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Athletics in Australia is NOT a Joke
Edward Ovadia
Email: edwardovadia [at] gmail.com
This is in response to a post by Wayne Goldsmith about the state of athletics in Australia. Read his post here - but don't be taken in. Wayne is heavily critical of athletics in Australia, and claims that 'everyone' thinks it's a joke. But he's wrong. This is a reply, based on a comment I have left him (you can read the original comment on his site, if he posts it). It talks about a lot of issues which are highly relevant within the sport; including why we shouldn't expect to be as dominant as we are in, say, swimming; and what can be done about it.
Is Athletics in Australia a Joke?
Let me start by saying: Are you kidding me?
Whether we go on to perform well in Beijing or not, Australian Athletics (as apposed to Athletics Australia, mind) is going strongly. Somehow you manage not to even mention the real problems in the sport: Athletics Australia's (AA) selection decisions have left something to be desired, the domestic season is in decline, and funding and sponsorship is lagging.
Athletics is very badly funded in Australia. The funds that we do have may not be that well spent, but that's a different problem. The five million athletics gets a year is nothing. As one of the two biggest sports in the world (the other is soccer), we should be getting ten times that. I'm told the UK spends 100 million on athletics, the US probably even more. Out of the relatively mainstream sports, athletics must be the worst funded of all. We pour all this money into all types of football, and then complain when our athletes don't win gold. How many Olympic golds do rugby league players win? If you're going to want medals, the money should be spent where they are available. If not, then be quiet and let athletics try and manage with the measly amount of money we have.
International competition in athletics is harder than other sports. Only in athletics (and soccer) do we truly take on the world. Swimming is a very elite sport in international terms. If you took out Australia, America, China and Europe, you'd have almost no one left. That's because it requires infrastructure and resources that many countries don't have. In athletics, however, you compete against a pool of talent much bigger than swimming because athletics takes very little equipment. Have a pair of shoes? You're in the club. Sure, we still win medals occasionally. But it's immeasurably harder. And it makes the results we do achieve all the more valuable.
Also, in terms of development, the little athletics model as a process of developing talent is flawed. There's trouble in transition between little athletics and senior athletics, between junior and open ranks, and between school competitions and club competition. We lack the high school and NCAA culture of athletics that the US fosters. Instead, promising athletes are going to the football codes. Why would they stay in athletics where there is no money, limited sponsorship opportunities, and very little general public interest. In the US there is incentive to stay in athletics, and athletics is a respectable sport to play in high school and college. That is unfortunately not the case in Australia, again because of the lack of money and sponsorship (and the culture of football we have in Australia). More funding would allow for a more dynamic domestic series and athletic structure within Australia, and would produce more and better athletes; all of which would in turn win over the sport-viewing public.
And then there's the point of the old age of some of our national records. Yet there are a multitude of records (both senior and junior) that have been broken recently. But athletics is the sport whose records are hardest to break. Think of other sports with records - cycling, rowing, and most importantly swimming. They are all much more based on technology than running and athletics in general. You are really limited to shoes (or the track surface, which is rarely changed) if you plan on improving performance via technology. Whereas in swimming, you deal with the swim suit (and we all know what a big difference that makes), the pool (depth, width, the edges), the lane ropes... the list goes on. And these changes are happening all the time - which is why world records in swimming have become de rigueur and almost meaningless. Also, records in athletics, especially long distance, require perfect situations. It needs to be a straight final (no heats), there needs to be pacing, and there needs to be no major prize on offer (such as the Olympic gold medal). This is because in other situations, tactics play too big a part. In swimming, however, there are little tactics of the same as on the track. Swimmers regularly swim to their personal bests, because they swim somewhat independently, in their own lanes, instead of in a pack. (The same can be seen for track races in lanes i.e. sprints. When you take athletes out of lanes, records get broken very rarely.) So to use that as an example as to why athletics is not progressing is specious.
You'll also find if you look at world records that many of them are fairly old - not as old as some of ours, but you wouldn't expect them to be, since the whole world, including many more specialised nations than Australia, have been attacking them.
