This month's big idea: Where do the athletes come from?$513 million is a wonderful investment in Australian sport. But it raises a question worth sitting with. This week, the Australian Government announced a $513 million investment to back our athletes on the road to Brisbane 2032 and beyond. As someone who has spent a career in and around sport, I think that's worth celebrating. Our Olympians and Paralympians inspire the nation, and they deserve world-class support to perform on the world stage. But here's the question that stayed with me, where do those athletes actually come from? Not one of them appeared fully formed. Every athlete who will wear the green and gold in Los Angeles, in the French Alps, or in Brisbane in 2032 started in the same place at the local sports club. They were taught by a volunteer coach. They played on a ground maintained by someone's parents. They belonged to a club run by a committee of people giving their time for free, often while juggling everything else life throws at them. Community clubs are the foundation of the entire high performance system. They are the wide base of the pyramid that every podium moment is built on. And right now, that base is under more pressure than ever. The Australian Sports Commission's own research tells the story. Delivering community sport is, in their words, “getting harder with more resources desperately needed.” Sixty-one percent of volunteers say they don't even know what they could do to help. Clubs are stretched, under-resourced and frequently unclear on direction not for lack of passion, but for lack of support. Meanwhile, the participation side of the recent funding the Play Well program supporting community sporting environments is comparatively modest and shorter in horizon than the high performance investment. Both matter enormously. But they aren't in balance, and it's the base of the pyramid where the foundation is thinnest. This isn't a case of elite versus grassroots. It's one system. Elite investment delivers medals in the next cycle; club investment delivers the athletes and the healthier, more connected communities of the next generation. You cannot keep investing in the top of the pyramid indefinitely while the base goes under-supported, because that base is precisely where the athletes worth investing in are made. As we build towards 2032, my hope is that the legacy we talk about isn't measured only in medals. I hope it's also measured in clubs stronger, clearer, better-supported clubs that are still thriving long after the closing ceremony. Because if we want athletes worth investing in, we have to invest in the clubs that produce them. That's the work I care about most. And it's why I do what I do.
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