Fastest Aussie is broke

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Our champion sprinter Anthony Alozie is down at heel
Padraic Murphy From: Herald Sun December 30, 2009

AUSTRALIA’S fastest man says he is almost destitute and claims he has been abandoned by athletics authorities.

Anthony Alozie clocked the fastest time by any sprinter in Australia in March, running the 100m in 10.29 seconds.

He ran in the relay for Australia at this year’s World Championships and was selected in the national team to compete in next year’s world indoor event.

But three months ago, Alozie suffered an achilles tendon injury, and ever since, he says, he has been ignored by Athletics Australia.

“They don’t return my calls. They promised me a scholarship to support me. Athletes in this country are poorly looked after,” he said.

“I love this country and want to do my best for it, but athletes are treated so badly here. Footballers or cricketers aren’t treated like this.”

The 23-year-old said he was struggling to pay the rent on his western suburbs flat and could not find full-time work.

Alozie came to Australia from Nigeria for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. He decided to stay and took out citizenship.

“The system for athletes is better in Nigeria. There I got a monthly wage from the state,” he said. “Here I get nothing, but I want to be everything for Australia.”

Athletics Australia’s high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth said Alozie’s times were not good enough for him to attract funding.

“Anthony Alozie needs to get a part-time job, stop looking for hand-outs and get on with enjoying Australia and all it’s got to offer,” Mr Hollingsworth said.

He said Alozie misunderstood the funding system.

Very few athletes were supported full-time by government hand-outs.

“I tell all the athletes the Government doesn’t owe them and they need to show that they are worth the investment,” he said.

“Anthony has run a good time this year in Australia, but it’s middling in world terms. If he runs a 9.6 like Usain Bolt, then I guarantee him, he’ll be a millionaire.”

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Hollingsworth is nothing if not blunt!

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i like the way he handled this, its true as far as the guys time and all

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He ran equal fastest time with another Nigerian runner (10.29) who is also broke. Point no.2 - Flo Jo had two jobs in her lead up to greatness. This guy does not want to find a job. There are plenty of them. I reckon he should stop pitting himself and pull the finger out. It all comes down to how badly one wants it. Waiting for the Gov. to sponsor him - he lives in a fantasy world!

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I reckon he was fed horse manure back in 2006.

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haha, you guys should read Lance Armstrongs book, Its not about the Bike.
As a 15yr old, he started place getting in local Triathlons and road running meets, by the time he was 17 he was driving Fancy hotted up cars. All his money came from Winning or placing in meets. He didnt have to be the best in America to make cash, just win races.
For about 18 months when he was undergoing chemo and recovering, he was still making cash from his cycling federation and his sponsors.
By the time he recovered, he was ONLY down to making $150, 000 per year base - and thats from his cycling Team, not his sponsors. He didnt talk about them much.
We are talking about, not racing for 18months and still making cash like this.
Mind you, here in Australia, i had a look on the net to try and find out what Winnings are available to local Triathletes and road runners. And it doesnt seem much. An Entire Half Ironman Tri - takes like 4hrs to finnish, and the winner gets like 1grand. Probably less than the guys wheels cost.
Local road runs, your looking like around $500 for the winner.

Perhaps im missing something? But i cant see how one could train ONLY for sports like these here in Australia WITHOUT also working or coming from a rich family who supports you.
The moral - suck it up, have some cement Pills in your Coffee and get a Job. :slight_smile:

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Is he training with quinn? If so, and quinn is still involved with the bombers, maybe he could get him a job washing the jerseys or filling the water bottles maybe be the waterboy.
On a serious note, if he is injured it is a shame by AA and EH to turn a blind eye. It is the usual way things are dealt with over here. When your down and out they don’t want to know you. When you are going well they are like flies on shit.
The answer for AA is usually shift the athlete to another coach. relocate, relocate, relocate and forget them until they perform again. It is never a look at how the situation can improve and what may have caused the downturn in performance.

How hard is it to set black and white standards, outcomes from set results and a set pathway for athletes and coaches who want to be part of a team (state or national). Money is not always the answer. That is the culture which has been created and needs to be knocked on the head. General support and options for the athlete/coach is what should be tabled.

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Holingsworth has the led the sport into big whole.

Shirvo, Miller, Alozie, Joshua- they all share the same sentiments regarding AA support. It’s non-existent.

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Play professional cricket or rugby union/ league you get to walk around with massive skinfolds and get good coin for never being in great shape!

ps some rare exceptions out there, eg Brett Lee.

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I don’t like Hollingsworth at all, but what he says in that article is spot on. If you don’t like it, go back to Nigeria! Australia has been bloody generous giving people like him citizenship after just 2 years. I think he should be more thankful and quit winging. He should still have enough time to train and pay his rent by working part time. When he finishes in the sport, get a full time job and try to enjoy living in one of the best countries in the world!

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Could you imagine our best Cricketers or Ruby League/Union players working part time just to pay rent? Hey why even stay in the sport?

