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Name, shame and put you on a plane

 

Name, shame and put you on a plane

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AOC
Name, shame and put you on a plane
With just one year to go until the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Australian Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller has reinforced the Australian Olympic Team’s culture of respect and its strong stance against drugs in sport.

TEAM: With just one year to go until the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Australian Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller has reinforced the Australian Olympic Team’s culture of respect and its strong stance against drugs in sport.

Chiller and the AOC have toured the country in recent months to educate athletes on what it means to be a part of an Australian Olympic Team and what responsibilities come with this honour.

The Sydney 2000 Olympian was confident that the Australian Team would be clean but had a message for anyone looking to taint their sport and country.

“If you dope, to be blunt, if you cheat, and you are a member of the Australian Olympic Team, we will name, shame, and put you on a plane,” Chiller said.

“We have worked really hard on Team culture through our Ignite the Dream series. Everyone on this Team will go to Rio knowing exactly what is expected of them as a member of the Team.

“Have fun, be a larrikin, that’s the Australia way, but show respect for your fellow athletes and for the performance environment that we are creating.

“If I could sum up what I want this Team to be next year then it would be respect!”

London 2012 gold medallist Sally Pearson is hoping the rest of the sporting world can also respect their sport and the Olympic Games.

"Unfortunately it's (performance enhancing drugs) going to be there," Pearson said.

"I don't know how confident I am about how clean it's going to be in Rio.

"But as long as we can do everything we can to make it the cleanest Olympics we can, then that is a really good start."

With a strong culture in place, Chiller believes there is no reason the Australian Team cannot thrive in Rio.

"We are not backing away from our top five target,” Chiller said.

“It’s a tough target, an aspirational target and it will not be easy.

“I’d be brave to say that I’m 100% confident that we are going to get top five but I will say that I’m 100% confident that we will have the opportunity to get top five.”

Mark Knowles and the men’s hockey team will be hoping they are one the teams that can convert their recent success into a gold medal and help Australia move up the medal tally. 

 “We’ve done quite a bit of work post-London on improving our team culture, team ethics and making sure we are moving forward,” the Australian captain said.

“Our coach Graham Reid along with Ric Charlseworth told us that as soon as we sit still then someone will overtake us.

“We’ve learnt out of the experiences of Beijing and London that we need to keep moving.

“We won the World League tournament last month but we know everyone’s chasing the top team and we know that we have a lot of hard work still to do.”

Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au

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