Article by Nick Wright, courtesy of the WA Today.
For all the euphoria surrounding Australia’s historic exploits in Paris, Olympic legend Natalie Cook fears a worrying financial reality could sap the potential from Brisbane 2032.
The former beach volleyball gold medallist has issued a dire warning, saying the local Games could suffer – not because of talent but because of money.
She believes the financial burden carried by individual athletes and their families, as well as the allure of non-Olympic sports that have the resources to develop their young stars, could hurt Australia’s chances.
“I’ve had a few teenage girls here from Australia I bump into and get photos, and they’re so excited, and I say, ‘What sport do you want to play?’ They say AFL. I say, ‘What other sport?’ and they say netball,” Cook said.
“We’ve got two talent drains there for women specifically that aren’t Olympic sports … where we are losing a lot of our talented females already before we get to everything with the cost of living and the price to compete and get better.
“From the beach volleyball to water polo, hockey, table tennis, shooting, diving – it’s a struggle.
“But they just put their head down and bum up, which is why they’re high-performing athletes – they don’t have time to complain until they can’t eat.
“Then the problem is you need to get a job – some athletes are packing shelves at the supermarkets and are exhausted and can’t perform. The Hockeyroos are on 110 bucks a week – I don’t understand.
“Even an athlete I was with last night [in Paris], I asked her, ‘What’s next?’ She said, we start raising money again for next year’s world championships.”
When Nina Kennedy stood atop of the pole vault podium, her triumph marked the nation’s finest Games in 128 years: 18 gold medals, surpassing the record of 17 in Athens 2004 and Tokyo 2021.
These heroics can inspire a new generation in the same manner as the Matildas’ exploits at the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
But while Australia’s top-line swimmers receive strong backing – spearheaded by business magnate Gina Rinehart – and rugby sevens and basketball have lucrative leagues, other sports have been left behind.
They are struggling to financially support themselves, paying their own way to competitions.
According to Australian Sport Foundation chief partnerships officer Ryan Holloway, only 26 per cent of athletes in Paris received financial support from a sporting body.
He said part of their goal was to connect people with corporations to receive funding assistance and employment opportunities to remain active.
“I think the misconception around sport is that athletes are very highly paid, and it can be skewed by the larger commercial sports we have in the country that do get a lot of airtime and sell newspapers and TV rights,” Holloway said.
“But the fact is, they are the less than 1 per cent. What we’re trying to do is … help diversify the funding mix for them, so they can pursue their goals and dedicate the time required to be an elite sportsperson.
“It’s about how we can work with programs that help create relationships between athletes and industry, where they can still be able to dedicate the time required to bring home gold medals, but have a long-term view of where they can have vocations afterwards.
“Hopefully, it just allows our athletes to stay in sport longer, and provide us with that pipeline of great athletes towards Brisbane 2032.”
Then there is the issue of attaining such levels, with a dearth of finances in the junior levels around facilities, travel and coaching, as well as the escalating price of participation.
According to Holloway, this particularly affects developing athletes coming from rural and regional centres, leading to the likelihood of missing “the diamonds in the rough”.
Few of the current champions are likely to be active by 2032.
Among our individual gold medal winners, only 200-metre freestyle champion Mollie O’Callaghan and skateboarding wunderkinds Arisa Trew and Keagan Palmer will be younger than 30.
The ASF has found that almost half of Australian Olympic contenders had contemplated abandoning their dreams because of the strain of juggling full-time training and employment.
Cook has sought to educate athletes to support themselves in the same manner she did after walking away from a physiotherapy degree.
Fundraising endeavours and building relationships with corporations can only get them so far.
And Cook has called on governments to incorporate part of that boom into the athletes’ pockets.
If the state is to reap the rewards of the competitors’ efforts – estimated to be about $8.1 billion – then Cook is adamant they deserved to be compensated.
“Every business is going to be looking for procurement, [but] imagine if 0.05 per cent of everything that was paid for in Queensland for the Games was given to our athletes to help them get there?” Cook said.
“Everyone wants to back a winner, but how do you know who’s going to win? They need a shot and a fighting chance … [and] I think we need a little bit more and go a bit wider in the aspirational side.
“We need more Ginas, more corporations to go, ‘I’ll help one of those in the green and gold’.”
