Athletics Australia – FROM THE PRESIDENT: Merry Christmas & all the best for 2013

As 2012 comes to a close, it is with great excitement that I reflect on what has been a very busy and rewarding year, while looking ahead with anticipation to the 2013 National Athletics Series and beyond.

I would like to take this opportunity first and foremost to recognise all award winners at the 2012 Athlete of the Year Awards, proudly presented by Eurosport, last Thursday evening,

Sally Pearson, Mitchell Watt, Kelly Cartwright and Evan O’Hanlon are outstanding examples of how Australia’s track and field athletes can achieve on the world stage. I commend them for their success as Female and Male Athletes of the Year and the Female and Male Athletes with a Disability of the Year.

I would also like to congratulate Kyle Vander Kuyp on his Edwin Flack Award, and Geoffrey Martin and Roy Boyd on their elevation to Life Governorship.

The Athlete of the Year Awards provided a fantastic bookend to what has been an extraordinary year of Athletics in Australia.

Culminating with the British summer of sport at the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, the 2012 calendar has also seen athletes competing in the green and gold at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in Saransk, Russia, the Oceania Athletics Championships in Cairns, Queensland, the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain and the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Kavarna, Bulgaria.

Nearly 250 athletes competed for Australia in international teams in 2012, with 52 athletes selected for the London Olympics.

The 2012 London Olympic & Paralympic Games were remarkably managed and outstandingly attended. I congratulate Lord Sebastian Coe, who is a personal and long-time friend of Athletics Australia, his team at the London Organising Committee for the Olympic & Paralympic Games (LOCOG), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on a job very well done.

I also commend the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) for their efforts in ensuring the best possible experience for all athletes who were fortunate enough to represent their country. Your support and friendship across the four-year Olympiad has been much appreciated and we look forward to strengthening our relationship as we move ahead to Rio 2016.

The Athletics section of the Australian Olympic Team was fifty-two strong and the largest of the twenty-six sports in which our country competed. It was the second biggest team behind Atlanta 1996 to compete on international soil, and the fourth biggest in history.

The gold medal winning performance of Sally Pearson in the 100m hurdles, silver by Mitchell Watt in the long jump and Jared Tallent in the men’s 50km walk were inspiring to watch and great achievements.  I also congratulate Steven Solomon and the men’s 4x100m relay team of Anthony Alozie, Tim Leathart, Andrew McCabe, Josh Ross and Isaac Ntiamoah on their excellent performances to finish in the top-eight.

Our achievement of three medals is similar to the historical average won by the Athletics section of the Australian Olympic team at the past eight Olympic Games, and in line with the projected three to five medals that we have recently set as our aim for the 2016 Olympic Games.

To get the ball rolling as soon as possible on achieving this goal, Athletics Australia in conjunction with many stakeholders including athletes, coaches, the Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian Sports Commission, have undertaken a strategic review and introduced a new structure of the High Performance Department.

It is my hope that the Athletics community will welcome the changes from this review and I look forward to sharing the journey of the next Olympiad with all those charged with developing our team.

The new High Performance Management structure approved by the Athletics Australia Board of Directors includes a High Performance Advisory Committee which will be made up of Chief Executive Dallas O’Brien, the to-be-appointed Athletics Australia High Performance Director, Athletics Australia Head Coach Eric Hollingsworth, a representative of the Athletics Australia Board of Directors and the Athletics Australia Paralympic Preparation Program Manager Andrew Faichney.

The Committee will also include an Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and an Australian Sports Commission (ASC) representative, and I thank both organisations for their unequivocal support of the structural change.

The High Performance Director position will be responsible for strategy, contracts, selection policy and funding as well as managing the High Performance Department, while the very capable Eric Hollingsworth will fill the Head Coach position. He will be tasked with the daily management of national team activities, high performance coaches, evaluation of athlete performances and the delivery of performance programs.

The Athletics Australia board recently approved the 2013 IAAF World Championships and 2014 Commonwealth Games selection policies to include both A and B qualification standards, as was the case with the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Germany, at the beginning of the previous Olympic cycle.

Beginning just weeks after the spectacular closing ceremony of the Games of the XXX Olympiad, the 2012 Paralympic Games were arguably the best ever.

Excitingly, the Athletics section of the Australian Paralympic team, which included twenty-one debutantes and twenty-two athletes aged under 25, won twenty-seven medals to improve on the result from Beijing, China four years ago.