This is the comment that I hear a lot from Joshua Ross, the type of money he could of made in League. Winning the Stawell Gift is great however the coin is minimal to Ruby League contacts with someone with his talent.

I am sure with hindsight Adam Miller would of chosen baseball - rather than stay in track, albeit retired early.

Track & Field loses enough athletes to other sports no need for the CEO of the sport to be accelerating this process.

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I dont think we are in the process of Loosing anybody anymore - we never had them in the 1st place :slight_smile:
Why send your child off to Little A,s or such, when the Junior Scout officials looking for the next League star or AFL legend that will get paid fat loads of cash are scouring the schools on the look out for the best talent on offer.
The way things are, the fastest and strongest will be carefully lead from a young age towards Football.
the Ones who win the track nationals, will be those the Scouts Left behind as being too weak and slow.

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I also keep hearing the sport is coach driven, change the drivers they appear lost.

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Yep, time for you to step up and take the wheel

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Alot of young kids in school watch alot of sports on tv. They watch AFL, Cricket and the NRL. They know who wears what jumper and what position they play.They even know who the cricketers are dating these days.
My partner who is a primary school teacher had a fun quiz for the kids all about sports. most questions were about football and cricket and a few about motor sports which they got nearly all right. The athletic questions went right over their heads. Why? Because athletics in Australia is almost non existent. The A series is never really played live for a start. If you want to watch it on SBS it will be a re run way into the night. For all the top meets in Europe and the States they will be replayed on Foxtell about 3 months later. Then there is the Olympic games aspect. For the first week all you see is swimming and diving then the second week all you see is the replays of swimming and diving.
Athletics not only has no money put into it. It also has no air time on tv. I understand the pain that soccer fans went through in the past 30 years of no funding for teams and no advertisment and games not being televised. I do understand it is all about ratings for tv which is my point. AA has made athletics un attractive for tv. Thus why it is never on. As Bold said in one of his posts. Any kid who has talent in athletics usually gets picked up by a footy team. Anyone who wants to train " properly" best go to the States or Europe if their parents can afford it because AA wont train athletes properly. Alot of athlets now days are too busy looking cool and talking crap on radio stations and getting stuck into dancing with the stars. Do they get on tv because they look ‘‘hot’’ I know it is not because of their talent and ability on the track.

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Well whatever you say, Tamsyn Lewis at least has a world indoor championship gold medal to her name which is a higher achievement than most others who go onto TV “dancing with the stars”.

I think athletics around the world is reaping what it sowed: if you treat the press like shit for long enough, eventually they stop phoning you, stop attending your meets, stop covering your meets, stop covering your sport. At this point, they cover the new world record breaker and no-one else. And it is usually the celebrity columnists who grab most of the space to write crap about the superstar, who then gets fed up with such bullshit and refuses to deal on any regular basis with anyone in the press (tarring everyone with the same brush), little understanding that by turning her/his back on the “true” athletics writers in favour of the celebrity media writers they dug a grave for themselves and their sport.

But many of these superstars are like locusts, devouring the riches of the land ploughed by generations of workers before they were even born.

Perception is reality: If you cannot see the sport, then in fact it may as well cease to exist. Athletics coverage globally is in severe decline: The mighty USA sent only three journalists to cover the Berlin world championships in 2009; Most of Britain’s best athletics writers have been laid off - and they’re got the next Olympics!

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[QUOTE=kitkat1;229026]

I think athletics around the world is reaping what it sowed: if you treat the press like shit for long enough, eventually they stop phoning you, stop attending your meets, stop covering your meets, stop covering your sport.

Perception is reality: If you cannot see the sport, then in fact it may as well cease to exist. Athletics coverage globally is in severe decline:QUOTE]

I only have experience in Aust, is athletics world wide run by coaches, ex athletes or business people.I think the latter would agree with you.

Thanks anyway but I don’t be applying for the job driving the bus.

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Anthony will be OK now he has been selected in the 2012 Target squad, he gets a mentor medical screenings and information seminars, training camps so much more than most.

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I will drive the bus kit kat! But no one will throw me the keys…lol… I have tried to hot wire it always and they keep setting road blocks up and spike traps.
I hope you don’t include me in your pile of athletes who didn’t chat with you. I always tried to give you first dibs. I only ignored those who gave me the cold shoulder and negative articles.

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Australian athletes were getting plenty of funding 10 years ago around the time when Shirvo was at his peak but it didn’t help them to perform any better. Many full time athletes who were getting a lot of assistance ended up performing worse. Perhaps that’s why AA won’t fund a 23 year old athlete who has already been training for many years yet can only manage a life-time best of 10.29.
Former Australian sprinters such as Peter Norman, Rick Mitchell and Hec Hogan all had part time or full time jobs, yet all still managed to win Olympic medals.
Btw, it is “would have” and “could have”, not “would of” and “could of” :smiley: