Right: Australian government funding was reviewed after disappointing results at the London Olympics. As a result, the formerly busy training facilities at the Australian Institute of Sport saw fewer talented young athletes developing their skills.
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Arguments suggesting that Australia did not spend too much
1. The Australian team performed well at the Rio Olympics
Defenders of Australia's Olympic performance at Rio argue that despite not achieving at the predicted level, Australia's rating of tenth on the medal tally list is creditable.
In a comment published in The Guardian on August 22, 2016, Paul Connelly noted, 'Australia has actually done quite well in Rio for a nation of its population and wealth. Yes, no doubt, a number of performers and teams failed to live up to their potential, but look at the countries above Australia on the table, all countries with bigger populations and bigger GDPs. Take out the Games of London, Athens and Beijing (as well as the Melbourne Games of 1956) and Australia's performance in Rio compares well to any of the others since the modern Olympics began in 1896.'
The question of Australia's performance relative to its comparatively small population has been stressed by a number of commentators. On August 19, 2016, The Herald Sun ran a report which considered what the relative positions of all top ten placegetters on the Rio Olympics medal tally list would be if their populations were taken into account.
The report stated, 'Australia is the bone fide best of the Top 10 nations for overall medals so far, with one medal for every 894,886 people.
With numbers like that, we can thumb our noses at the mother country who have only managed one medal for every 1.18 million...'
An editorial published in The Age on August 22, 2016, stated, 'The reality is that Australia has overachieved in recent Games. Australia was fourth in the medal table in Sydney and Athens and still in the top 10 in Brazil. There is no particular reason why our athletes should have won more gold medals than they did in London, where they also won eight.
In fact we would like to congratulate and thank our sporting men and women, their coaches, sports institutions, families and other supporters for giving Australians impeccable reason to be impressed. Every nation above Australia in the medal tally has at least twice our population...
Of course, winning is a crucial goal - for competitors, administrators and spectators - but it is not pre-eminent. The most important thing is to compete with honour and courage. This our team did admirably and with significant success. They deserve our respect and appreciation. They deserve to feel proud. And Australians should take genuine pride in them.'
The team chief, Kitty Chiller, has similarly praised their performance. Chiller stated, 'I'm extremely proud of our team. There have been many standout and breakthrough performances and those should be a focus. Our efforts here were very, very often close but they fell just short...I have told each and every one ... they have not let anyone down...
This is a time when we should celebrate the achievements of our team. The blame game always follows. I am not interested in the blame game.'
Chiller further noted that 65 per cent of the team were 'Olympic rookies', having never attended the event before, which reflected the strength of Australia's young sporting talent.
Australian athletics coach, Craig Hilliard, has similarly defended the performance of his athletes. He said 28 of them made the top 16 in their sport while nine Australians made the top eight, and also pointed to what he called a ,renaissance in distance running'.
2. The 'Winning Edge' strategy was meant to come to fruition over ten years
Defenders of the 'Winning Edge' strategy for funding Australian Olympic athletes have noted that it is a long-term scheme. The strategy was only put in place in 2012 after the London Olympics and is not anticipated to show its full benefits before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Although supporters admit that the medal tally anticipated for 2016 was not achieved, they claim it is still far too soon to judge the effectiveness of the plan.
This point was made by Lisa Gowthorp in an opinion piece published in The Conversation on August 10, 2016. Dr Gowthorp stated, 'At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the Winning Edge strategy will have been in place for eight years. We will then be able to identify how the program has contributed to the development of the next generation of Australian athletes across all Olympic sports.
The results in four years' time will truly reflect the impact the strategy has had on sport development, sport participation and sport pathways in Australia.'
Defenders of the current program note that any new development seeking to affect a major change in sporting achievement needs a significant lead-in period. New procedures take time to have an effect.
The funding model now used in Australia is similar to that employed in Great Britain where funds are primarily channelled toward those sports most likely to achieve Olympic success. Over the last three Olympics Great Britain has ranked fourth, third and then second at this year's Rio Olympics. Supporters of Great Britain's strategy note not only its success, but also that the strategy has been in place since 1997 and that it took several Olympics before discernible improvement were made. In the two earlier Olympics, Great Britain came tenth (admittedly a significant improvement from their 36th in Atlanta in 1996).
It has also been noted that Great Britain's success has not only been achieved through targeted funding. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of funding directed toward Olympic sport. This has been made possible by the proceeds of a specific Olympic lottery being directed toward preparing the British athletes.
Australian Sports Commission (ASC) head, John Wylie, has claimed that an on-line national lottery to provide extra funding is crucial if Australia is to finish once again in the top five on the Olympic medals table.
3. Fielding a successful Olympic team boosts national pride, social cohesion and provides great entertainment
It has been claimed that the achievements of a successful Australian Olympic team promote national pride and cohesion.
Australia's federal treasurer, Scott Morrison, has defended the importance of governments supporting Olympic competitors because of the positive social values that Olympic competition engenders.
Mr Morrison acknowledged Australia's gold medal tally had not increased, but he believed the nation's Olympians had provided 'vision' and 'inspiration' to Australians.
Mr Morrison stated, 'Sport...builds community. I know that in my own community ... sport is actually today what brings more of the community together on a regular basis than anything else. It's critically important.'
The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has also stressed the capacity of Olympic sport to generate social cohesion. He referred to the way in which a large majority of Australians actively support the efforts of Australian competitors and suggested that this helps to create a unity that transcends individual differences.
