We got plenty of silver medals - being 2nd in the world isn't that bad is it?

Things are not fixed forever!

There will always be ups & downs, in pretty much everything, anyone can think of and that also applies to Australia's performances, at the Olympic games!

I don't thnk its a funding issue, though it could mean that money could be better spent.

Remember when Coates ranted and raced a few years ago when funding was going to be cut for the Sports Commission. Rudd caved and gave them even more.

Look at countries which are performing well nowadays, like South Korea and Japan.

soren - excellent posting.

One dumb movie did more for Australia's image overseas, than all our perceived Olympic Glories.
Perhaps we should focus a little less on sports, and more on intellectual and cultural endeavours.
Of course, Crocodile Dundee was not "high" culture, but it put us on the map internationally, like Borat did for Kazahkstan, which I believe is ranking higher than us at the olympics too, lol.
Sport is a great pastime, but I think too many take it too seriously, and I agree with Cods, that the poor sportsmanship of the bad aussie losers, is a terrible example for our youth.
The Olympics have become far too self important and way too big, with gold medals for synchronised farting the next would be olympic gold medal event.

The Heartless Felon wrote on Aug 7^th, 2012 at 2:01pm:

This article goes some way to explaining what's wrong with the "great sporting nation".

I see he failed to mention fun.  Sports should be about FUN, shouldn't it?
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Why Australia must fight the widening wealth gap between pro and community sports

The hysteria surrounding the failure of Australia’s Olympic team to win its expected haul of gold medals, and the resulting break-out of national hand-wringing, has triggered an avalanche of analysis.

Where has it all gone wrong?  Do our athletes need to train harder, or are we to blame for setting completely unrealistic expectations upon our athletes? Or is there a deeper problem with our national sporting culture?

Indeed, if you look beyond the Olympic athletes, beyond the high-profile professional competitions, you’ll see that many local sporting clubs and organisations are doing it tough.

They’re finding it hard to attract players, even harder to find volunteers, and their facilities are getting run down.

Part of the problem is a growing rift between Big Sport and community sport, with the elite and professional bodies swallowing up the lion’s share of available resources.

High profile professional and elite sport gets preference from all levels of government, from the top down to local councils, not to mention the exclusive attention of the media.

The elite competitions usually justify this disparity by invoking the ‘role model’ argument. According to this theory, watching our sports stars succeed on TV is not just passive entertainment – it’s inspiration, and it encourages us to get off the couch and into the gym.

It’s sport’s version of trickle-down economics – but like trickle-down economics, there’s little evidence to link the theory with reality. The Government’s 2009 review of sports funding, the Crawford Report, questioned the link between elite success and grass roots participation. Moreover, the Crawford Report  argued the number of Olympic gold medals that a nation wins should not be the only indicator of a healthy sporting culture.

According to the Crawford Report, sport is about more than medals – it’s about participation, healthy lifestyles, and the social benefits that accrue from being involved in organised community sports.

With this in mind, the Crawford Report suggested that sports funding programs should provide more support for mass participation sports – the games most Australians like to play, such as cricket, the football codes, netball, golf, hockey and so on.

In the fight over sports funding, the loudest voices always win.  And the loudest voice in Australian sport is John Coates.

The AOC, which was seeking over $100 million a year in extra funding at the time, went into overdrive to discredit the Crawford Report.  AOC President Mr Coates labeled the report “insulting, “disrespectful” and “Un-Australian”.

In response, the Federal Government increased its funding for Olympic programs, and most of the report’s recommendations were quietly forgotten.

Coincidentally, in recent weeks another example of the tension between Big Sport and community sport has quietly opened up in Sydney’s Inner West.

Professional rugby league club Canterbury Bulldogs is locked in a bitter battle with semi-professional soccer club Sydney Olympic over the right to use Belmore Oval – and unsurprisingly, the big professional club is winning.  The two clubs are supposedly sharing access to the ground, yet it’s the smaller club which is being forced to relocate its home matches, while the Bulldogs continue to train at Belmore during the week. This is having a severe impact on Sydney Olympic’s home match revenues.

Ironically, the experience of another local soccer club in the Canterbury region could provide an example of how community sport can start competing more effectively for government resources. 

Last year the Hurlstone Park Wanderers Football Club decided it was sick of waiting for its run-down council-owned facilities to be upgraded. The Hurlstone Park Wanderers decided to stop behaving like a community sports club, and to start behaving like an advocacy group.

The club started a campaign called ‘Space to Play’*, complete with a web site and an on-line petition.  It cultivated the local media, engaged the support of other high-profile soccer personalities, and held a day of action to promote its cause.

Before long the club had secured a new junior-size playing field, with new change rooms, an amenities block, and a commitment to investigate new drainage for its existing field.  The ‘Space to Play’ campaign showed what can be achieved when community clubs get political.

If one club can have such an impact in its local area, imagine what could happen if all community clubs across the country joined together, and found their voice?  If Australia is to be the Great Sporting Land that it purports to be, nothing short of a revolution is needed.

The exclusive focus on elite competition at the expense of local clubs and participation needs to be turned on its head.  We need to watch a bit less and play a bit more.  We’ll all be healthier, and probably a bit happier.

And guess what?  With more people competing, we might even discover some more talented athletes who’ll go on to win Olympic medals.

http://sportbizinsider.com.au/news/category/community-sport/why-we-must-fight-th...