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From the Centres
Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra*
Sport is an integral part of Australia'sheritage. When declining
fortunesthrough the 1960s reached a crisis at the1976 Montreal
Olympics where no goldmedal was won, it became evident thatother
countries were placing a farhigher priority on sport.Concern at the
country's sporting
decline had earlier led to two FederalGovernment commissioned
reports,by Bloomfield in 1973, and Coles in1975. Their common
recommendation,drawing on overseas models, was toestablish a
national sports institute tofurther the development of
eliteathletes and coaches. This wouldremedy the lack of
opportunities forAustralian athletes to live and train intheir own
country with full sport andcoaching support rather than to have
togo abroad to develop their talents.
In 1980, the Federal Governmentannounced the establishment of
anInstitute of Sport at the National SportsCentre in Canberra.
Itwas hoped that itwould provide:* Top quality training and
coaching* World Class facilities, including
sports science and medicine sup-port
* Domestic and overseas travel to topcompetitions
* Educational opportunities foracademic study and career
employ-ment.
The Institute was intended to beperformance-oriented, not simply
atertiary educational establishment.Officially opened by the Prime
Ministeron Australia Day, 1981, it was initiallyrun as a public
company with a boardof management under the chairman-ship of the
former Olympic runner,Kevan Gosper, with the swimmingcoach Don
Talbot as foundation Execu-tive Director.
In 1987, Federal legislation alteredthe Institute's status to
that of a statut-ory authority, with appointment of amanagement
board by the FederalMinister of Arts, Sport, the Environ-ment,
Tourism and Territories. The
*From information kindly supplied by JohnPurnell, Australian
Institute of Sport, POBox 176, Belconnen, Act 2616
(C 1989 Butterworth & Co (Publishers)
Ltd0306-3674/89/020072-04 $03.00
Board's main responsibility is thedevelopment of policy
initiatives.
Objectives of the AIS
The objectives set out in the AustralianInstitute of Sport Act
1986 are:
* To provide resources, services andfacilities to enable
Australians topursue and achieve excellence insport while also
furthering theireducational and vocational skillsand other aspects
of their personaldevelopment
* To improve the sporting abilities ofAustralians generally
through theimprovement of the standard ofsports coaches
* To foster cooperation in sportbetween Australia and other
coun-tries through the provision ofaccess to resources, services
andfacilities related to sport.
The functions of the Institute are:
* To devise and implement pro-grammes for the recognition
anddevelopment of
persons who excel, or who havethe potential to excel, in
sportandpersons who have achieved, orwho have the potential
toachieve, standards of excellenceas sports coaches,
umpires,referees or officials to the con-duct of sport
* To establish, manage, develop andmaintain facilities for the
purposesof the Institute
* To provide sports medicine ser-vices and sports science
services topersons participating in pro-grammes referred to above
and toundertake research related tosports medicine and sports
science
* To collect and distribute informa-tion, and provide advice on
mattersrelated to the activities of the insti-tute
* To raise money for the purposes ofthe Institute by appropriate
means,having regard to the proper per-formance of the other
functions ofthe Institute and
* For the purpose of fostering co-op-eration in sport between
Australiaand other countries, to provide ac-cess to persons from
other coun-tries to the resources, services andfacilities of the
Institute.
Facilities
The Institute is at Bruce, ten minutesfrom Canberra's central
business dis-trict on a 65 hectare site which includesboth the
national indoor and outdoorstadia. Capital work prior to the
Insti-tute's foundation amounted to $A77m.The operating budget in
1987/8 was$A15.2m. Income is raised from gov-ernment grants,
commercial chargesfor facility use and corporate sponsor-ship.The
facilities include an outdoor
stadium and warm-up track, indoorstadium, swimming hall, tennis
com-plex, halls for gymnastics, basketballand netball and general
trainingfacilities, in addition to the Sports Sci-ence and Medicine
Centre, administra-tion centre and halls of residence.Details of
these facilities are as follows:National Outdoor Stadium completed
in1977. Fully equipped 18,000 seatstadium with electronic
scoreboard;Rekortan all-weather track; hostedathletics World Cup in
1985.Warm-up track 1985. Fully equipped.National Indoor Stadium
1980. Multi-purpose 5 200-seater indoor arena withwide use from
tennis competitions,Torvill and Dean ice skating, opera androck
concerts.Swimming hall 1984. Includes 50 metrepool (2.2m.deep) and
a 25 metre train-ing pool, 1.lm.deep, plus conditioningroom, spa
and sauna. Open to publicoutside AIS training hours.Tennis complex
1982. With four indoorand six outdoor courts, all withPlexipave
surface suitable for round-the-clock play. Open to public
outsideAIS training times.Gymnastics hall 1984. A
multi-purposecomprehensive gymnastics trainingfacility.Sports
training facilities 1984. Incorpor-ates outdoor (grass and
Poligrass) andindoor (Poligrass) pitches. Otherfacilities include
weight-lifting centre,
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From the Centres
f. .-...
