Article by Cameron Spink

Well it seems as if the Australian gold medal drought is over, thanks to some brilliance by our sailors. However, when the Australian public was despairing over the weekend the blame game had begun. Some people pointed towards the Australian Government:

"Kevan Gosper, Australia's senior representative on the International Olympic Committee, this morning said in a radio interview from London that the Australian team had performed well in the circumstances but had been hamstrung by a lack of public funds and government focus.

"I think there was something wrong with the degree of support that the Australian team got this time round," Mr Gosper told ABC Radio's Jon Faine. "Normally it gets very strong focus from the government. It probably hasn't been as good this time round for whatever reason.

"We have been down on the sort of financial support that we were accustomed to when compared to the financial support that is coming through from other countries, particularly Europe and specifically the UK.

KATE Lundy says a post-Olympics review will examine how Australia can improve in future Games after a less-than-impressive medal haul in London.

"The team has done extremely well at the silver medal level but that is the difference; the money is the difference between silver and gold. As a result, we are down about 18 in ranking overall - 24th now in ranking. We have never seen that ranking before. In fact New Zealand is ahead of us in gold medals. So it is not happening."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/london-games/money-the-difference-between-olympic-silver-and-gold-says-aoc-chief-kevan-gosper/story-e6frgdg6-1226443802086

So apparently our Government isn't giving enough towards our sporting endeavours. Yet AU$325 million is spent by the Australian Government on sport generally and AU$52 million on Olympics specifically (click here for article). Whether or not more money would net us more gold completely avoids the important discussion as to whether the Australian Government is forking out too much money on sporting endeavours already.