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Australian newspaper combines country’s medals with New Zealand’s, as Aussies plunge down the medal table
Australia's skein of having finished in the top 10 in gold medals at every Summer Olympics since 1988 seems certain to end and well, damned if isn't fun to peer in on the their national panic.
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Two golds from Australia? That's jarring to a Canadian perspective, given that sports columnists in this country have often cited the Aussies as a beacon of how a sparsely populated country can get amateur sport right. (Not so much this time, though.)
The country's struggles — and thin skin about New Zealand still having a 3-2 edge in gold medals, thanks to the Kiwi rowers — has led to desperate measures. With Australia at 21 medals total with a week left in London 2012, the country's sports brass has scaled back its target of 46 medals to 30-36. Meantime, the Daily Telegraph has made light of it all including the fictional land of AUS ZEALAND in the medal table.
Instead of currently sitting in 24th place, thanks to the efforts of New Zealand's heroic rowers, the trans-Tasman neighbours now currently sit with New Zealand in ninth.
We are not sure if this is someone at Sydney's Daily Telegraph's idea of a joke, but we are sure most Kiwis will not find this blatant act of doctoring all that funny. (Yahoo! New Zealand)
What happened to you, Australia? You used to be cool, finishing fourth in golds in Sydney and Athens. Canada, being a fellow Commonwealth country, was happy for you and didn't begrudge you for all the expat Aussie males with their easy charm.
(Take away that accent and the average Australian guy is as exotic and charming and mysterious as your cousin Dave from Timmins.)
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Well, what happened was after a string of successful Olympic showings — and here is a cautionary tale for Canada on the Winter side, given that Australia was also buoyed by hosting the Games — they cut back on funding for sport. What's happened in London has been a reckoning.
The most senior Australian member of the International Olympic Committee, the former Olympian Kevin Gosper, told ABC the failure to win gold medals resulted directly from cuts to government funding of Olympic sports in 2009.
The Australian government allocated nearly [$325 million Aus.[ to sports programs in its 2010 budget but the [$52M Aus.] earmarked for Olympics-focused high performance sports was only half what the [Australian Olympic Committee] had lobbied for.
Gosper said more had to be spent on top coaches and on international competition to ensure Australian athletes were competitive at the Olympic games. "Now that really cost us," he said. "You've got to put money in there. That pays for coaches, it pays for international competition. The money is the difference between silver and gold."
Coates also laid blame at the feet of the government, saying it needed to change policy and priorities to ensure funding was available for sport in schools.
"Perhaps the area that needs a lot of attention … and government intention in terms of policy is getting sport back into the school curricula," he said. "The British are making a big thing of that being one of the legacies they're looking towards and they've been achieving that, a greater emphasis on sport in schools. We need that because we've got to make sure we have a talent pool." (The Guardian)
Of course, it's arguable that the nation of 22 million might have overachieved across the past five Olympics and is now regressing to the mean. One won't claim to know the state of Australia's finances (better than the U.S., at least?), but it might have been pragmatic to realize the wave had crested. That sort of raises the question of why there was a promise to match their Beijing medal total instead of a honest admission those days could be past. Sometimes it takes a while to adapt after being spoiled by success.
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Meantime, as always, there's the philosophical debate of whether Olympic success is just a veneer covering for a more sedentary society.
From Susie O'Brien:
Australia is lucky to have an excellent system of club sports. There are many opportunities outside of schools for future champions who have a special talent.
Sadly, though, if the size of many of our kids is anything to go by, parents, like schools, are not doing a good enough job of keeping children active.
We should all be alarmed by the results of the Australian Health Survey in 2010, which found that 42 per cent of children aged nine to 16 failed to meet activity guidelines of an hour or more on most days.
In the end, parents and schools both need to do more to get kids off the couch and kicking the footy at the park or doing laps at the pool.
I'm not so worried about the crocodile tears of a few elite athletes who failed to bag a gold. (Herald Sun)
That column could have easily been written in Canada. That's always the dilemma: if it has to be one or the other, what's more important? Medals and basking in someone else's reflected glory, or a healthier society?
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
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