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Views of the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, showing
from top left to bottom right: aerial view, gymnasticpit, main
entrance, biomechanics running track and weights room.
Br. J. Sp. Med., Vol. 23, No. 2 73
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From the Centres
conditioning room, spa and a fully-equipped 360-seat
theatre.Basketball and netball hall. Comprisesthree indoor
basketball and two netballcourts.Sports Science and Medicine Centre
1985.Adminiistration centre and halls of resi-dence completed in
1985.
Residential scholarships
Athletes, who must be gainfullyemployed or bona fide students,
maybe awarded scholarships comprisingfull board and lodging,
transport sup-port and sports clothing. They mayreceive annual
education allowances of$A250 (secondary students) or $A850(tertiary
students).
Athletes' Institutes programmesinclude inter-state and overseas
com-petition and they receive full adminis-trative and technical
support, includingsports science and medicine.
AIS sports
There are now sixteen fully residentsports, ten at AIS Canberra,
six out-posted AIS Units as follows (in addi-tion to provision for
canoeing on theGold Coast of Queen'sland).
In Perth, the AIS hockey unit isgrant-aided by the Western
Australiangovernment, whose Department ofSport and Recreation
provides freeoffice accommodation. Sport psychol-ogy and physiology
support is pro-vided by the University of WA'sHuman Movement
Studies Depart-ment.The Brisbane City Council provides
offices for the squash and diving unitat the Sleeman Sports
Complex atChandler and the training venue forsquash at the QE2
Sports Complex.
In Adelaide, the South Australiangovernment Department of
Recreationand Sport support the cricket andcycling units.
The Sports Science and MedicineCentre
Comprehensive sports science andmedicine programmes are now
anintegral part of the preparation of inter-national standard
athletes and arenormally available throughout train-ing,
competition and touring. Until re-cently, Australia neglected this
vitalback-up service and to overcome thisdeficiency, the AIS
established a SportsScience and Medicine Centre compar-able with
the best in the world.The Sports Science Unit includes
physiology, psychology and technicalsupport groups. It helps
coaches byproviding continuous assessment oftheir athletes'
physiological, psycho-
Some of the facilities at Canberra; from top: indoor soccer
hall, the NationalIndoor Stadium and the gymnastics hall.
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logical and biomechanical characteris-tics and gives help with
performanceenhancement.The Sports Medicine Unit, consisting
of two doctors, physiotherapists, mas-seurs and a nursing
sister, not onlytreats injuries and illness but devisesand
implements injury preventionprogrammes for individual athletesand
sports.The Units are committed to dis-
seminating their knowledge to thebroader Australian scientific
and ath-letic community through conferences,courses and the
production of aquarterly journal 'EXCEL', now avail-able on
subscription and funded by theSir Robert Menzies Foundation.The
Centre's educational work in-
cludes the training of final yearphysiotherapy students from the
Cum-berland College of Health Science,Sydney, and students of
biophysics/in-strumental science from the SwinburneInstitute of
Technology. Graduate stu-dents work on projects in
physiology,psychology and biomechanics.The Sport Science and
Medicine Unit
moved in 1985 into new spacious ac-commodation in the centre of
the AIScomplex which incorporates the bestdesign features from
similar complexesround the world and allows more test-ing, research
and teaching. Currentactivities include the following:* A sports
medicine clinic includes a
small three-bed casualty area,nurse's station and medical
con-sulting rooms.
* The open-plan physiotherapy areahas 16 treatment couches,
rehabili-tation and exercise equipment, a'wet area' for ice and
water treat-ment, a massage area and a hyd-rotherapy pool.
* The physiologylbiochemistry sectionendeavours to identify and
quan-tify the physiological, biochemicaland nutritional
characteristics con-tributing to sport-specific energygeneration.
An ever-growing rangeof testing equipment is available tomonitor
performance, most re-cently an environmental chamberwas added to
help athletes withacclimatization.
* The sport psychology programmeaims to equip athletes with
copingskills for competition stresses.There are consulting rooms
withaudiovisual facilities and a labora-tory with flotation tanks
andbiofeedback equipment.
* The biomechanics lab analysestechnique with computer
analysisof high-speed film fed through adigitizer. Force-plates and
photo-electric timers are used in accelera-tion and velocity
studies.
* Technical support services include anon-site workshop and
computersection.
GENERATION
SPORT SUPPORT
1 Helps prevent & treat injuriesSuperb All-Round Compression
SupportRetains Body Heat for better blood flowComfortable, Strong
and Washable
J0 S SIZES AVAILABLE
Diamond Sport Supports are made from thermocelneoprene and help
to prevent injuries such as pulledmuscles and strained tendons, and
their benefits arewidely recognised by physiotherapists
everywhere.Available from good sport shops or for
furtherinformationcontact
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