Yeah this is interesting. I’m under the impression that the ASC has been more concerned with Olympic performance rather than a flat # of adult participation or ‘olympic participation status’… It’s traditionally been tied to actual high performance/results. This is why the grassroots is often neglected because the funding is typically tied to high performance initiatives (i.e. not to be spent on participation initiatives). In reality high performance success comes from a balance of both - identifying talent more broadly at a young age, having pathways to nurture through to elite age brackets, and then having the high performance funding to capitalise once there.
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rowing is ridiculously participated in by rich people
Swimming, Rowing, Sailing, Paddle and Cycling were all gold medal winning sports at Tokyo, and appear to be the most ASC most funded sports on that 24/25 investment allocation as we are still in the Paris cycle at time of funding.
Fully expecting Swimming, Paddle and Cycling to stay at the top of that ASC funding model for LA cycle based on actual results in Paris.
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Only $25,000 to Bocce? It’s a bloody outrage!
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But actually participated in rather than cheering on young Timmy in the Head of the River?
Monday morning row while the riff raff go to work
historically, yes
the shift in approach has been gradual over the last 6-8 years, but is now (last 6-12 months) openly stated
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nah not in there
climbing is an interesting one, because participation at the moment is almost entirely commercially driven (climbing gyms) rather than nfp club like most other sports. so the governing body is really only concerned with regulatory compliance (eg rules for competitions). there’s not much they could actually achieve with asc funding other than paying coaches
remember that participation doesn’t necessarily mean competing
rowing has around 150k participants. 5k of them are u18
A local high school in Canberra used to regularly win the comps against the Sydney and Canberra private schools. Maybe it wasn’t an expensive sport there, ease of access to Lake Burley Griffin , boats could be stored at the Lake, rowers out there before and after school. The local rowing club was pretty egalitarian.
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I don’t believe there’s ridiculous participation though. How many boats do we see in the Yarra? Or at Aspendale?
A high percentage of participants for sure have money, but I can’t see it as an actual high participation sport??
Do ergo machines in gyms classify as participation in rowing?
There’s a few things here though. With no funding, the ability to even hold competitions is completely at the mercy of these commercial organisations and their commercial imperatives. To take a gym out of commercial operation for 2 days to hold a state title requires a lot of negotiation, and the gyms have to believe they will get something back (which I strongly doubt they do).
And obviously (or maybe not obviously) the ability of someone like Oceana or Campbell to actually train in these commercial gyms is incredibly limited due to the fact that route setting can’t possibly be at the level they need. To run a comp you need to strip all the routes, put up some new routes (and having suitably trained setters is pretty unlikely given the commercial gyms are looking at completely different levels and types of routes) for the comp, then re set the gym afterwards.
What they clearly need is their own, non commercial, base. As well as funding for setting, training, and all of the travel etc required of national team representatives.
yes that is a need, but having that built for them is never going to happen under new funding priorities. purpose-built single sport facilities without commercial applications aren’t a reality any more. so revenue to build one has to be derived from recreational participation. but commercial climbing gyms already own that space.
the commercially driven participation is a huge advantage for the sport because the governing body don’t have to invest time/energy in getting people to try it. but it comes at the expense of being second in line for facility use.
-edit- different sports have different attitudes towards commercial operators. netball and soccer don’t really give a sht at all. climbing and combat sports and cue sports have come to terms with their place in the ecosystem. meanwhile you have nrl who fkng hate commercial operators running touch footy comps and try everything to kill them off. ended up creating a space where oztag has thrived
-edit2- and a few years ago dodgeball tried to take on commercial operators and lost
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go to geelong
It’s obviously pretty complicated. Is there state funding for the state organisations?
I am interested in the athletics funding model in the context of your email.
As a sport participation is all over the place. At junior level, Little Aths has all of the money and the participants. At senior level the participants aligned with the state and national bodies are miniscule compared to the commercial space, in terms of the big fun runs etx (and compared to the Parkrun space as well).
There are also a whole heap of purpose built expensive facilities that don’t service the commercial or Parkrun markets, and which have limited commercial use (how many school sports days can they run)
And they have very little success at the elite level.
How do you try and make any sort of funding case for that one? I am sure the Olympics will drive participation at junior levels and for the fun run/park run type things, but there’s no chance anyone is watching the pole vault and thinking, yeah I’ll try that.
But surely that’s mostly College and Grammar practicing for Head of the River? Surely there’s not thousands of adults rowing up and down every morning???
Someone from the AIS high performance area was recently interviewed on its contribution to our Olympic athletes. She gave special mention to the contribution of the VIS.
The AIS was established and funded arising from the Montreal Olympic results. Initially it sought to locate and train athletes at its ACT HQ. That got dropped a while back, with different States having the edge in different sports.
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yeah, but mostly for participation only. very little for facilities (in vic anyway) that aren’t just more change rooms
ah you see now frosty aths tracks are public access without the need for staffing to be safe to use. so technically they are multi-purpose - you can walk or run on them (infield is often used for soccer as well). and the majority are council owned/run so don’t necessarily need a commercial element.
the separation between little aths and athletics vic/aus is an interesting one. they can never agree on what the purpose of little aths is - community participation or elite talent pathway. also aths wants a piece of the money pie and little aths has no reason to give any of the pie up
the participation base is large enough that it doesn’t really matter that much - aths clubs still end up with a steady enough stream of new members to keep the lights on - despite the barrier to entry to most disciplines (go outside for a run) being low enough for the clubs to not even be necessary
the lack of success in track & field in my opinion is a cultural one. we (australians) don’t value individual success in most endeavours in the same way other countries do, so there’s a learned attraction to team sports.
(swimming’s an exception to the rule as far as my theory goes - having the skill embeded in primary school curriculum probably explains that)
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Little Aths relies on a lot of volunteers