-
Daniel Bell - Source: Photosport -
Related
This week's funding announcement from SPARC has produced just one little criticism from a sport disappointed at the amount that they've been granted.
Triathlon CEO, Dave Beech, tentatively expressed his regret that SPARC is failing to look further ahead than 2012 and that his sport will need to reassess their future planning.
Beech was honest and possibly somewhat brave too. No sport is going to risk running foul of their major source of funding by openly criticising the hand that goes into the moneybag. Everyone else is politely saying thank you, although privately some are already trimming their strategic plans.
Six sports have been targeted by SPARC as likely medal winners in London 2012. At least 10 medals is the target under SPARC's high performance strategy.
To help achieve this, Sport and Recreation New Zealand is budgeting to spend 49 million dollars on the six sports over the next four years.
The fortunate sports are athletics, triathlon, swimming, yachting, rowing and cycling.
On the surface, these six are justified in being chosen ahead of all others. Between them they won all nine of New Zealand's medals at the Beijing Olympics.
Our most successful sport
Rowing appears likely to become this country's most successful Olympic sport, even though the Evers-Swindells have retired. Depth of talent in this sport is enviable.
Bike NZ, which administers all forms of cycling including BMX and mountain biking, won two medals in Beijing, but continues to impress with a highly successful recruitment and development programme. Recent form in the Olympic velodrome suggests further exciting times ahead for women's track cycling, while BMX promises plenty with New Zealanders dominating the junior world rankings, and five men and three women in the elite top 20s.
Triathlon is at something of a disadvantage in that there are only six medals available at an Olympics, but they recently had five athletes in the world top 10 and have won three Olympic medals and numerous Commonwealth Games and world championship medals.
There have been many questions thrown at SPARC regarding the funding distributed to swimming. They have not won an Olympic medal since 1996. So how do they fit into the overall picture? This is where SPARC's criteria come under scrutiny. They do not allocate funding solely for the obvious reasons - medals won. They consider depth in talent, potential, high performance coaching systems, development pathways and how impressive the administration of a sport is - how focussed they are on raising standards.
Does swimming deserve the funding?
Swimming has a quality of depth not seen for many years, and the best are continuing to improve under a highly effective coaching system. The emergence of world youth champion Daniel Bell and the improvement of Glen Snyders are just two factors which justify swimming's inclusion in the six elite sports. They also happen to have eight or nine swimmers in the top 16 in the world.
SPARC will reassess this latest round of funding after two years. At this time, the six sports will need to have achieved certain targets and to have ticked all the boxes to ensure a continuation of support.
Yachting and athletics might face the toughest two years.
Valerie Vili is clearly at the very top of our hopes for success in London. Kimberly Smith and Nick Willis will probably also carry the responsibility of meeting SPARC's criteria. But there will need to be clear signs of progress in the development of promising athletes. Athletics cannot expect to rely on a couple of athletes.
While six New Zealand crews are ranked in the top 20 in world sailing, this sport's coaches will be cognisant of the fact they have attended the last three Olympics promising a great deal but eventually underachieving.
This might sound harsh in view of the achievement of Tom Ashley last year but if it weren't for boardsailing, and in particular Barbara Kendall, yachting would be struggling for inclusion among the top six.
The most recent non-boardsailing Olympic medals were won in Barcelona. The Finn and Tornado class golds and silvers from 1984 and 1988 were wonderful achievements, but these days those two classes struggle with not enough numbers to even hold national championships.
So the fact that SPARC has granted big bikkies to these sports does not mean all is rosy within.
They all need to continue to convince the funding agency that they are indeed on track to win medals in 2012.
