I am pleased that the Winning Edge game plan today announced by the Chairman of the ASC, John Wylie, is clearly focused on the steps necessary to ensure continued international success across all sports.

Two weeks ago we adopted and released our Program and Funding Guidelines for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio in which we set as the primary objective a top 5 finish in both the overall and gold medal tallies. 

We also affirmed that our target for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is to improve and finish in the top 15 nations in the medal tallies.

We are pleased that the ASC and the AIS are unequivocal in their Winning Edge game plan in sharing these medal performance targets.

Our Olympic sports received a wakeup call in London when we dropped out of the top 5 in overall medals for the first time since the Sydney 2000 Games. We and our sports simply cannot get back to being one of the top 5 nations again without the concerted support of the ASC, AIS and the State Institutes and Academies.

Like the ASC, the AOC is convinced that high performance success is inextricably linked to strong grassroots participation and will continue to play our part in encouraging this through our Olympic Education Program and getting our Olympians out into schools and the general community.

John Coates
President – Australian Olympic Committee