Australia remains in the top five nations on the medal tally but our performances “dipped” in 2006 as other countries showed dramatic improvement.

On the latest statistics based on Olympic benchmark events and world rankings, Australia finished 2006 with 42 medals, 17 gold, 15 silver and 10 bronze.

With this result Australia slipped to 5th from 4th position.

                     Number of Medals 
                     2006     2005     2004
USA               108       99       103
RUSSIA          98        81        92
CHINA            85        63        63
GERMANY        60        54        48
AUSTRALIA     42        50        49
JAPAN             39        32        37

Australia has a slender three medal buffer from Japan with 39 medals followed by Italy with 33 medals and improving Great Britain with 31 medals.

“China and Germany are the big improvers – China with the focus of a home Games and Germany now producing the results we all expected with the unification of east and west” said AOC President, John Coates.

Japan collected six medals at the recent 2006 Women’s Judo benchmark event.

“Japan continues to improve and Great Britain can be expected to further improve with the significant extra Government funding being provided across all sports in Britain as they prepare for the London Games in 2012” Coates said.

Despite being down overall, there were some very positive results in 2006 for Australia particularly in team sports.

Australia won gold at the women’s Basketball world championships and women’s Water Polo world cup, silver in the men’s and women’s Hockey world cup and bronze in the women’s Softball.

There were five medals in Rowing (2 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze) three medals in Sailing ( 2 gold and 1 silver) and two medals in Equestrian (1 silver and 1 bronze) all in world championship events.

“Our rowers did exceptionally well and it is good to also see Equestrian and Sailing back in the medals after their disappointments in Athens in 2004,” Coates said.

Cycling (3 medals) was down but their World Championships were only a month after the Commonwealth Games.

“Swimming was again our best sport with 14 top 3 world rankings after 16 medals in 2005 and 15 medals in 2004. Athletics was an improver with 4 top 3 world rankings after 1 medal in 2005 and 3 in 2004. This year will provide a good indication of our prospects for Beijing in both these sports as they will have World Championships”.

(Please note Swimming results are based FINA world rankings as at 14 December 2006)

“Indeed the coming year is crucial for us because the pre-Olympic benchmark has been an accurate guide in the past as to how we perform at the Games”.

1999 Benchmark     60 medals
2000 Olympics        58 medals

2003 Benchmark     50 medals
2004 Olympics        49 medals

The AOC recently boosted the money paid to athletes by 25% through its adidas Medal Incentive Funding (MIF) program to help them better prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

AOC funding for the 2008 Team has also increased from $11.5m to $13.4 million. This money has been allocated to send the Team to Beijing.

Another $19.3 m in AOC funding has been provided to prepare the Team for Beijing and beyond. This comprises:

• $8.5m towards the costs of international competition for all member sports on the Beijing program;
• $5.4m for medallists, 4th placegetters and their coaches under the adidas MIF program.
• $5.4m to stage the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in 2005 and 2007.

And there is the AOC funding being provided to winter sports as they prepare for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and to send the Team.

“Our Executive is well aware that other nations have increased funding to their athletes and sports to record levels and we are being challenged to maintain our position in the top five on the overall Olympic medal tally”.

“The increased funding is paramount to our success in Beijing,” Coates said.

AOC