Athletics Australia – News – President’s Message

The 92^nd Australian Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games Selection Trials at Melbourne’s Lakeside Stadium recently produced a fitting climax to what has been one of our most successful domestic seasons ever.

After the excitement of the National Athletics Series and Australian Athletics Tour meets around the country, the nationals provided a fitting exclamation point to the domestic season. 

We have enjoyed exceptionally strong attendance around the country in 2014, including our largest ever crowd at Lakeside Stadium of over 5,000 fans to witness the IAAF Melbourne World Challenge.  

All of our Australian Athletics Tour meets have had strong TV coverage this year, with one-hour highlights broadcasts on free-to-air channels TEN and ONE-HD as well as on Fox Sports. 

Our on-line coverage expanded to include live streaming of not only all three Tour meets and the senior nationals, but also for the first time the Australian Junior Athletics Championships.  The feedback to this initiative has been overwhelmingly positive and we have plans in place to further strengthen our on-line broadcast offering going forward. 

We have also seen strong growth in athlete participation, with the Australian Junior Championships attracting a record number of 2,099 competitors in 2014.  On the back of this increase, a record number of 61 athletes will represent Australia at the 2014 IAAF World Junior Championships in the US in July.  

Adding to the general air of excitement, our athletes have definitely been producing the goods on the track and on the field.  We saw Melissa Breen break the Australian women’s 100m record earlier this year, and Kim Mickle also claim the national women’s javelin record in Melbourne in March.  Not to mention talented junior Eleanor Patterson clearing 1.96m in the women’s high jump whilst still only a high school student.  

In total, 123 individual athletes have recorded either an A of a B Qualifying Standard for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games this season. 

As a result, we have just seen the Australian Commonwealth Games Association name 45 athletes amongst our initial selections for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games with our projections for the final team number expected to be close to a record 100 athletes.  

It is important to remember that the sport of athletics is the world’s oldest sport.  Running, jumping and throwing competitions existed in ancient times, thousands of years ago.  Modern athletics still is a much loved and competitive sport.  From the youngest of ages children love participating in it. It is a healthy and fun pursuit. 

As children get older there are many alternatives.  Not only other Olympic sports, but the professional sports who can offer good income and careers.  But the reality is that relatively few, maybe a few thousand a year, get that opportunity.  What of the rest? The hundreds of thousands of other children?

Athletics punches above its weight but, Athletics, like many Olympic sports, struggles for corporate sponsorship and support.  We as a sport have wonderful support from the Australian Government through the Australian Sports Commission.  The Victorian and Australian Governments funded our new wonderful facility at Albert Park.  And the Victorian Government has been extremely generous in providing funding to assist us in running the IAAF World Challenge competition and the Australian Athletics Championships. 

But the reality is we struggle to provide optimal programs to promote participation, coaching and competitions.  And we are constantly seeking further corporate support. 

The governance, marketability and advancement of our sport throughout Australia would have been improved with a merger between Athletics Australia and Little Athletics, that we worked hard to achieve in 2013, with the considerable support of the Australian Sports Commission.  It hasn’t been achieved yet, but our door is still open and we are willing participants.  We hope to work together with Little Athletics in the future to advance our sport. 

The Australian Sports Commission has set us a challenge to achieve success on the world stage through the Winning Edge Programme.  We have and we will deliver in this regard.

As a sport we have much to look forward to and we count on your support. 

Athletics Australia – News