http://www.athletics.org.au/news/details.cfm?ObjectID=3061
21 November 2006 | 1.44pm
Athletics Australia President Rob Fildes today declared that athletics in Australia is back on track after a very difficult period.
Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Athletics Australia in Melbourne, Fildes acknowledged a huge amount or work remained to be completed but said the inspiring performances of Australia’s athletes during 2006 was the undisputed feature of a year marked by continued reform and a return to financial stability.
“During the past year, we have continued to focus on our five key pillars that underpin our direction as we continue to implement the recommendations of the 2004 Athletics Australia/Australian Sports Commission Review,” Fildes said.
The five key pillars are financial stability, high performance, development, the Athletics Australia brand and governance/structure.
In his address to the AGM, Fildes made special mention of the following highlights in 2006:
Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games
The athletics contingent of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games team numbered 122 athletes – the largest Australian track and field team ever where the average age of the team was 25. Notably the team included 10 teenagers and 62 members under 25 years of age.
Attendances were extraordinary with the athletics program at the MCG totaling 611,333 people. This did not include the tens of thousands of people who lined the courses for the marathons and walks.
The medal tally was our greatest in Commonwealth Games competition with 16 gold, 12 silver, 13 bronze medals - 41 in total. Australia’s previous best performance was 37 at the Empire Games in Perth in 1962. Australia was ranked number one in athletics.
World Cross Country Championship - Fukuoka, Japan
Australia won its first ever women’s team medal in the short course event with outstanding performances from a team consisting of: Benita Johnson (4th), Melissa Rollison (11th), Anna Thompson (25th), Donna MacFarlane (29th), Victoria Mitchell (33rd) and Eloise Wellings (39th).
World Race Walking Cup - La Coruna, Spain
Australia won the silver medal in the men’s 20km team event and again this was the first ever teams medal won by Australia. Our previous best was 4th in the 50km in 2002. Congratulations to team members Luke Adams (N), Nathan Deakes (V), Jared Tallent (V), Duane Cousins (V), and Adam Rutter (N).
2006 European Season
At the end of the 2006 European season, 28 Australians were ranked in the top twenty - ten reaching the top ten. The European season produced thirteen personal bests, three Australian records, World Cup wins to Craig Mottram and Steve Hooker, and a World Athletics Final victory to Paul Burgess in what is widely regarded as the best ever European season by Australian athletes.
World Junior Championships
Finally, in August the next generation of Australian stars shone at the World Junior Championships in Beijing – collecting two gold, a bronze and 14 personal bests.
Sydney teenager Dani Samuels produced a new personal best and beat a 16-year-old Australian junior record in clinching the discus title. Samuels joined long jumper Robbie Crowther as world junior champion. The Craig Hilliard-trained jumper leapt a personal best and new Australian junior record of 8.00m to claim the gold medal. It was the first time Australia had ever collected two golds to two different individual athletes at the world juniors.
Along with a bronze medal to Vicky Parnov in the women’s pole vault,
Australia finished 8th out of 179 countries on the medal tally, behind Kenya, China, Russia, Estonia (who were the surprise packet of the championships), USA, Jamaica and Ethiopia.
Fildes, who has been in the President’s chair for twelve months, said the administration of the sport continues to follow the recommendations of the AA/ASC review.
“Post Commonwealth Games our focus immediately turned to the next challenge and in this case it was to continue to review and restructure the programs we conduct as we try and position our sport for ongoing success.”
“While all stakeholders should be proud of their contribution to our sport we are under no illusions as to the amount of work that must be done to meet the many challenges that confront us.”
Fildes sighted the high performance program as the most challenging with funding and the battle to retain athletes in the face of strong competition from Australia’s professional football codes.
“We have an enormous amount of work to do in order to ensure that our high performance programs are comparable with the best in the world, that our athletes and coaches are well supported, that our development programs are the envy of other nations and that our sport thrives at grassroots level.”
“Many sports in this country provide full time careers with significant salaries for talented athletes and their coaches. This is not the case in athletics and we are continually reminded of the need to provide more and more resources to keep pace with the rest of the world. For the talented athlete there are many sports that have lucrative career options competing for his/her talent. We must now recognise this and put in place programs to identify talent and support those athletes with the potential to represent their country by providing clear pathways to achieve this. This also includes recognising the athletic talent within our indigenous community and creating programs to enable us to find the next Catherine Freeman.”
The Annual General Meeting marked the retirement of two directors, Ken Roche and Paul Kennedy. Roche served as interim Chairman for 18 months following the release of the 2004 review and the precarious financial position at that time was recognised. Kennedy has been a Board member since 1999.
Melbourne Q.C. David Grace and former Sydney University Athletics club president Nick Moore join the board.
Grace is a lawyer in private practice with a specialty in sports law. He has been an Arbitrator on the Court of Arbitration for Sport since 2000 and was a member of that Court’s Division established for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Between 2001 - 2006 he was President of the Athletics Australia Tribunal.
Moore’s expertise lies in business and information technology, currently engaged by National Australia Bank as a consulting Project Director managing retail banking projects. He has had a long involvement in athletics - as president of Sydney University Athletics Club from 1991 – 2000, as Venue Manager for the 1996 World Junior Athletics Championships in Sydney and as a technical official during the Sydney 2000 Olympics in conjunction with his employment with IBM. He still competes for Sydney University as a master’s athlete, and has competed at the World Masters Athletics Championships.
Fildes said the sport was now focused on the challenges of continued reform along with international competition at the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, next year and the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, in 2008. In addition, Athletics Australia will join the Queensland Government, led by the Queensland Events Corporation, in Brisbane’s bid to host the 2011 World Athletics Championships.
The 2006/07 Telstra Australia Athletics Season, along with Brisbane’s 2011 IAAF World Championships bid will be officially launched next Thursday (30th November) by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.