2009 YEARENDER: Olympic flame flickers as Aussies ditch the gold standard

Dec 31, 2009, 14:48 GMT

Sydney - Ask older Australians what the world thinks of them and they say they are known for being good at sport.

Listen to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, 52, speaking last year: 'When you reflect on the history of sport in this country and how it's been ingrained into the nation's soul, you cannot separate the two.'

Younger Australians respond differently, saying a booming economy and an enthusiastic engagement with Asia is what the world's sixth- oldest democracy is famed for.

They do not see their self-worth tied in with whether the English cricketers get a beating or how many gold medals their country wins at the Olympic Games.

Social commentator Chris Berg says the generational divide is a reflection of a more multicultural society and people able to watch whatever they want on television.

'The traditional Australian constellation of swimming and tennis on the world stage, and (Australian) football and cricket at home, is being undermined - in a good way - by our increasingly diverse ethnic makeup, as well as the accessibility of international sport on pay television and online,' he said.

'These multicultural sports surely hold more appeal than the millions of dollars we spend on highly subsidized, niche elite sports such as volleyball.'

It is true: government funding mostly goes to Olympic sports, to perpetuate the notion that Australians win a disproportionate share of the medals.

More taxpayer funding goes to archery than cricket, and water polo gets more cash than golf, tennis and lawn bowls combined.

It's absurd, said businessman David Crawford, who led an inquiry into sports funding set up by the government.

'The bias towards funding Olympic sports leads to outcomes that make little strategic sense for Australia,' Crawford said.

Rather than spending an average of 15 million Australian dollars (13 million US dollars) to win an Olympic gold medal in an arcane sport like aerial skiing, funding should be focused on popular sports like rugby, football and tennis.

After the home team and the US, Australia had the biggest team at the Beijing Olympics. In China, it scored its second-best result in an offshore Olympics, shaded only by the Athens Games, where the team in green and gold picked up 17 gold medals.

Understandably, there has been wailing and gnashing of teeth at the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and at the spare-no-expense Australian Institute of Sport over Crawford's advice that priority 'be given to those sports played throughout the country and even more so to those that engage their participants through their lifetimes.'

AOC chief John Coates, who has been campaigning for millions more in government funding for Olympic sports so Australia can hold on to its top-five place at the 2012 London Olympics, wants Rudd to reject Crawford's advice.

'Olympians have inspired this nation for decades,' Coates said. 'I've read the knockers who say we place too much emphasis on sport and spend too much achieving gold medals, but I believe those golds are worth every cent. I think the vast majority of Australians agree with me.'

The muted response to Crawford's recommendations says they don't. Most Australians nowadays don't fret about falling down the ladder at the London Games.

'To say that our self-esteem as a nation will deflate as a result of slipping in the Olympic medal tally is an insult to any Australian with half a brain,' a reader named Sean wrote to the Daily Telegraph. 'What about the pride we get from seeing Geoffrey Rush or Cate Blanchett win an Oscar?'

And it seems that Rudd is not of a mind to repudiate Crawford and meet Coates' demand for more money for Olympic sports. He is astute enough to realize that society has changed and voters are more interested in seeing the government tackle childhood obesity than pay up so they can watch a local lad win a gold medal in pole-vaulting.

'If we only win so many Olympic medals because we spend more money on sport than other countries, then we are not winners, we are losers,' Sydney reader David Hughes wrote to The Australian newspaper.