Australian Games chief slams funding report

Australia's Olympic chief has slammed a government-commissioned report criticising the country's obsession with medal counts.

The independent review, released yesterday, said the focus on winning Olympic medals was hurting participation rates and diverting badly-needed funding from grass-roots sports.

The review also rejected calls by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) for even more funding to maintain the country's top-five standing in the medal count at the 2012 London Games, saying the government should give priority to popular sports like cricket, golf and football.

"The Panel does not believe that the medal count is an appropriate measure of Australian performance or that 'Top Five' is a sensible target," the report said.

"The Panel's judgment, after hearing all of the submissions and looking at the data, is that if another A$100 million (US$93.63 million) per year is invested in sport it would better directed to other priorities."

The AOC had requested an extra $100 million for each of the next three years, on top of the current $140 million budget, to arrest a potential slide down the medal standings.

AOC chairman John Coates described the report's assertion that government funding was biased towards elite sport as "nonsense" and said its authors were not qualified to make recommendations.

"I think you'll find Australians are immensely proud of our Olympic athletes and Olympic record. Olympians have inspired this nation for decades," Coates told reporters.

The report called for a debate about "which sports carry the national ethos" amid rising healthcare costs stemming from lifestyle diseases like obesity.

"Swimming, tennis, cricket, cycling, the football codes, netball, golf, hockey, basketball, surfing and surf lifesaving are among the most popular sports in Australia, a part of the national psyche," it said.

"If we are truly interested in a preventative health agenda through sport, then much of it may be better spent on lifetime participants than almost all on a small group of elite athletes who will perform at that level for just a few years."

Coates said if the report's recommendations were followed it would mean the exclusion of fringe sports, already unable to draw funds through gate receipts or broadcast rights revenues, from the public purse.