I applaud Evan O’Hanlon in the T38 100m and 200m, Kelly Cartwright in the F42/44 long jump, Richard Colman in the T53 800m and Todd Hodgetts in the F20 shot put on their incredible gold medal winning performances. I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge silver medal winners Rheed McCracken, Scott Reardon, Kurt Fearnley, Brad Scott, Carlee Beattie, Angela Ballard and Louise Ellery and bronze medallists Russell Short, Rosemary Little, Christie Dawes, Katherine Proudfoot, Madeleine Hogan, Georgia Beikoff and the men’s T53/54 wheelchair 4x400m relay.

Athletics House was officially opened on Saturday, 8 December and it is fantastic to see Athletics Australia, Little Athletics Australia, Athletics Victoria, Little Athletics Victoria and the Victorian Athletics League all based together.

Athletics House will be truly wonderful for our sport and will have tremendous implications for the future growth of Athletics in Australia. Athletics House is part of the completely new world class Lakeside Stadium facility at Albert Park, Melbourne.  The new function room was also opened and named ‘The Catherine Freeman’ room.

I have had the pleasure to head negotiations with the Victorian and Australian Governments, as well as Little Athletics Australia and other Athletics bodies across the country. These negotiations have taken place across the past seven years to achieve this centre and it has been one the most exciting things to be involved with across my Presidency.

Albert Park is an excellent location, close to the central business district of Melbourne and the newly renovated Lakeside Stadium. Opened by the Minister for Sport The Hon. Hugh Delahunty MP in December 2011, it is a superb world-class facility that includes not only a track and field that can host all events from local and school carnivals to club Athletics to international standard competition.  We have installed the best equipment that new technology has to offer.

I wholeheartedly thank Athletics Victoria, with specific mention of their Chief Executive Nick Honey and Presidents across the journey Anne Lord and Ian Jones, for their tireless work in ensuring that Lakeside Stadium has been developed into a world class facility that our sport can be proud of.

I have just returned from Barcelona where the IAAF celebrated its centenary year.  Australia was one of the 17 founding nations following the Stockholm Olympics in 1912.  Betty Cuthbert was honoured as the only Australian to be named an all-time legend of the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF).  Betty won three gold medals at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 – women’s 100m, 200m and 4x100m and followed up with another gold medal eight years later in the women’s 400m at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

As 2012 closes, it is with much excitement that I look ahead to the 2013 National Athletics Series incorporating the 2013 Qantas Australian Athletics Tour.

I am thrilled that the Australian Flame will compete on an eight-stop roadshow this summer, with every Australian state set to welcome our best track and field charges.

Excitingly, the Melbourne World Athletics Challenge will again be one of fourteen events internationally to boast IAAF status, while Hobart will welcome the best walkers from around the globe as a host city of an IAAF Race Walking Challenge event.

A bounty of Australian stars, and some of their outstanding international rivals, will also descend on Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart, while Newcastle is set to again host the Hunter Track Classic.

The Nine Network will again be the broadcast partner for the Australian Athletics Tour. In 2013, they will also televise highlights from the 91st Australian Athletics Championships to be held in Sydney in April.

For their encouragement and financial backing across 2012, I would like to extend our most sincere thanks to our commercial partners Qantas, Asics, 2XU, Fit Health Insurance, the Art Series Hotel Group and Flight Centre Group Travel. Additionally, the unwavering co-operation and support of Little Athletics Australia, the Australian Olympic Committee, the Australian Paralympic Committee, the Australian Commonwealth Games Association and Athletics International is abundantly appreciated.

We welcome and congratulate the new Chairman of the Australian Sports Commission, John Wylie AM.  I’ve had very positive meetings with John since his appointment and Athletics Australia looks forward to a closer, more productive partnership with the ASC in the future.

I would also like to welcome Shaun Creighton to the position of Athletics Australia Selector. Shaun will join Chairman Dion Russell and Melinda Gainsford–Taylor after his unanimous ratification by the Athletics Australia Board of Directors.

Shaun as an athlete competed for Australia at two Olympic Games, four Commonwealth Games, four IAAF World Championships and nine IAAF World Cross-Country Championships. Domestically, he won 12 national titles and held two national records for a combined total of 21 years.

Shaun is a well-regarded lawyer, and has previously well executed sports governance experience as a Board Member of Athletics ACT and Athletics Australia and as Chairman of the Athletics Australia Athletes Commission.

Drugs in sport continues to be a very serious issue and the IAAF is ever more vigilant in the detection of even more sophisticated performance enhancing drugs. 

Thank you to my fellow members of the Athletics Australia Board of Directors, who have voluntarily given most generously of their time and experience to our sport this year.

We have an excellent and united multi-skilled Board.

I also extend my most sincere thanks to Dallas O’Brien and to the management and staff of Athletics Australia. Your tireless dedication to the delivery, promotion and growth of our sport is something you should be very proud of and I look forward to working with you all in a very busy 2013.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Rob H Fildes OAM
President
Athletics Australia