THEY play hard, they play often, and they play to win. Australian sports teams win more than their fair share of titles, demolishing rivals with seeming ease. And Australians top the rankings in numerous individual sports, from swimming to golf and squash to triathlon. How do they do it?
A big part of the secret is an extensive and expensive network of sporting academies underpinned by science and medicine. For two decades Australia has quietly invested in sports research and development, building a national system that scoops up talent and turns it into victories. “It’s been a 20-year process of working hands-on with coaches and athletes, developing research questions and applying the answers back to coaching,” says Peter Fricker, chief of sports science at the Australian Institute of Sport.