Walking and chewing gum

High Performance and Strategic Goals

The two primary talking points around Australian athletics in the last two months have been the nomination policy for the Olympic Games and the declared goal of six medals for the team.  Whilst they are connected Percy contends that the two areas may have different roles to play and interests may diverge at times.

Six medals.

Rob Fildes first declared that six medals were our target for London in the excitement post Beijing.  It was an off the cuff remark but the target was subsequently adopted as AA’s stated goal.  Dallas O’Brien and Eric Hollingsworth often made reference to the 6 medal goal in the lead up to the London Games.

This focus on medals is dictated largely by the ASC, from whom AA receives much of it’s funding ($8 million in 2011-12, $5.5 million of that for HP).  HP is assessed in the ASPR across the previous three benchmark events with the Olympics and Paralympics given high priority.  Given the degree to which AA relies on ASC funding, (it represents more than 80% of AA’s total budget) the focus on medals and making finals is understandable.  

In this environment, AA and the HPM’s focus on medals is the rational response to the funding process that sustains the organisation.  The HP system focuses its support on the athletes that can deliver medals and high finishes.  In the 2012 Olympic team, this meant that the maximum support flowed to the top 12-15 athletes.  The remaining 40 or so members of the Flame received varying levels of support. A well designed HP program will deliver athletes to the Games ready to perform but is no guarantee of medals. The inherent uncertainty of sport makes sure of that.

This reliance on the Olympics (and to a lesser extent the Comm Games) is reflected all the way through the sport.  Athletes receive little attention outside the Games and an athletic career becomes effectively an all-in bet on being selected for a Games team.  It would behove the sport to work hard to situation where athletes can earn a living from the sport without relying on making the Olympics.  At present we are a long way from this and not moving there at any great speed.  The centrality of the Olympics to the sport produces a clientelism of a sort.  Witness AA’s inability to withstand any pressure from John Coates as he dictated how nomination would proceed in the LaCaze case.  The need for independence from the Olympic cycle, whilst tangentially relevant, is a topic for another discussion, however.

Nomination.

The AA nomination policy for the London Olympic Games explicitly expounds a tough standard, demanding that athletes meet the AQ to make the team and in the case of the marathon imposed a higher standard that the IAAFAQ.  The deviations from this process (5 athletes got in outside the AQ, including Eloise Wellings in the 5000m for which there has been no public explanation by AA that Percy has seen) produced much comment in the lead up to the Games.  Leaving aside the governance problems that have been consistently evident throughout the process [link], the discussion now turns to whether this policy is an appropriate one for the sport.  The benefits of continuing the policy are that funds can be focused on the top HP athletes that will deliver the medals that the ASC demands.  The argument is often made that the higher standard set forces athletes to work harder to reach it, rather than, to use the pejorative phrase ‘be content with the tracksuit’.  Percy isn’t sure the evidence for this is strong, either that a higher standard results in athletes rising to meet it or that a lower standard provokes complacency,tracksuit hunting and poor performance though I’m happy to read the research if readers note it in the comments.  At the London Games, the tougher policy in its pure form would have kept out the following athletes

Melissa Breen

Martin Dent

Jeffrey Hunt

Tamsyn Lewis

Josh Ross (100m)

Steve Solomon (400m)

Eloise Wellings (5000m)

As it was applied in the current adhocracy of Australian athletics, Breen and Solomon got in on the Rio clause, Dent and Hunt got in because the selectors decided the policy didn’t apply and Wellings got in for ...(we don’t know because no one has said anything).  Lewis missed out and Ross only ran the relay.  The team was one smaller than possible and with two fewer entries.  Two of the 5 athletes with BQ’s had notable performances with Steve Solomon making the 400m final with his three fastest runs and Martin Dent claiming a respectable 28th at the Marathon.  60% of athletes don’t achieve the standard that got them to the Games, but given that sport is of it’s essence unpredictable, it is impossible to predict which 60% these are.  

In tension with AA’s reliance on the ASC funding and it’s HP focus are the strategic needs of the sport.  Athletes, even at the highest level, earn little from their sport.  Most elite athletes in Australia are in the sport in spite of the money rather than for the money.  Athletics struggles to retain athletes in the sport (cf Josh Hall, Mark Blicavs) and the chance to represent one’s country is one of things that keeps them.  Those considering the sport as a career might look askance if the national body would chose not to send qualified athletes.1
  A berth to the Olympic Games is the most valuable thing, in sporting and financial terms, that AA has to offer athletes.  A maximalist team philosophy, in the case of the current Games team 1 more athlete, would have marginal cost implications.  In a HP context the maximalist team doesn’t change the focus on the smaller cadre of athletes likely to medal or take high places in events. What a maximalist team philosophy does is offer a clear signal that AA have the athletes welfare at heart and will take the athletes side wherever possible.2

  

Can we both have a HP system focused on meeting the ASC mandated goals and pursue a maximalist policy that offers athletes the greatest possible chance of fulfilling their dreams? Percy believes that they aren’t incompatible.

1 The evidence for investment in elite sport influencing grassroots participation is weak but the influence of elites on young, talented athletes is undeniable (Pearson watching Freeman in 2000, Watt watching Taurima in 2000).

2 I’ve laid out more of my reasoning about this here.