Elite centres spearhead drive for sporting glory

DON CAMERON looks at a promising plan to enhance New Zealand's sporting results at the highest level.

The Australian national sports institute in Canberra and its satellites around the rest of the country have proven that organisation breeds success.

The institute system has, eventually, provided a snowballing collection of international gold medals, attracted state and sponsor funding and produced a blossoming of national pride.

It took Australia perhaps a decade to become what Peter Pfitzinger, manager of the UniSports centre for sports performance at the University of Auckland, describes as the most successful sporting nation in the world on a population basis.

The path to the top for the young Australian athlete is now clearly defined, and lined with Olympic gold and perhaps commercial success.

Now we are, hopefully, heading in a similar direction.

From July 1, 17 sports in the northern area will come under the coaching and scientific support wing of the National Sports Institute North, based in Auckland and the Waikato.

It is one of three high-performance sports centres (the others are in Wellington and Dunedin) set up under the banner of the New Zealand Sports Foundation.

The number of sports involved may eventually rise to 35.

The centres offer a new road to the top for those who show special ability in sport, coaching and administration.

It should work this way: Before reaching teenage years, Terry (boy or girl) will have shown some aptitude at sport.

This will have been noticed and Terry will be involved in school and club competition, coaching and support.

As a teenager, Terry will develop further in school, club and local competition and be noted as specially talented.

Terry will therefore become "carded" among 1000 to 1500 select candidates by the Sports Foundation, and take up the wider development package offered by the high-performance centres.

Terry, often with a coach, will have access to various facilities and experts, who can provide a steady flow of expertise on sports skills, medicine, injury prevention and cure - all destined to improve Terry's overall sporting skill and personal development.

By being "carded," Terry will be among the elite and have expenses met.

Others may join the stream on a user-pays basis.

This could involve the use of scholarships, sponsorship or other physical and financial support.

By late teens or early 20s, Terry will be moving into the highly competitive sports stream.

International competition at various age levels should be available.

And by the mid-20s? The Olympic podium?

While that is one possibility, Terry's stream may take other courses.

A gymnast, for example, may start at a much younger age than a burly field events competitor.

Some "carded" or independent entrants will develop at different speeds and may, after expert advice, change their sporting discipline.

At the same time, Terry will have access to tertiary graduate courses, seeking qualifications useful when active sport stops.

In recent years, various sports, including rugby and cricket, have developed their own academies devoted to an individual search for sporting excellence.

The new, wide-ranging National Sports Institute North will be based on the UniSports section of the University of Auckland Tamaki campus, the Auckland University of Technology in Northcote and the North Shore Bays Trust's developing Millennium Centre at Albany.

Waikato Polytechnic will start as a satellite resource centre.

These places have tendered to provide the programmes the Sports Foundation wants.

Unlike the Australian Institute of Sport, the foundation is not investing in bricks and mortar, preferring to use the facilities of others and pour its money into programmes.

The foundation has been putting $3 million to $4 million a year into old academy programmes.

It envisages that with support from the centres themselves, sponsors and local community trusts, $8 million to $10 million will come into the programmes in the next three or four years.

Accommodation will be available at live-in facilities built or being developed at the three Auckland centres and the Waikato satellite centre.

The sports will be spread round the four bases.

The aquatics section will make use of the new 54m pool being developed at the Millennium Centre, which will also have an indoor running track to complement the adjoining Sovereign Stadium.

The AUT's Akoranga Drive campus will take indoor basketball, netball and weight-training, and also provide an environmental chamber and human performances facilities.

The Waikato base will take in a range of other sports, including equestrian and rowing.

And the overall administration base will be at UniSports.

The AUT's work at Akoranga Drive, which will cost $7 million to $8 million, will be finished by December, while the Millennium Centre should be completed by autumn next year.

All these facilities are planned or purpose-built for training and developing athletes, and none for purely commercial ambitions.

Listening to Pfitzinger, Gaye Bryham, manager of the AUT sport performance centre, and Dave Norris, director of the North Shore coaching academy, one quickly recognises that National Sports Institute North is a most promising combination of sporting minds and missions.

Norris says the Sports Foundation must foster gold-medal winners and highperformance athletes to justify public and private financial backing.

"We are interested in gold medals, but also in giving the athlete the opportunities to make the most of her or his talents," he says.

"If a gold medal comes at the end, so much the better."

Pfitzinger, with two Olympic marathons for the United States on his CV, regards the development of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra as an interesting guide to the NSIN plans.

"It took the Australians from 1988 to about now to get the full benefit from the AIS," says Pfitzinger.

New Zealand, and the NSIN, should realise that it might take 10 years to groom an athlete from novice to Olympic champion, he says.

While at the high-performance centre, the athlete will come under an integrated training environment involving input from the athlete, the coach, sports medicine and sports science experts and an athlete programme manager - all in regular communication and all on the same site.

In addition, the athlete will be involved in outside education.

Bryham wants athletic excellence married to the overall development of the athlete.

Having the four centres linked to tertiary teaching institutions will offer education and qualification for life after competitive sport.

One recent example of this was when the Manu Samoa rugby team, who are trained by AUT staff, went on tour.

An AUT lecturer and sports scientist travelled with them so they could complete a series of certificate studies.

As part of their preparations, athletes involved in the NSIN will come under the care of 78 sports medicine experts and 54 sports science personnel.

If the experts want a second opinion, they can call on a panel of 24 sports medicine, exercise physiology and biomechanics specialists from around the world.

The NSIN is also liaising with similar institutes in Australia, Britain, the United States and Europe.

The overall NSIN philosophy is to complement the skills of coaching and support staff, and to provide an integrated management system for each athlete.

And an Olympic gold medal or two would do no harm.