Balancing the pursuit of success with an athlete’s wellbeing has been put at the heart of a new national high-performance strategy for the runway to the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane.
In a first for the usually factional Australian sporting world, the country’s peak Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games sporting organisations, along with federal, state and territory government sporting bodies, came together in June to build a united plan about ensuring success at the Brisbane Games, and beyond.
The end product – the Australian High Performance 2032+ Sport Strategy – was launched in Sydney on Thursday by Australian Sports Commission boss Kieren Perkins.
While the 2032 strategy document is aimed towards ensuring Australian athletes are given every chance to repeat the success of the Sydney Games, where Australia won a record 58 medals, it also prioritises the need for athletes to be looked after as people.
As a key part of the strategy, all the sporting organisations signed a pledge spelling out a “commitment to balancing success and wellbeing”.
“We aspire to win and inspire all with how we win,” the pledge reads. “We will continue setting ambitious performance goals but always balanced with High Performance cultures that are safe, fair and supportive. This is a balanced, holistic approach supporting our athletes and people to win in all areas of life.”
Australian Sports Commission CEO Kieren Perkins speaks at the Australia’s 2032+ High Performance Strategy Launch.Credit:Getty
The new strategy comes after recent toxic culture scandals involving Australian sporting organisations, including swimming, hockey, gymnastics and football. In media reports and subsequent review processes, athletes from junior to senior levels gave harrowing testimony about abusive environments and mental health impacts.
“There is no doubt the output from all the reviews that have been done, the bringing to light that athletes have had, these are generational and are not new,” Perkins said.
“Where sport has taken a big step forward there is a lot more willingness to ask the questions, understand what it means and then figure out how to move through it.
“I do think endemically for a long time in sport, there has been a bit of a question if you are not willing to do what it takes to win, then you can’t possibly win. When in fact we know that’s not true. Now is the time for that conversation, and there is a commitment from the system to drive that forward. The lessons from history need to learned and brought forward and actually put into action, so we can make things better in the future.”
Australian Sports Commission CEO Kieren Perkins speaks to the media in Sydney on Thursday.Credit:Getty
Olympic gold medallist Jess Fox said in a statement: “We need to be well-rounded people – physically, mentally, emotionally – in order to best perform and reach our potential. When I think about what success looks like to me, yes it might include the colour gold, but mostly it’s a feeling. It’s that pride and satisfaction that I’ve done the best I could that day in striving for excellence, and it’s gratitude and connection with those who shared the journey to get there.”
While it currently focussed on high-performance sport, Perkins said the next step of the “Win Well” approach would be to implement the same strategy at community sport level, to ensure bad coaching behaviours are rubbed out and youngsters can simply enjoy sport.
The unprecedented co-operation between Australian sports toward building a high-performance plan, and then sharing expertise, resources and knowledge toward national success, can not only produce a record medal haul in Brisbane, but at winter and summer Olympics after that as well, said Perkins.
”This strategy we have worked with everybody on, the intent of it is absolutely, firstly when we get to Brisbane, it is the most successful Games that Australia has ever seen. Home ground advantage always helps,” Perkins said.
“The elements of how we use that opportunity to not only drive and succeed on the field of play better than ever before, and build some sustainability it in it, so it is like what we saw in Sydney, we had this amazing peak and all this energy and all this commitment, but not of it was sustainably managed.”