Finally, who cares if our athletes are based outside of Australia? Because of the lack of money, they have to be, as the best competition and facilities are in Europe and the USA. Even then, many athletes try to spend a lot of time training in Australia. Just ask Mottram or Troop. And you rubbish Steve Hooker for having a foreign born coach? Who cares? That's the norm these days. I hear the Wallabies are doing pretty well now under Robbie Deans, by the way.
But I'm glad you recognise at the end that it's not the fault of the athletes. The management has some questions to answer, but publicly stating that "Athletics in Australia is a joke", and criticising the sport on the basis of incorrect and sweeping statements - that's not helping.
Edward's website
9 comments
Jim Beisty said...
"It's not a joke,just a minor sport. Get over it!".
20 August 2008 11:16
Lee Troop said...
"Bloody good reply Edward!!".
20 August 2008 14:41
Anonymous said...
"Much more logical then Goldsmiths article. Goldsmith takes the viewpoint that the large amount of competition in athletics is an excuse used by athletics australia. A prime example of the differance participating nations make on medal tallies would be the comm games, off the top of my head australia won 7 gold. In regards to the $5 million you are right, we are one of the least funded of many participating nations in athletics. Another factor is that athletics within australia, when compared to football codes is seen to be quite obscure. With no recognition for achievement nor any real monetary incentives it is no wonder our athletes train elsewhere.".
20 August 2008 16:32
Flow said...
"My opinion as to why athletics in Australia is struggling stems from my experience in the sport during the early and mid 90s. It was a boom period and there were specific reasons for it. A comparison between now and then is quite necessary in order to understand what this country needs to do next.".
20 August 2008 19:04
Edward Ovadia said...
"Jim, I know you're an extremely good runner, and I know how excited you've been on CR with the Aussie results. My point is not that it's not a minor sport - we'll never be able to rival the football codes, because that's the culture in Australia. But in accepting that it's not the most major sport, you also accept that we're not going to win as many medals, and success will come slower. So you can't suddenly turn around and complain that athletics is a joke, when we're not as successful as as other sports in the Olympics.".
"Troopy, great to hear from you. Best of luck on Sunday!".
"Anonymous, good point about the Comm. Games. That's a prime example.".
"Flow, I'd love to hear your thoughts about why the 90s were so good, and your comparison between now and then.".
20 August 2008 19:30
John Whyte...
"The argument that athletics needs very little equipment is only partially true. there are a lot of technical events in Athletics where poorer nations ar e disadvantaged e.g polevault, hurdles. I think it is negative to say current athletes are poor because records are 20 years old, instead we should be celebrating how good these past athletes were. I bet cathy freemans 400 record will last a long time. Man and women have not evolved physically so why should records be broken given the same running conditions like tracks etc. trails closer to the even not six months beforehand. Also selections are based on qualifying times rather then an athletes ability to race and win.".
20 August 2008 23:24
Edward Ovadia said...
"Good point John, and that's why we do comparatively well in hurdles and pole vault (and the throws).".
20 August 2008 23:35
Flow said...
"hi Edward. there are two parts to this although interconnected.".
"First was the junior development program that existed in Australia from the late 80s and into the 90s of which i was part of.".
"This program had 3 or 4 camps throughout the year for up to 4 or 5 athletes from each event. The excitement and socialising was a big part of it. Everyone loved athletics so much. The sugar industry sponsored the whole program.".
"The best way to exemplify how successful this program was is to look at the members of the world junior team of 1990 - when the program was in full swing, and the Atlanta Olympic Team of 1996. The transfer was remarkable with 25% of the 52 strong team making Atlanta. They included Forsythe, Freeman, Gainsford, Poetschka, Saville, Robinson, Van Der Kuyp, Kylie Hanigan, Unthank, Vizaniari, Hollingsworth, Currey and me.".
"The list grows a lot longer when you extend it to the 1988 team and include world championships and Olympics.".
