Aussies return to rapturous welcome and funding woes

Australia’s Olympic team returned home on Tuesday to a rapturous welcome, even as the country urgently began seeking ways of boosting its flagging medals ranking at the 2012 Games in London.

The team, led by triple gold medallist swimmer Stephanie Rice, were greeted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and a crowd of about 500 well-wishers and media as they stepped off two chartered Qantas jets from Beijing just after dawn.

“Welcome home to Australia,” Rudd told the 435 athletes. “Every Australian is proud of you. Every man, woman and child in this nation is proud of each and every one of you.”

“On behalf of the Australian nation, well done,” he said, exhorting the team to start preparing for the 2012 Olympics in London, where Australia hopes to do better than it did in Beijing.

Australia won sixth place in the medals stakes in Beijing, down from fourth in Athens in 2004 and Sydney in 2000, while Britain — Australia’s traditional sporting rival — rose from 10th place in Athens to fourth.

The prime minister urged those athletes not retiring after Beijing to “spoil the party” for the British in 2012. “For those of us who may be going to London, start preparing,” he said.

Australia places enormous importance on projecting its image to the world through its sporting endeavours, whether in cricket, rugby, tennis, golf or at the Olympics.

But Australia’s haul of 46 medals in Beijing — 14 gold, 15 silver and 17 bronze — was fewer than the 58 from Sydney and the 49 from Athens four years ago.

While the country of just 21 million people prides itself on punching above its weight in the Olympic medal stakes, top sports officials say more funding is urgently needed to curb Australia’s slide on the medals table. More galling yet for many Australians is Britain’s best Olympic performance in decades after pouring millions into sport through its national lottery.

The Australian government has promised to review sports funding, and Rudd confirmed it would be boosted ahead of the London Games. “When it comes to sports funding, it’s not either or — either community sport or elite sport — we’ll be doing both,” he told Nine Network television.

“The kids who are engaging in community sport, a lot of them want to have the hope in their eyes that they can rise to elite representational levels as well. “The government is funding a large slab of investment in community level sport, school sports, indigenous sports, but also we’re not going to be back-tracking when it comes to funding for Olympic level sports either.”

Rudd said Sports Minister Kate Ellis would consider whether Australia should adopt the British model of using lottery revenue to fund elite sport. “We want to have another look at it because it’s a positive, constructive idea, let’s see if it works,” he said.

But the British were already rubbing salt in Australia’s open wounds, with the tabloid Sun newspaper parading truck-mounted billboards around London and Sydney gloating about Britain’s gold medal success over Australia.

“Where the bloody hell were you?” screamed the billboards that featured a Union Jack flag background and Britain and Australia’s relative gold medal tallies: 19 for Britain and just 14 for Australia.

Australians won six gold medals at Beijing’s Water Cube, all by its women swimmers, with Rice snaring the medley double and helping the 4x200m freestyle team to victory, all in world record time. But the male swimmers failed to win a gold medal for the first time since the 1976 Montreal Games.

As she descended from the Boeing 747 in Sydney, Rice said her performance in Beijing had “exceeded my expectations”.

“I’m just looking forward to seeing my mum and having a holiday,” she told the crowd. Fellow gold medal-winning swimmer Leisel Jones was overwhelmed by the rock star welcome. “It is really nice to come home to a nice reception and there’s nothing better than coming home,” she said.

SYDNEY, Tuesday, AFP