Freeman fumes at sackings
By Mike Hurst
March 18, 2005
CATHY Freeman has been highly critical of the :eek: retrenchment of Australia’s 23 full-time professional athletics coaches - including her former personal coach Peter Fortune - describing the purge as “outrageous”.
Following the $1.3million loss declared by Athletics Australia in 2003 and a review of the sport, the board and new CEO Danny Corcoran decided partly as a cost-saving measure not to renew the contracts of coaches working in the State Institute of Sport network.
This is expected to save AA about $600,000 in the coming year. A smaller team to the world championships in Helsinki might also save up to $200,000 on some previous campaigns.
But while the Australian Sports Commission and other peak sports bodies may be pleased AA is righting its ship, the expedient move to reduce costs has potentially dire consequences for the development of the talent pool of competitors as well as coaches.
Certainly the timing of the purge is poor. We are 362 days away from the Melbourne Commonwealth Games - the first home Commonwealth Games since 1982.
Freeman, 32, who was guided by Fortune to win the Sydney Olympic 400m gold medal, two world championships and Commonwealth titles, is dismayed the coaches have been sacrificed.
“I’d caught up with ‘Fort’ just before I left for London and he told me the news. I had my breath taken away from me,” Freeman told The Daily Telegraph yesterday. "He’d played such a huge role in my life. I took it [Fortune’s retrenchment] personally.
“I’m not quite sure about the technicalities, the thinking of management behind this decision to let the coaches go, but I know people are our most important resource. Someone like Fort being dismissed this way … it gives out a very negative message, doesn’t it?”
One message is that anyone contemplating a career in coaching the premier Olympic sport should forget it.
Another message to aspiring elite athletes is that from now on your future is back in the hands of part-time hobby coaches, some of whom are competent but you take what you get.
“It’s such a tough job to coach and bring out the best in people,” Freeman said. "I would like to know some answers.
"Fort has lost his livelihood there at the Victorian Institute of Sport.
"From where I stand I found it quite a surprise.
"The future of the sport is in the hands of these wonderful people - the coaches. They’re out there all day managing people, managing dreams and aspirations.
"It’s important for me to remain objective. But I just don’t understand what’s in the minds of people who make these decisions.
"Fort’s skills, experience and his knowledge can’t be found in a text book. You’ve got to experience it.
"It could be perceived as an outrageous and very controversial decision.
“To send someone with that much experience and such passion away doesn’t make sense.”
Asked at the recent Australian championships how he would develop the current crop of teen track stars in the absence of the fulltime coaches, AA’s national performance manager Max Binnington said: “If I had a magic wand, I’d work that out.”
On hearing that sorry response, Freeman said: "A magic wand? That’s not a real answer. We’re talking about the experience and the richness of our sport.
"I hope I don’t ever respond with that kind of answer. I don’t mean to attack anybody. But people need to take more responsibility and provide answers.
“We have to be careful we don’t lose these young people’s imagination and heart to other sports.”
Not that i’m even sure if we have 23 full time coaches in the uk!
I like the idea a few of the athletes put forward of live telecasts of the Melbourne Grand Prix and/or the National Champs. I mean it would be ONE night every YEAR, they can give us that - can’t they? Evidently not.