"The second bit is to do with coaching. The personal coaches were all allowed to come to the camps, they may even have been invited. The coaches were definitely given a lot more respect in the process than they are now. Back then coaches were empowered and enjoyed being involved. This has now changed and i believe the reverse is happening - disempowerment - and has been happening ever since the ATFCA lost its independent source of funding somewhere in the early 90s.".
"So for me AA needs to cut it's staff in half as quickly as possible and re-create the junior development program as it was back then - ie fun - and finally including the personal coaches in the process instead of making them feel like that matter not - which is the present situation. Redirection of funding. I think there were 6 FT staff in the AA office back in 1990 when i first entered those doors in North Melbourne"
22 August 2008 03:06
Flow said...
"After reading your words in full (sorry) i thought i'd say a > little more.".
"We have all of these issues that you have mentioned - relative funding levels - I remember a statistic once where in total for all sport Govt. funding The Czech Republic - as it was then - spent the equivalent of $47 per capita on sport. Australia spent $2.".
"The problem with Little Athletics - it is a competition style approach whereas in the Soviet Union of the 70s and 80s for example 6 year olds were involved in a generalised physical development program - mostly skill and coordination based with fitness by-products. Competition was only used as a tool in training to inspire more complete efforts from time to time, not to beat someone else or win something necessarily. IN Swden at the moment a nationwide program sees all secondary students doing athletics for the whole year. Year 7-10 i think and it is done because athletics is seen as a fundamental for all sports - which many of us already know (except the government).".
"Also the gap between little athletics and senior athletics. Partly this is communication. At many centers little athletics and senior athletics have to share facilites and resources. This alone creates enmity between the two groups. Many are not on speaking terms. So it becomes difficult for the young athlete to make the transition when the adults involved are acting like children themselves. The problem is not just this though, in fact the communication problem may not have much effect at all. The main problem i see is within the competition structure of little athletics itself. See in u13 they have national championships. The best u13 athletes of each state are selected. It is the most prestigious thing in the sport. It consumes the focus of the talented athletes and their often obsessive parents. Then suddenly in u14 the process stops at state level - no national team and the conplete loss of the massive momentum gained from the previous year for all of those talented athletes. So numbers drop by a massive amount from u13 to u14 and centers 400+ strong end up having only 3 or 4 u15 athletes. So senior athletics may get those few and a couple more that went straight from u13 or u14 little aths into seniors. I believe little aths needs to cease at u13 level and allow seniors to start in u14. On top of all of this is most 13 and 14 year olds are not into the idea they still do 'little' athletics. They don't want to be little, they want to be senior.".
"Then technology thing - it's annoying hey, swimming gets more exposure and attention because world records are more interesting on top of a gold medal than just a gold medal. Multi golds is also big news. Easier to get in swimming as well. Only 43 countries or near are in FISA, whereas IAAF has over 200. But people are starting to realse this i believe and the flood of world records in swimming at the games only serves to cheapen their significance. We will be right when we get our next distance running boom going :)".
"Goldsmith's competition argument - i think the competition with other sports idea is a very minor one. For one i don't think that many footballers would become Olympic level athletes. Of course you could probably find 20 or 30 who could but there are some specific differences between a footballer type (as they exist and can be identified already in school) and the athlete type who also can be identified in school. I don't believe the two types can cross over very often at all - the aport specificity is too high. One main reason for this is pyschology - one type of person will thrive in a group environment and the other will suffer, instead he will need a solitary environment where the group guy will not be able to handle the solitary situation for very long. I beleive this quite strongly as i have been observing itt for years now. For one i played football till year 12. At Melbourne High School they often had guys come from the country for year 12 to also play u19s for an AFL team. In the first 18 i played in we had about 7 AFL guys playing. Incredible it was for me to be a part of. Now i could play ok and mainly i could run people down or run clear into space or maybe deliver the ball from the half back into the forward line with a long sprint and stab fass to the full forward a couple of times a game. I was definitely the most athletic and far from the best player. One guy - Andy Lovell i think, won Best on Ground in the second semi final for Melbourne back then in 1988. So i knew the difference i guess even then. Now having worked in schools for the last decade i've seen it over and over. Sport is very specific. Cheers."
22 August 2008 03:53
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