Australian Sports Commission Media Release

The Federal Minister for Sport and Tourism, Jackie Kelly, today announced details of additional Olympic Athlete Program (OAP) funding to assist Australia’s preparation for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Ms Kelly announced the funding levels to Australia’s summer Olympic sports for 1998/99 and new funding for 1999/2000 arising from the recently concluded performance review of summer Olympic sports undertaken through the Australian Sports Commission.

The review was conducted over the past six months by the Australian Institute of Sport in conjunction with the Olympic sports, State and Territory Institutes and Academies of Sport and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC). In keeping with the OAP’s objective of medal success, the review has provided a platform to move from a whole of sport approach to one which, two years out, identifies those athletes and teams most likely to be successful at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Ms Kelly said that the review process was comprehensive, widely consultative and transparent. It involved key high performance personnel from each of the Olympic sports and included an analysis of the structure of each sport’s high performance program, its level of international achievement and the potential of its athletes or team/s to achieve success in 2000.

"While there is an expectation that sports which were successful in Atlanta will perform well in Sydney, other sports receiving OAP support have improved to the level where they are also expected to be medal chances in Sydney," she said.

The Minister said that it came as no surprise that traditional achievers such as swimming, hockey, rowing, canoeing, cycling and sailing received a major share of funding. She added that lesser known sports such as archery, baseball and taekwondo received significant funding on the basis of medal potential.

Funding recommendations for each sport were prepared on performance guidelines and, where appropriate, took into account additional needs identified by the sports, such as extra international competition, new equipment and additional sports science support to make the difference between now and the Games.

Ms Kelly said the sports will be given flexibility in their use of funds, and she was confident that the OAP funding was being directed to those teams and athletes who had the best chances of success in 2000.

"The significant support provided by the Federal Government under the OAP will ensure that Australia will have the best prepared Australian Olympic team ever," she said.

"This is an exciting time for Australia and Australian sport. We are all looking forward to the spectacle of the Games and the performance of the Australian team with great interest."

The Minister added that the AIS would continue to monitor performances of all teams and athletes to ensure the most effective use of OAP funds. For this reason, funding for 1999/2000 could be adjusted up or down, depending on performance at major international events in 1999.

Funding allocations for 1998/99 and 1999/2000

	1994/95	1995/96	1996/97	1997/98	1998/99	1999/2000
Archery	212,900	246,180	345,390	527,250	572,535	500,680
Athletics	3,009,900	3,525,760	2,777,796	2,899,337	2,964,716	2,875,344
Badminton	284,642	328,400	191,850	236,909	208,755	171,820
Baseball	811,000	1,039,200	944,700	864,330	1,001,900	1,062,800
Basketball	1,422,000	1,530,810	1,459,900	1,885,174	1,831,446	1,811,183
Boxing	147,700	213,180	192,860	356,457	307,400	264,700
Canoeing	1,607,300	1,834,085	1,392,569	1,791,865	1,688,024	1,647,864
Cycling	2,963,073	3,450,124	2,793,486	3,193,071	3,210,745	3,183,140
Diving	726,000	653,134	616,294	548,216	490,279	508,224
Equestrian	703,010	970,320	726,630	1,211,740	1,168,625	1,114,411
Fencing	338,000	346,000	136,166	137,000	103,430	64,360
Gymnastics	1,904,259	2,069,907	1,593,543	1,314,218	1,410,223	1,359,654
Handball	345,000	409,520	187,580	106,000	110,075	122,000
Hockey (m)	1,280,300	1,374,719	1,462,213	1,862,905	1,775,411	1,759,085
Hockey (w)	1,250,683	1,381,102	1,520,521	1,925,030	1,874,734	1,870,734
Judo	313,300	422,000	249,960	315,528	289,830	269,720
Modern Pentathlon	85,900	93,000	51,650	56,800	49,050	30,000
Rowing	3,253,600	3,560,534	3,385,414	4,341,502	3,976,126	3,863,485
Sailing	1,006,417	877,100	821,950	1,193,300	1,857,158	1,742,076
Shooting	616,584	659,382	764,320	1,440,188	1,136,967	987,925
Soccer (m)	750,000	850,000	771,400	814,480	864,322	866,720
Soccer (w)	664,000	665,500	765,000	990,172	1,037,355	1,003,500
Softball	833,033	1,123,900	1,006,236	1,371,146	1,388,210	1,476,190
Swimming	2,632,100	3,172,056	2,931,724	3,853,835	3,843,153	3,840,219
Synchronised Swimming	200,250	233,000	207,060	253,794	183,830	107,360
Table Tennis	265,200	291,000	233,810	290,240	241,730	161,920
Taekwondo	175,000	237,000	355,170	496,950	484,790	471,640
Tennis	514,500	448,000	344,900	330,965	289,177	230,800
Trampolining	-	-	-	63,280	188,484	173,290
Triathlon	191,000	245,240	490,345	649,750	592,862	585,200
Volleyball	1,625,650	1,662,210	1,305,613	1,868,489	1,724,973	1,667,028
Water Polo	1,237,900	1,382,259	1,258,467	1,530,270	1,958,816	2,011,225
Weightlifting	239,000	390,358	242,170	385,300	312,265	223,980
Wrestling	85,000	447,000	385,550	519,689	346,540	148,000
TOTALS	31,694,201	36,131,980	31,912,237	39,625,180	39,483,936	38,176,277

The National Sport Information Centre Web Archive provides access to archive copies of materials in electronic forms. There is no inference that these materials necessarily reflect the current policy of any of the institutions or agencies that created them.