Australian Sailing welcomes AIS investment in high-performance sport
by Michael Martin 30 Oct 2020 08:54 AEDT
Mat Belcher and Will Ryan - Gold Medal © Sailing Energy / World Sailing
Australian Sailing has welcomed yesterday's announcement from the Australian Institute of Sport which confirmed funding for the Australian Sailing high-performance program will roll forward at financial year 2020/21 levels until 30 June 2022.
This will provide Australian Sailing with funding certainty in these challenging times and allow the Australian Sailing Team to remain focused on preparations for Tokyo.
"Yesterday's announcement is very welcome news, and we are grateful to the AIS for confirming this funding during what is a difficult time for sports," Ben Houston, CEO of Australian Sailing, said.
"Australian Sailing continues to focus on developing its high-performance strategy to ensure that we remain internationally competitive through Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024 and beyond."
Australian Sailing Team Athletes have been training in Australia looking forward to competing at the upcoming Sail Sydney regatta in December as an important step in their preparation for the Tokyo Olympics.
Australian Sports Commission (ASC) Chair John Wylie said: "This gives sports funding clarity for the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics and the 2022 Commonwealth Games. It is also a springboard towards Paris 2024."
AIS CEO Peter Conde said the overall funding decisions achieve the right balance between providing sports with longer-term certainty but also providing flexibility for performance-based changes in the lead-up to Paris 2024.
"We're in a unique situation where this current Games cycle has extended to five years, so we will only have three years between Tokyo and Paris" Mr Conde said.
"The AIS will continue discussions with sports with the aim of announcing the remainder of funding for the complete Paris cycle by December 2021.
"In the meantime, by giving sports high performance funding certainty through to June 2022, we are giving sports and athletes the best possible chance to succeed on the world stage at major upcoming international events."