Application Of Sport’s Policy Factors For International Sporting Success (SPFISS) In Australia
Striving for international success in sport has become ever important across multiple nations. Most sports rely on government funding, as a result politics has a huge hand in financing the infrastructure required to further our sporting capabilities. The government and public tend to measure our success in sport through our medal count, in particular gold and thus, ultimately ‘winning’. Unfortunately this is not a healthy way of viewing and measuring the success of our athletes and coaches. Australia’s early development of the AIS ensured the countries’ success at International meets, offering athletes the best coaches and appealing to athletes across the nation; however, it is now evident that as other countries have developed their own sporting institutes, Australia has stalled and is, consequently, falling behind.
Oakley and Green state that ‘sport should be invested in strategically’. The need for a multi-dimensional approach was identified. Thus leading to the development of SPLISS. A framework designed to act as a guide to help facilitate the likelihood of international success. The input-throughput-output system that the SPLISS model utlises can be employed as a way to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency of elite sports policies across all nations and sports.
SPLISS - Sport’s Policy Factors for International Sporting Success, utilises nine policy areas referred to as ‘pillars’.The pillars provide a series of smaller goals, based upon critical success factors, which act as a framework to enable the athlete to reach the greater outcome - podium success. Talent identification is the development pathway which allows for the connection between grassroots to international sport. It is the genesis for athlete development, management, and facilitation/promotion of athletes sporting potential. When compared to other countries elite sport policy, Australia’s SPLISS model is lacking when it comes to talent identification.
With just over 24 million people, Australia has a relatively small population, when compared to the USA’s 320 million and China’s 1,300 million. Australia’s high performance talent pool is roughly estimated at just above 200,000 people. So when comparing these numbers it is easy to see that the odds are not necessarily in our favour in contrast to the USA and China. Although notably a smaller nation when compared to the US and China, it would appear that we may not necessarily be spotting or fostering the few talented athletes we have. This highlights the importance of unearthing our talented athletes, especially in a country in which everyone is so spread out.The definition of talent is a ‘natural aptitude or skill.’ To reach peak success an athlete’s training needs to be holistic. There are many aspects which make elite athlete ‘elite’. These include the individual’s mentality, attitude and instinctive ‘feel’ for the sport and having the ability to apply the coaching instruction to further develop their skill set. Talent is rare and as many people are finding participation rates are dropping, thus limiting the selection pool. “Participants strongly suggest that ‘there’s not enough follow through to pass them [talent] onto the next level. It’s not happening so we are losing kids’” - Respondent four
So are we picking up talented athletes? Or are we just selecting the athletes that are more privileged and thus able to meet the selection criteria? Are we overlooking naturally talented athletes from low socio-economic backgrounds? Pillar four is designed for talent identification and the development system, but is it doing its job?
The Australian government has identified Pillar four as an area requiring improvement. As a result the talent identification system will be doubled to provide an additional 5,000 athletes development opportunities. Additional funding will be provided to aid the expansion of talent scouts and talent identification programs, notably in regional Australia.NSO will receive additional support and funding of resources to facilitate the development of pathways resolving the gap between local clubs and schools to institutes, academies, and universities can be. Having successful pathways will lift the level of the sport.
Lack of clarity of how to achieve a goal and what route to take is seen as a major flaw from an athletes point of view, which can become overwhelming.Doubling our talent identification program should ensure that our future champions are both discovered and assisted to reach their full potential and Boosting funding support for our high performance athletes will in turn foster the retention of our high performance coaches and athletes. SRMC will reform the alignment of Australia’s institutes and academies of sport, breathing new life and strength into what is the backbone of our high performance system – the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the state and territory institutes and academies of sport (SIS/SAS).
Secondly progression needs to be all inclusive when designing pathways for identified talent. An athlete’s pathway spans the entire continuum of athletic development Pathways need to be fluid and take many things into consideration such as when an athlete enters, leaves, progresses, or remains at a particular stage according to their ability, maturation, interest, opportunities, personal circumstances such as schooling and goals etc.Sport organisations can identify preferred development pathways within their own sport, and build programs, implementing strategies to encourage participation and promote excellence.Development pathways are tailored to target different skill acquisition and levels depending on the athlete’s progression and what stage the athlete is at during any given time in their career.
