleepless nights, and it was a topic and debate elsewhere in the forum and the habit of people entering the debate to dissuade the debate, rather than simply ignoring it?

However given that mis-understanding of my intention, and the fact that this thread was moved to general discussion I will offer the following even though I note there are other Olympic related threads existing.

Interestingly the Olympics have made me moan and groan for the best part of 50 years, with dread of that two weeks every 4 years when suddenly everyone wants to talk about athletics and swimming, and every newspaper and TV channel had special and exclusive coverage!, and even all the subjects in school took on an Olympic flavour.

So as I’m not particularly interested in them, and simply ignore them, and I try hard to avoid the coverage like the plague for those two weeks every four years, and the internet has been a godsend since I no longer get the paper delivered or watch free to air TV, and therefore can choose to read or see it as little or as much as I might.

Not all Australian’s are sports fanatics, despite the stereotype portrayed or presented on home and away etc, and in many cases other than perhaps following the local football code, or cricket series when they are in Australia, most Australian’s have no interest in Athletes or Swimming until its forced fed to us via the media for their own bottom line benefits.

But I do know a little of the topic, and Australia has for a number of years punched above its weight as our Government has poured more and more taxpayer cash into elite sports to win more medals and define Australian success and values by gold at the Olympics.

I personally think Australia should be achieving a medal tally reflecting its developed economy and population size, and beyond that should be down to the flukes of individual talents or upsets in a result, and expectations or investments to achieve more than that are misplaced and misguided.

But apparantly we had a bad result in the Montreal Olympics and the Government of the day flooded money into the AOC and Elite Sports to improve the result in subsequent years.

The Olympic industry in Australia has continued the calls for greater and greater funding every 4 years, and in fact the current medal failure is simply resulting in even more calls for funding.

We have apparantly imported Althetes from overseas, with fast tracked citizenships, to have them win gold for “Australia”, and some have then moved on to other nations when they didnt qualify into our teams, not so patriotic citizens giving their best for their country, but more like mercenaries for hire, or ships flying flags of convenience.

I would rather see us invest in school level sports, and if that yields a gold medal winner, thats great, but I dont see any value in importing a gold medal winner, surely its not like a proffessional sporting team?

But these imported athletes are designed to evidence results for money, to justify more money, now we are seeing a change in tack, that lack of results will require even more money!! In some ways I view these arguments all as “Sborts Rorts”, and of course we had the scandal a few years ago of the Olympic bid rorts and bribes.

Any time big money gets into Sbort it becomes big business and no longer is about sport.

Australia apparantly spends $170M on our Olympic elite athletes, and its suggested a recent gold medal cost us $3M?

While I admire the Athletes for their talents and efforts, I dont really consider they are doing it for “me” or the “Nation”, I’m sure thats not what gets them up every day and working hard on their skills, and I dont begrudge their sponsorships etc as they gain fame etc, but I dont really need our Government to spend even more over the next 4 years to “regain” Australia’s sporting crown, or what ever other patriotic heart strings will be used to get more money out of my pocket for something I dont value at all.

In Australia the big “Sborts and Yarts” Organisations (as presented by our Cultural Attache Sir Les Patterson) have a deathgrip on government funding, and things that interest me, like aviation heritage, or even a National Aviation Museum, get very little government funding or support.

Australia dramatically increased it Olympic funding prior to the Sydney Olympics, and its reasonable for a host country to try and maximise its performance but also to encourage and fund as many of its athletes to perform in front of the home ground audience, but there is no need to continue at those levels ongoing to try and maintain that batting average indefinately. So theres something for Great Britain to be wary of beyond the London Olympics.

Interestingly, our impoverished Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) is now claiming the current medal shortfall is due to a lack of government funding over the last 4 years, not because its gone down in real terms, but because it hasnt kept pace with other larger countries – (or counties too smiles).

This is in a reality of annual funding by the Australian Government of $170 Million a year, and astonishingly, when the AOC is sitting on $100M in investments arising from previous Australian Government Funding,(see quoted article below)

My view is if they needed more then they should have dipped into that $100M nest egg, and if they didnt need it, then the Australian Government could have reduced its funding by $50M per year and let the AOC use some of that previous surplus!!

Then that $50M a year might be spent on things that interest some other Australians, even a National Aviation Museum??

So congratulations to all those Athletes are delivered their personal bests, with medals resulting or not, and congratulations to the UK for doing well in the medal tally as the host nation, but be aware that medal counts dont become the focus.