When welcoming the Australian Olympic team back from Rio, the Prime Minister stated, 'All this is a family occasion, the big Australian family - 24 million of us. We embrace you, we applaud you, we've been inspired by you, we are so proud of you.'
Before the Rio Olympics began, the Australian team manager, Kitty Chiller, acknowledged that the team's importance could not simply be measured in terms of the number of medals they won. She stressed that the athletes were exemplars of the type of behaviour that Australians aspire to as embodying the country's national ideal.
Chiller initially drew on the examples of former Australian Olympic greats stating, 'Herb Elliott, Murray Rose, Betty Cuthbert, Marjorie Jackson, Shane Gould....and of late Susie O'Neill, the Oarsome Foursome, Ian Thorpe and Cathy Freeman. These legends set the example. They wore their Australian blazer with confidence, pride and humility.
They all competed hard - with grit and determination - and they all conquered the world. But at the end of their race they looked their opponent in the eye and shook hands - in victory and in defeat.
This is quite simply, the Australian way and this is the way we want to be.'
The negative impact that poor Olympic performances might have on the Australian self-image has been considered. On August 7, 2012, CNN published a comment by Monica Attard, considering the negative consequences of Australia's relatively poor performance at the London Olympics. Attard wrote, 'Australia has been in distress since the London Olympics began, watching a parlous performance in the pool where it usually performs exceedingly well...
As a result, this sporting nation has been thrown into an identity crisis of sorts, played out in public as a tussle over what it means to be Australian. There are those who argue a poor gold medal tally is an appalling reflection of Australia's sporting prowess and an even worse for its self-esteem, playing out as it has on the international stage.'
The popularity of the competition can be gauged by the large audience that watched the televised Olympic Games events.
The television audience reached a total 17.5 million people across the competition. The strongest viewing day was 1.9 million and the least viewed day was 1.01 million. In digital terms, Seven's Rio coverage has also clocked more than 32 million online streams and almost 55 million social video views. If viewer interest can be used as a guide, a very large number of Australians appear to have actively followed the Rio Olympics.
4. Investing in potential Olympic competitors has a positive impact on national fitness
One of the primary reasons why countries such as Australia invest in Olympic athletes is that they are seen as role models whose achievements are likely to encourage more active sporting involvement within the general community.
The federal treasurer, Mr Scott Morrison, has stated, 'The programs have to be accountable and we invest generously in sport, but the reason for it at the end of the day is so young people, people at all ages, remain active, remain physically active.'
A similar point has been made by Australia's Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, who, when welcoming the returning team back to Australia, stated, 'To be role models for so many, especially kids, who will be inspired to follow in your footsteps, these are magnificent achievements.'
The Future of Sport report (otherwise known as the Crawford Report), produced by the Independent Sport Panel for the Australian Government in2009, made the following statements regarding elite sportspeople as role models:
'Australia prides itself on our sportspeople delivering superior performances on the world stage. These athletes are continually put forward as role models for budding athletes and our nation.'
The report also stated, 'There seems to be a general view among sporting organisations and governments that role models are important in attracting young people to sport. This can be seen in the efforts of major professional sports to work with their athletes to address binge drinking, illicit drug use and other societal issues.'
A report produced by the University of Technology, Sydney, in December 2015 and titled 'Athletes of influence - the reality of sports role models' opened with a statement of the widely-held belief in the positive effect of elite athletes as role models. The report states, 'It has become a truism that professional athletes, whether they like it or not, "are" role models for others. Talented sportspeople hardly win every time, and sometimes they do not exemplify fair play. But many athletes convey attributes about performance, character and resilience that draw admiration from fans.
For the youthful, sports stars may prompt efforts to emulate tries, wickets, goals and baskets in backyards or parks. No surprise, then, that professional athletes are assumed to provide a "role model effect" for sport at community levels, whether by stimulating entry into organised activities or by catalysing ongoing participation.'
5. The Olympics are a means of promoting international harmony and goodwill
It has long been claimed that the Olympic Games are a valuable means of encouraging peaceful interactions between the competing nations.
In 2012 the American Psychological Association published an article by Drs Gary Juneau and Rubin Neal titled, 'The Olympic Truce: Sport promoting peace, development and international cooperation'. The authors claimed, 'These organized sports have enjoyed an honored tradition of promoting peaceful international relations among diverse peoples as nations compete without strife and in spite of geopolitical differences.' They further went on to note that organisation such as the United Nations have come to recognise the value of athletic competition in fostering international goodwill.
Juneau and Neal observed, 'In the 21st century, the United Nations (U.N.) has become increasingly committed to communicating its vision of global human rights through the implementation of athletic programs that promote peacemaking initiatives, tolerance and reconciliation while decreasing tensions, inequity and prejudice.' The further noted, 'The U.N. Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP) supports sport and athletic programs that impact development and peace. Many of the U.N.'s programs are coordinated through the U.N. Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace and the U.N. Communications Working Group on Sport for Development and Peace. Over time, these groups have been engaged in supporting the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, the Paralympics, the World Cup and the Youth Olympic Games. These games are noted for assembling individuals and countries, some with opposing philosophies about war, peace, negotiations, resources and power, in the name of friendly and peaceful rivalry, through sporting events.'
Proponents of the Olympic games in Australia and elsewhere claim that the advantages it brings in terms of establishing harmonious relations between nations well justify the expense incurred by the countries that send participants.