The Houli’s are aligned on this. Those three definitely gave me the most satisfaction.
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Rowing was our biggest fail
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The focus on the number of Golds distorts our competitiveness in the different sports. We need to consider the other medals and top ten finishes as a measure of our success in different sports.
Hockey is sadly undergoing a slow death over here. My area was a strong hockey area with dozens of teams and near on 2000 participants at one stage and now every second season it seems like another club is pulling a grade and juniors are dwindling. This is filtering up to our major state comp which is struggling big time and was once a powerful comp. So many other sports out there now
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However, competition in hockey is limited to a few countries, from memory mostly Indian subcontinent , Netherlands, UK and Australia . Field hockey is not a big sport in USA, in colder northern countries, ice hockey dominates.
Shorten revealed that Raygun got a $20k government grant, otherwise only a cost free trip to Paris to compete in the Olympics, what’s not to love?
An athlete able to hold down a day job, no intensive training in competition, no need to fork out for extensive travel or for equipment, her training facilities where she lives and works.
Maybe athletes who have spent a lot of their own money, have had to train and compete at the expense of income from employment outside sport, the ones who didn’t get to the Games , might not share in the love or understand why she gets so much favourable publicity.
yep. it’s not even close
2nd highest amount of annual asc high performance funding. 1 bronze medal out of 14 events
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And Gina’s sponsorship.
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hockey suffers from accessibility issues. majority of the clubs are in relatively affluent areas, where as you said young people have a shtload of options
the number of families prepared to regularly travel in from low income areas to high is statistically insignificant enough it’s fine to just generalise and say they don’t
which then creates the chicken/egg scenario for building pitches outside the high income areas. can’t play without a pitch, won’t invest in a pitch without the players
nepotism and corruption
the media will eventually get over it’s raygun infatuation and dig deeper into the workings of the Australian Breaking Association which was setup by her and her husband and runs a closed shop of 20 members of which she was the one chosen to go to Paris in a comp judged by her husband
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Did Blicavs win?
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When we first moved into my area as a kid I was surprised at how big hockey was. It was a clear number 1 and every school and college in the region played it and participation numbers dwarved everything else but has definitely been a big decline in the last 10-15 years. Wouldn’t be top 4 anymore I don’t think
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astro turf soccer pitches will get more engagement than hockey
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I really enjoyed the Volleyball at the Olympics. Great sport as a spectator. Shame it’s not bigger in Australia.
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its surprisingly popular in rec leagues
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Yeah, but there is no big league here that I am aware of.
I stand corrected, there is a super league that I have never heard of.
Go the Melbourne Vipers!
Might start my own website ViperBlitz.
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top 4? it’s not even top 15
certain sports have strongholds in certain areas for a whole variety of reasons, but the drop off is always the same reason - protectionism and unwillingness to change/adapt
basketball and netball chew up every single indoor court the second it becomes available
growth is really, really difficult for indoor sports in metro areas
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Very good point. I enjoyed watching Volleyball more than Basketball. Both my kids play basketball, but I can’t get into it.
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I’m talking about my region. It’s fallen from a clear number 1 but would still be around top 5-6 I’d think.
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