Dialogue: Olympic funds go to athletes likely to win

CHRIS INESON* says that some sports must miss out on funding when the Sports Foundation picks out those athletes most likely to win Olympic medals.


Just weeks before New Zealand heads into the first Olympic Games to be held in this part of the world in nearly half a century, the Herald has taken issue with the way our athletes are being funded.

It reported that some of our Olympic athletes get more funding than others. It did not, however, present the reasons behind funding decisions which are arrived at after no small amount of agonising by some the country's leading sports and business luminaries.

Instead, the Herald reported the wail of "unfair" from a sport that feels it has been hard done by - the Tall Ferns women's basketball team.

The New Zealand Sports Foundation is devoted to helping our athletes to succeed on the world stage, whoever they are and whatever their sport. Our perennial problem, though, is how to make a little money go a long way.

New Zealand is a tiny country; our economy and our currency are hardly robust. The Sports Foundation's budget is paltry in comparison to the amounts other nations lavish on their athletes.

If the foundation had the money, we would gladly give the Tall Ferns and other sports more funding. But we lack those resources. We'll never outspend the Australias of the world, so we have to try to outsmart them.

New Zealand sporting success is not only our agenda; it has also become a national expectation. Olympic gold medals are important in many different ways, not least our sense of pride and of our place in the world.

In a recent survey carried out by the foundation, 87 per cent of New Zealanders said they wanted their athletes to be winners. They also said that, ahead of the rugby World Cup, the America's Cup and a number of other big events, they regarded the Sydney Olympics as a priority.

And here I come to the crux of this whole issue: the Olympic Games are about fierce, intense competition - a survival of the fittest. Put bluntly, the Games are about winning. They always have been, going back to the days of the ancient Greeks, and they always will be.

In Sydney, where the 10,300 best athletes in the world will congregate, the competitive pitch of this slugfest of sporting skills and wills will rise another notch, just as it has at every past games.

So, how can we best apply New Zealanders' limited money to the winning of medals in this toughest of sporting environments?

The Herald takes the foundation to task for having a "high-risk strategy of picking winners."Yet wouldn't there be a greater risk of New Zealand coming up with nothing if we didn't pick winners but gave everybody the same amount? Evenly spread handouts work for social welfare, but not for the Olympic Games.

Take a reigning world champion such as single sculler Rob Waddell. A grain of sand could separate him from a gold medal in Sydney. Does the Herald suggest that resources be diverted from his campaign to help a basketball team whose coach has publicly stated that he would be happy if they lost by 20 points to the sides they will meet in Sydney? Does the Herald believe that this would be doing the best by the people of New Zealand?

As for the question of picking winners, to a large extent these athletes pick themselves. We simply give them the resources to complete the job. The teams and individuals who are receiving larger amounts of support have, through determination and hard work, made their way to the top of the world in their respective sports over the past few years.

For many, that road has been tough. Our boardsailors, for example, have slept on beaches before major events around the world. Dare I say that those hardships have helped them become the battling Olympic medal prospects they are today?

Similarly, the women's hockey team has had to qualify the hard way, by travelling to the other side of the world. In doing so, they have raised their ranking over the past couple of years from 22nd in the world to the top six, and are considered genuine medal prospects.

I applaud the Tall Ferns' great victory over Slovakia, but one swallow does not make a summer. And they would be the first to admit they were fortunate that Australia's absence at the Oceania qualifying tournament virtually assured them of a place at the Games.

Three years ago, every sport that was going to the Games had the opportunity to stake its claim. Basketball's total grant back then ran to six figures. But come the final countdown, like Australia and other nations, the net tightens to help those who are most likely to succeed.

Certainly, in the preamble to the Olympic Games, there has been winning and losing, just as there will be in the Games themselves.

If you feel uncomfortable around tall poppies, you will say, "That's not fair." But if you understand the world of high-performance international sport, you will say, "That's life."

I come back to the question: does New Zealand want to spend money to send people to the Olympic Games to have wonderful experiences or to go out and win medals?

* Chris Ineson is chief executive of the Sports Foundation.

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