One of swimming’s sharpest minds, Queensland CEO Kevin Hasemann, believes the sport in Australia is at a crossroads.
ON THE ROPES: Queensland’s long-serving CEO has overseen two decades for dominance. Photo Courtesy: Courier Mail.
As debate rages in the corridors of power in Australian sport, surrounding the future of Olympic sports, Hasemann has questioned the future of Australia’s most successful Olympic sport – believing the gold medal factory will struggle under proposed funding cuts.
“Does it take another Montreal Olympics, where swimming won one bronze medal? Does it need to wither into a sporting crisis, where there is a generation or two of swimmers lost, before someone acts,” Hasemann told Jess Halloran in The Australian newspaper.
Hasemann has spent 18 years at the helm of the sport – overseeing one of the most vibrant nurseries in the swimming world – almost two decades of international domination.
TEEN MACHINE: LA Olympians at 17. Justin Lemberg and Jon Sieben – products of the Queensland medal factory. Photo:Russell McPhedran (Hanson Media Collection)
Queensland is an Olympic gold medal factory – producing golden greats – individual gold medallists – David Theile, Grant Hackett, Kieren Perkins, Susie O’Neill, Stephanie Rice, Leisel Jones, Libby Trickett, Duncan Armstrong, Jon Sieben and Jodie Henry.
BARCELONA GOLD: Proud Queenslander Kieren Perkins claims his first Olympic gold in the 1500m freestyle in 1992. Photo: Russell McPhedran (Hanson Media Collection)
Hasemann had big shoes to fill with the “godfather” of Queensland Swimming Greg Lalor creating a platform of greatness in a State that has led the way in Australian Swimming for decades on end – both in development, Target Squads and Coach development.
GOLDEN GIRL: Dual Olympic gold medallist from 1996 and 2000, Susie O’Neill, hails from the Sunshine State. Photo Courtesy: Swimming Australia
The past 20 years has seen 42 swimmers win 117 Olympic medals – including 40 gold.
Hasemann told The Australian funding cuts foreshadowed by the Australian Sports Commission could be crushing for an entire generation of kids. Said Hasemann:
“It doesn’t make sense to invest over $40 million in high performance swimming between Olympic Games while providing negligible funding for development of junior swimmers….I can’t fathom the strategy behind this short-sighted approach.
“The likelihood that the ASC will reduce or discontinue the small amount it provides to junior sport is at odds with Australia’s bid for 2032 Olympic Games (in southeast Queensland).
“The average age of swimming finalists now stands at 23 for women and 24 for men.
“This means that the current age of swimmers likely to medal in 2032 is around 11 or 12, and those kids are already in our sport.”
Australia’s State bodies have been warned to expect funding cuts “some, if not significant, change” in the ASC’s “participation funding” and the cessation of Swimming Australia funding for sport development, making it $1 million on the line.
States stand to lose around $200,000 each — money to keep or get kids swimming.
“Failure to act now to address the paucity of funding for the development of junior athletes will be harmful for all Olympic sports, which are at the crossroads,” says Hasemann.
“And by the time the full brunt of this insidious issue is felt, the senior national sports policymakers responsible will have moved on and will escape accountability,” says Hasemann, also acknowledging an exodus of top swimming coaches and sports scientists to international competitors over the past decade or so.
“Is there any wonder we are now seeing other countries emerge as forces on the world swimming stage.
“The international swimming landscape has changed a lot in recent years, with a growing number of countries producing Olympic medallists. As a country with a very small population, the only way we can meet this challenge is by investing more in our talent in and out of the pool.
“We are no longer the smartest in the world, there’s been a brain drain from Australia.
“If you were in a business, you would no longer be forecasting record results. You’d be expecting the opposite because of the reduced inputs.
“Swimming Queensland focuses on supporting and developing coaches across the State, so they’re equipped to instil in our junior swimmers the skills and attributes they’ll need to undertake the long journey to Olympic success.
“This core activity includes clinics for swimmers and coaches and providing access to strong competition.
“With less funding, Swimming Queensland will have to cut into those critical services, and the ramifications in the longer term for Australian swimming are obvious.
“The focus is blurred. When you want to get exceptional results, you need exceptional focus. Otherwise you can lose your way. If you click on the website you start to ask: Is this actually the Australian Sports Commission? It looks like some kind of health website?”
It also doesn’t help that swimming only really happens at a club level. As a high school teacher, it would be great if we could run inter-school competition, similar to the American colleges do or even modify an ISL type schools competition.
It already happens although elite school’s only with the GPS in QLD. I’m sure in other states!!
Govt investment in our proud tradition is a must!
Lindie Marks interesting read!
I have been involved in swimming for over 40yrs as a competitor, coach, parent & business owner. Funding alone isn’t going to save our sport. A lot of parents & children involved in sport are all looking for instant success, in our case (State QT’s, medals, National QT’s) As we know, generally these things take time to achieve, in most cases not within a swimmers 1st season. Keeping the parent motivated to bring their child to training, club, competitions, day in day out, week in week out without any perceived success is what we are finding the biggest hurdle. Compare our sport to AFL, Soccer, Netball etc when you train once, maybe twice a week, compete once a weekend for 1-2 hrs & have a result right away. In this day & age of wanting everything now, swimming is suffering. The implementation of Swim League in NSW is a step in the right direction. As a sport we have to shake it up or we will no longer be the swimming powerhouse.