Tam writes -

Given that obesity levels in Australia are pretty appalling, and getting
worse, does anyone else think that, instead of the govt spending money
so much money on elite athletes, we should probably focus on encouraging
EVERYONE to play sport?

I suspect the next big policy push will be to get individuals to take some
preventitive measures for the good of their own health and the collective
public benefit - and there may even be some tax or financial incentives
given to encourage that. I devined that from a paper presented to the Sydney
Institute a few weeks ago by Julia Gillard - and it matters not which
political party proffers it - if it has sufficient public/taxpayer appeal it
has a good chance of being adopted by whichever o.

The simple economics are that recognising those that do significantly change
their health risk profile by exercise are doing the public health system (as
well as themselves) a big favour, and recognising that is smart politics.

If you don't believe me, think about how many tv clips you have seen
recently of Howard walking, Abbott cycling, Beasley publicly losing weight
and so on. Hardly elite athletes any of them, but they see their perceived
images improving by being filmed thus.

The whole bloody country is sports mad - properly orchestrated, how many
votes would there be in pitching to that receptive audience in a country
with a climate that (mostly) is well suited to outdoor activities?

I pretty much sucked at all other sports.

Respectfully disagree Tam - you just had not found the ones you love or had
bad introductions to - its amazing if you go back to some sports later in
life, in good company and now with competant instruction, just how much the
dynamic changes for the better.

These were sports that I was never going to be brilliant at, but I
enjoyed them. Improving myself was enough. I felt no need to judge
myself against others.

This is absolutely the key point - getting dissapointed at a competitive
result is a real downer - but having a great time and doing something for
your self esteem (not to mention getting a big dose of the good old
endorphins) is what gets us out there on a regular basis - and to be of
value the activity has to be consistently undertaken at least at an aerobic
level. This is what will do really good things for the community.

So I guess I feel like there is a serious lack of funding into promoting
sport participation for everyone, and that's bad enough. But it seems
even worse that there is a continual push for elite funding, spreading
the message that sport is only for people who are really good at it.

Again respectfully disagree Tam - the AIS trained cyclists who didn't quite
make it into pro teams make great cycling coaches for us hubbards at club
level, who in turn encourage recreational cyclists, our kids and others we
come into contact with to get off the couch for a bit. IMHO its not a direct
funding thing, its an enthusiasm and encouragement thing - get competant
people showing the general population how to something safely and well will
have a big impact.

Countries that get mean about encouraging elite athletes suffer
significantly in their public sports participation - England in recent years
comes to mind - and from which country are the poms currently recruiting
their high perfomance coaches from in cricket athletics swimming et al?

And by way of further example, that recent 24hr mtb race effort of yours
will have inspired a fair bit of uplifted activity among the readers here -
so keep going well you!

best, Andrew