In Australia, for me, that would be to build something lasting as a legacy to other Australians who achieved something for their country?, rather than funding the next reduction of a world or Olympic record by a fraction of a second? or Gold medal tally well above our relative population size?

Is there better things the UK could be spending money on at the moment?, I was surprised to hear of half empty stadiums in the first week, and that tourists were not visiting tourism attractions in anycase, and of course the arguments for hosting the Olympics that it will provide much needed sporting infratructure and bring in lots of tourist dollars, is another example of the Sborts Rorts.

Certainly beware they dont demand you up the investment in future years to ensure you ‘keep” winning gold medals.

regards

Mark Pilkington

THE Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, has been calling for more taxpayer funding of elite sports at the same time as his organisation sits atop $100 million in funds, financial accounts show.

The money, invested in shares and property funds by the related Australian Olympic Foundation, would be enough to fund at least 700 athletes to attend the nation’s top school for elite sportsmen and women, the Australian Institute of Sport, for five years.

Speaking from London, the head of the foundation’s investment committee, the former Liberal leader John Hewson, said it was ”absolutely” worthwhile investing the money rather than spending it.

”I have no doubt that this is the best structure, rather than spending the money as you raise it, because it’s very difficult to raise money these days for sports and charities,” he said.

Advertisement Besides being president of the AOC, for which he is paid $482,000 a year, Mr Coates is chairman of the foundation.

In November, he said Australia’s London Olympics medal tally would be reduced because state sports institutes were not getting enough money.

He had previously dismissed as ”insulting” a 2009 government report calling for money to be diverted to grassroots sports. And he returned to the theme last week, saying a flood of money for swimming approved in 2010 came too late to salvage Olympic gold at London.

The foundation was set up in 1996 but it began seriously investing after an $88.5 million injection following the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

After paying a $6.3 million cash distribution to the AOC, the fund had $106 million at the end of last year, down from $115 million the previous year.

The government spends about $170 million a year on elite athletes, with most of that focused on Olympic sports.

Almost $20 million a year of that goes to the Australian Institute of Sport to provide support to 1200 athletes, 700 of whom received full or part scholarships.

Dr Hewson is chairman of the committee that oversees the foundation’s investment strategy, which is heavily weighted towards shares and property assets that have been badly affected by the downturn in the United States and continuing economic turmoil in Europe.

However, Dr Hewson said: ”We’ve been able to fund them [the AOC] and increase the capital amount, even with the GFC and the Asian crisis.”

Since the Sydney Games, the foundation has paid cash distributions of $74 million to the AOC.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/olympics/news-london-2012/aoc-finances-good-as-gold-20120807-23scb.html#ixzz22uRHp2Z0

Tony, just bear with Mark, I mean, how would you feel if you won less medals to such a small Country compared to Aus in the Olympics :D:D

Jim.

Lincoln .7

or COUNTY:D
http://orbittower.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/updated-Yorkshire-Medals-Table.jpg

On my life, this is true. This evening I had a call from SKY Customer services, by a female operatiive named Jade, she was from Aus, and had a strong Aus accent. she asked me if I had been watching the Olymics, and was the service good, also which event I thought was the most interesting.
I told her watching the cycling in the Veladrome. but I was discusted by the fact that “Our Viictoria” had been pushed over the red line, and had to be relegated from her Gold status due to the Aus elbowing her, forcing Victoria over the red line, I said the Aus should have been disqualified if they had to resort to tantamount dirty tactics which this particular female Aus racer is well known for.
I am still wondering why she put the phone down, could it be something I said?.:diablo:

Jim.

Lincoln .7

Its called XXXX because they cant spell Beer !!

Perhaps they should start brewing decent beer down under its the only thing that stops more athletes emigrating :diablo::diablo::diablo::diablo::diablo:

Ohhhh groan, not this old subject again. :p

Joke. 🙂

Tony, just bear with Mark, I mean, how would you feel if you won less medals to such a small Country compared to Aus in the Olympics :D:D

Jim.

Lincoln .7

Now this guy in the pub last night dont quote me like but straight up he is dead on .He was telling me about these old aeroplanes down a mine shaft somewhere in Asia and some buried in a crate in Australia. Really I says never heard of that right on he says so it must be right !!!!!.Then there is this other one he is telling me about some American fellas have found or they think they have or at least a friend of a friend of a mate of theirs says that they have !!!

Really ???????;);););)

Hey this has got some aviation content Allegedly ?????