Elite coaches are critical in unlocking an athletes potential and supporting their prospective future. Pillar 7 focuses on Coaching provision & coach development. Coaches have a huge role in the development and progression of an athlete, fostering an athlete’s confidence through providing solid training and foundational skills from which they can build upon from grassroots through to high performance sport. Thus coaches ensure a strong development pathway, one that has the ability to underpin the progress of an athlete both in and out of the sport in all aspects. Including psychology, nutrition, physiology, biomechanics and eventually data analysis both in competition and training. There is also strong evidence that coaches are a huge influence factor in participation and retention.
It is important that we recognise the value of quality coaching right across the sporting spectrum and introduce funding, up-to-date training, support both in and out of the arena and mentoring to develop coaches to be better educated. This has been found in other sports where coaches have gone overseas as the industry is inflexible and impossible to fight, however, upon return have not been recognised for their international success. In 2016 an article titled “Sydney suffers brain drain of world-class swimming coaches” read -“Will the last internationally recognised swimming coach to leave Sydney please turn out the lights?” “‘Australian coaches have been forced out of the system...yet it is the Australian coaches who had a better idea of how to coach Australian athletes and get results.”
When it came to elite sport and producing elite athletes NSW was Queensland’s competitor. But now the majority of competitive swimmers are found in Queensland where they have flocked, for the sole purpose of finding an ‘elite’ coach. The lack of developed coaches in NSW has resulted in athletes careers coming to an end due to no obvious means of progression. strong opinions were voiced in relation to the overall quality of coaching staff. The participants agree that the coaches have a strong impact on the international success of an athlete’s performance‘without good coaches few athletes will succeed’.
The Australian Sports Commission, Australia’s national sporting agency is responsible for the distribution of funding and direction of ‘The Pathway to Success’ in order to maximise the Australian Government’s whole-of-sport reform agenda. They aim to achieve this by delivering coaching and officiating education programs, especially in regional areas, through additional funding to NSO’s.
In April 2018 the ACT Performance Hub was established with its home located at the AIS, in Canberra. A four-way partnership between, Swimming NSW, Swimming ACT, Swimming Australia and the ACT Academy of Sport established the ACT Performance Hub to provide a transition High Performance program for talented regional swimmers to develop from Age Group swimmers to the National Teams arena. “Our evidence is that many of these swimmers either move interstate, internationally or exit the sport.”
Shannon Rollason, a six time Olympic coach and nine times world championship team coach who has been critical of the sport in recent years, was appointed as the new ACT Performance Hub Head Coach (swimming). Rollason’s appointment will provide the ACT and regional NSW swimmers and coaches with a much needed educational opportunity. Both coaches and swimmers can visit the Hub, access the AIS facilities to collaborate, train and observe. The aim of this program is not only to increase the number of athletes transitioning onto National teams, but to provide access to ‘elite’ skills and education for the coaches and the development of their squads.Squad development is key, as the successful accreditation of a coach relies upon the performance of the athlete. To an extent a great coach can improve an average swimmer and get them to levels of accreditation. This can be open to abuse and does not have the young athlete’s best interests at heart. To retain uninjured swimmers requires greater understanding of the developing body and maturation rates. This is particularly important with squad development and talent identification practices. insufficient monitoring processes in place “there have been kids come through and they get through because their coach is in the system – but all the other talent around Australia with a coach who is not known is not picked up because the head coach doesn’t have his finger on the pulse.”
Elite sport policy covers many factors which impact and effect the development of success in Australian sport. Pillar four; Talent Identification and development and Pillar 7; Coaching provision & coach development work together hand in hand with a study from Griffith University finding a strong link between the role of a coach other elite sport policies, in this case the coaches emerged as being instrumental in facilitating talent identification, recruitment and development processes.advance retention rate of athletes and ultimately fast tracking individuals to sporting success.It is evident that sports like swimming NSW, although maybe delayed, are finding the gaps and building ‘long lasting’ substitutions rather than a quick fix. Retaining athletes throughout NSW offers a larger pool of talent Coaching and development, however, resembles rather well on “Successful Elite Sport Policies” compared to other countries, that may not be the case. The importance of quality coaching is often overlooked and misunderstood.
Overall, the coaches’ role was fundamental in enabling talent development, athlete progression and offering the appropriate pathways for athletes to move to higher levels of competition. The coach is seen as largely responsible for these processes.
