Editorial: Picking winners, producing losers

The time for disappointment is past, as is the time for anguished appeals for more public money to be thrown at Olympic sports.

It would be the height of folly to fling many more millions into a system that has brought such poor returns at the Sydney Olympics without undertaking a critical review of how the money was spent.

About $31 million has been funnelled through the New Zealand Sports Foundation to our best athletes during their four-year build-up to Sydney.

The head of the foundation, Chris Ineson, openly admits what Sydney has proved - that some of those "elite" performers were not worth the money given to them. When it came to their big day, their concentration, their confidence or something in their temperament let us down.

Mr Ineson promises a hard look at these athletes before they receive further funding. He should take an equally hard look at his own procedures.

The Sports Foundation has followed an unashamedly elitist philosophy, believing that the country is better off investing in its best.

Big names, it believed, would attract public attention, corporate sponsorship and national pride, and maybe inspire young people to take up the sport.

Following that principle, the foundation has picked winners such as Ian Ferguson and Paul McDonald, Susan Devoy and the man of the moment, Rob Waddell. But it has backed a few losers too, especially at Sydney.

Sport is not so very different from other investments. Picking winners is probably best left to the private sector. Before corporates agree to sponsor a sportsperson, they would be satisfied that he or she has not only the physical requirements for success but the mental toughness.

Doubtless the Sports Foundation is no less mindful of the mental qualities required for success but when it is handling public money, it is not under the same pressure to be certain.

For that reason, it might be better that the Sports Foundation spread its risks more widely. Let it continue to help the elite attract private sponsorship, but when the foundation is spending public money, whether lotto grants or Government outlays, it might be more productive to spend it on coaches, courses or facilities that could benefit a greater number.

Australia, we keep hearing, has spent close to $1 billion over the past 20 years on an elite academy of sport, imported coaches and sports scholarships.

When the costs are set against the country's success at Sydney, each gold medal is reckoned to have cost Australians about $37 million.

By that measure New Zealand's single gold is not a bad return for the Sports Foundation's $31 million. But at that rate, we are unlikely to afford the medal collection we have been accustomed to.

There is no reason to believe that a certain amount of money devoted to sport will buy a certain degree of success. Everything will depend on how the money is spent. It needs to be spent in a way which casts the net for potential champions as widely as possible, providing them with world-class coaching and competition.

No athlete without private sponsorship can expect to live well; the public purse cannot afford to reward a few at the expense of all possible contenders.

Those former Olympians who lament the hardships of life on the road are doing their followers a disservice. For those with the hunger for it, Olympic success offers lifelong rewards that are well worth the hardships of the quest.

It must be wondered whether those who are put off by the hardships really feel they have a chance of attaining the rewards, or even have the hunger. Either way, money spent making the road more comfortable for them would not seem a sound investment.

These may not be the reasons they failed at Sydney to repay the public outlay in them. But the Sports Foundation needs to find the reasons, and fix them.

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