Sports money chief slates athletes who went 'walkabout'

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Three of New Zealand's elite Olympians - discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina, triathlete Hamish Carter and cyclist Anthony Peden - were not worth the money given to them, based on their performances at the Sydney Games, says Sports Foundation head Chris Ineson.

The man in charge of hand-picking elite athletes for Olympic funding roasted three of his charges last night for their dismal efforts.

Faumuina, a former world champion discus thrower, crashed out second-to-last in the final, Carter had a "real crap race" and finished 26th, while Peden pulled out of the sprints and was disqualified in the keiren.

Shortly before the closing ceremony, a disconsolate Mr Ineson told One News that New Zealand's record number of athletes had not produced the goods for the money spent on them - between $8 million and $10 million since the last Olympics.

The foundation refuses to break down the figures by individual athletes, although it did give Faumuina $50,000 when she won the world championships in 1997.

In the past three years, athletics has been given $1.3 million, cycling $2.1 million and triathlon, nearly $1 million (much of it to Carter).

"Look in the eyes of some of these athletes," Mr Ineson said. "Some of them were just totally focused. Others, I think, went walkabout. "Les Mills [Faumuina's coach and New Zealand chef de mission] made the point about Beatrice when he said she was not on the job, she was some place else."

Mr Ineson said the foundation would look hard at athletes who had not measured up in Sydney to see if they were worthy of future backing.

"We anticipated more than four medals. We certainly provided the resources.

"We want to know what went wrong at the end of the day."

But in the wake of New Zealand's worst performance at the Olympics since 1968 and the close role of the Sports Foundation in preparing the team, there were calls yesterday for Mr Ineson to resign.

Sports commentator Murray Deaker agreed.

"It seems to me he is turning on the people he selected, ahead of other people, who were part of a policy ... of identifying medal winners.

"It was the Sports Foundation, headed by Chris, that made that decision, and they have obviously got it wrong. On the basis of that, it is hard to have any confidence in him."

Deaker said Mr Ineson should play no part in any review because he was part of the failure.

"You know who I would call in? Some Australians. The Aussies understand us and it appears to me they would be very keen to assist."

NZ team psychologist and Massey University professor Gary Hermansson said some soul-searching was in order but NZ also had to come to terms with changes in international elite sport.

He said on the basketball court, some members of the US Dream Team earned up to $US20 million each a year, which was more than NZ put into high-performance sport.