Thursday, August 9th .....

Thank goodness that Australia has won a couple more gold medals in the past few days.  I had visions of the team coming back to Australia with their collective tails between their legs and being ignored by the usually-adoring public.  Even more worrying was the thought that our lack of success would lead to calls for more government funding to make sure we win more medals at the next Olympics.

I can remember the Montreal Olympics in 1976 when Australia did not win a single gold medal.  The immediate reaction was to throw money at the problem.  It took two or three Olympic cycles before we (the Australian public) were satisfied and we have now been locked into continuing funding of elite sport to the tune of some $170 million per year.  Just think what else we could do with that money.

The questioning has already started with so-called experts telling anyone who will listen what we should do to fix the problem.  The excuses are also rolling out – our best coaches are working overseas, we can’t afford to keep them in Australia, and so on.  As well, though, more and more people are starting to look at our obsession with Olympic gold medals and asking what spin-off benefits we receive from the spending.  Dr Steve Georgakis from Sydney University says:

“The notion that if you support the elite, it will stimulate interest at a grass roots level where kids follow by example, having gained an interest in swimming and sport is rubbish. It’s never been validated or supported.”

Somewhere I read of one commentator who was bemused by the fact that we, the second most obese nation in the world, is spending millions on a handful of elite athletes and almost nothing on sports which genuinely attract kids to take part: netball, soccer, gymnastics, etc.

I’ve been mulling this over for the past few days but my thoughts gelled when I saw Gruen Sweat last night.  The show is dissecting the marketing hype surrounding  the Olympics and last night they featured two mock ad campaigns addressing the question: how would you convince people to accept no government funding for Olympic athletes?  Both agencies took the tack of what else we could do with the money with such ideas as ‘for the same amount of money we could provide homes for 1000 homeless people or support Jason to run 15^th in his heat of the 800m’.  It was impressive stuff but I wouldn’t take much convincing that we have missed the plot.

Australians like to think that we ‘punch above our weight’ but we pay a high price for a bit of cheap pride. Maybe this Olympics will give us a reality check.

I am writing this as a Tasmanian whose government is closing schools and hospital beds but can still find $5 million to sponsor the Hawthorn Football Club to play five games of football in Launceston each year.  I can’t help thinking of the Roman idea of providing bread and circuses to keep the populace happy in the hope that it will stop them revolting.  Maybe it’s time we encouraged people to be more revolting.