A $200 million plan to revitalise facilities at the Australian Institute of Sport and encourage young athletes to transfer to Canberra and train at the campus will be submitted to the federal government following the forthcoming election.
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The campus, which opened in January 1981, had been described as a "ghost town" by long term sports officials, pointing to its residences used to accommodate school children visiting Parliament House.
"The AIS is no longer world's best," admitted Sport Australia chair, John Wylie. "We need athletes to want to go there. We've got the site. It would be crazy to allow it to deteriorate."
A detailed business case for a $200m capital works renewal of the Canberra campus has been prepared.
It is integral to the Morrison Government's pledge in the last budget of $54m funding to the long neglected pathways for athletes training for the 2024 Paris Olympics and the Games in Los Angeles four years later.
Many emerging athletes currently train at state sports institutes around Australia, leading to a duplication of coaching programs. A rejuvenated AIS would attract world class coaches, exercise physiologists and sports scientists, allowing for group training of emerging athletes and talent identification camps, with consequent economies.
"A world class standard AIS is critical to allow Australia's sporting system to renew," Wylie said.
SA paved the way for an upgrade of the role of the AIS in February when the board announced a separation of its administrative arm (the former Australian Sports Commission) and the AIS.
Peter Conde, formerly a deputy to SA chief executive Kate Palmer was made chief executive of the AIS and reports directly to the board, a change Palmer supported.
Essentially, it means Conte is responsible for High Performance and Palmer retains oversight of participation, sporting schools and raising community physical activity levels.
Asked what facilities require renewal, Conde said, "The indoor courts, as well as the swimming pool still have plenty of life in them but we need a state of the art hub in the national sports network that isn't available at any of the state institutes.
"It needs to be a flexible space that accommodates advances in research. One of its functions is the rehabilitation of athletes and accommodation for them to live at the site. "We need to put an entire team through a battery of tests in a week, compared to the months it would take anywhere else."
When the AIS and SA were split in February, it produced a mega mea culpa from one of Wylie's major critics, AOC chair, John Coates.
AIS staff numbers are currently 130, while SA numbers are still significantly higher.
The move to separate the AIS and SA it puts Australia's peak sports bodies - Coates' AOC and Wylie's SA/AIS in broad agreement.