MELBOURNE — Australian sport is achieving impressive success in global competition, but it has failed to develop athletes and coaches who represent the country’s diversity, former Olympic swimming champion Kieren Perkins said on Wednesday.
Perkins, who now heads the national sports funding agency, the Australian Sports Commission, said little has changed since he left sport to pursue a career in banking over a decade ago.
“The sport has to become a lot more open and inclusive,” the 49-year-old said in a speech at the National Press Club.
“I was very discouraged but honestly not surprised to see that the sport looks the same as it did when I graduated as an athlete in the late 2000s.
“We have made no progress and it is imperative that our sports sector becomes truly representative of a modern, progressive and diverse Australia.
“By 2032 (Olympics) if the sport is still like it is today, I certainly haven’t done my job properly.”
Perkins cited the Australian delegation at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham as evidence of a lack of diversity in elite sport.
While 53 percent of athletes were female, less than 10 percent of high-performance coaches were women. Thirteen percent of the team were foreign-born, compared to 29 percent of the Australian population.
Perkins said Australian sport needs to do more to nurture talent from underprivileged backgrounds and create more inclusive environments for people who may be put off by rigid structures around community-level competition, training and coaching.
“All Australians need to see themselves in their sporting heroes who help promote national pride, drive participation in the sport and grow our talent pool,” said Perkins, who won back-to-back gold medals in the 1500m freestyle at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics .
At the Olympic level, Australia is enjoying a renaissance ahead of hosting the Brisbane Games in 2032, with its athletes winning 17 gold medals in Tokyo last year to match the country’s performance in Athens in 2004.
The Australian Winter Olympics won a record four medals at the Beijing Games this year and will receive a funding boost to prepare for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games.
Perkins announced that the government has pledged A$28.6 million (US$18.6 million) to support athletes throughout the four-year Milano-Cortina cycle, the first pledge of its kind for the Winter Games.
Australia will host the 2026 Commonwealth Games in the southern state of Victoria six years ahead of the Brisbane Olympics, which will give the sports industry a big boost over the next decade.
Maintaining momentum after 2032 will be the challenge, said Perkins, noting the long decline in Australia’s peak performance after hosting the Sydney Games in 2000.
“We’re still a strong sports system and doing things well, but we’ve spent the last two decades getting back to where we were,” he said.
“Brisbane ’32 has to be a stepping stone, not a finish line.”
($1 = 1.5404 Australian Dollars)