The beating heart of Australian sport - 40 years of the AIS

Said former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, prophetically, upon opening the Australian Institute of Sport in response to the Montreal Olympics embarrassment.

Tuesday marks 40 years since the AIS was opened, and Australian sport has never looked back.

Indeed, 60 per cent of Olympic gold medals won by Australia have come since the AIS was opened.

We took 180 competitors to Canada for the 1976 Olympics. They came back with zero gold medals, one silver and four bronze.

It was a brutal blow to national pride, and showed just how far behind their international counterparts Australia had fallen on the sporting arena.

Less than five years later the AIS was opened in "a clear sign that we are no longer going to allow the world to pass us by", as Fraser trumpeted on January 26, 1981.

This was a bricks and mortar facility out in Bruce, a bush suburb very much in its infancy which at the time stood on the outskirts of Canberra's city limits.

But it was also a national institute. An emphatic response to unacceptable failure. A statement. The beginning of a sporting network that would ultimately spread to Australia's other major cities and ensure sport in this country was given every opportunity to thrive.

In the initial stages the AIS serviced 150 athletes across eight sports.

Forty years later it now assists 2200 athletes at any one time, investing $145 million per annum in 38 sports as part of a National Institute Network rooted in every major city.

It also boasts one of the finest Paralympics programs in the world.

The AIS offers training and accommodation to elite athletes, and remains at the cutting edge of sporting technology where it remains a global leader.

Julian Jones remembers the opening ceremony from 40 years ago like it was yesterday.

He claims to be the only member of AIS staff who was present when the likes of Fraser, sports Minister Bob Ellicott, inaugural chairman Kevan Gosper and the first director Don Talbot unveiled the brand new facility.

"I don't know whether that's an achievement or that I've been here too long," Jones jokes.

"We were looking at the pictures the other day and there was that shot of Malcolm Fraser and I could actually tell you where I was in the crowd.

"There were lots of sports going on [at the opening ceremony]. The floor was divided into different areas where the inaugural sports of the AIS actually did some competition or demonstration of what they were doing.

"[John] Newcombe and [Tony] Roche played some tennis in the middle. Out comes basketballers, we had weight lifters in one corner and gymnasts doing pommel and floor bits in another.

"It was a pretty unique experience and offering as an opening as well, because we haven't seen anything like that before either.

"Malcolm Fraser comes out and pulls the curtain off the plaque that's still there on the mezzanine level. The iconic statue was at the entrance.

"You used to walk into the front door of the arena, the bottom, on the right were the coaches and sports offices, if you turned left it was the administration. That was it."

Jones, a former weightlifter who is now the AIS's performance services manager, came to the facility in the early 1980s and remained on scholarship until 1988.

"There was no strength and conditioning back in those days," Jones recalls.

"There was the infamous universal lifting station gym equipment, one piece put next door and every other athlete used that.

"It was an absolute nightmare you might imagine. It was like a home gym, it had six stations on it, a leg press, a chin up, a lap pull-down, seated row and that was it.

"That was it for all the other athletes that were there."

Swimming facilities also began somewhat inauspiciously.

There wasn't even a pool at the AIS back in 1981 - aspiring swimmers trained in an outdoor pool at Deakin.

Before going on to become Australia's greatest swimming coach, Talbot famously camped out in the minister's office until the government agreed to build an indoor pool at the AIS.

Nowadays the AIS has two state-of-the-art heated pools for athletes to train in - and they've helped hone decades of swimming success.

Petria Thomas moved to Canberra from northern NSW in 1993 after receiving an AIS scholarship.

She went on to win three Olympic gold medals, and the AIS also provided her with another life-changing moment.

It was here she met Jones, who she eventually married.

"The AIS was really the only option for me, it was probably the best decision I ever made to come here, to see if I could reach my potential," Thomas says.

"You come to an environment where everyone is striving for excellence and it's pretty infectious actually.

"Back in the day when all the sport programs were here, there was a cohort of athletes and coaches, it was quite a busy campus. Everyone was working to be the best they could be, both staff and athletes, as well as the support staff that were here as well.

"There's no way I would have achieved those heights had I not been here."

Thomas and Jones are two of 8858 athletes who have held AIS scholarships.

And so many iconic memories in Australian sport can claim to have stemmed from the AIS.

Think Cathy Freeman's 400m Olympic gold medal, John Aloisi's penalty kick that ensured the Socceroos were World Cup bound, Cadel Evans' Tour de France success in 2011, Ian Thorpe's late surge to dethrone America's relay team.

Even Patty Mills' recent capture of the NBA's three-point bench shooting record.

"Investment in sport is a key element of what we do," AIS chief Peter Conde says.

"Advancing sport in all sorts of areas, whether it be developing emerging athletes or building coaching pathways, being at the forefront of innovation - athlete health or new frontiers like artificial intelligence, data analytics.

"We play a real role about caring for athletes and coaches and all the people in sport. There's a very significant focus on athlete wellbeing, mental health.

"A lot of countries look to what we're doing there. It's great to have one of our greatest Olympians Ian Thorpe who's the chair of our advisory group on athlete wellbeing and engagement."

And as for the future? Conde envisages further growth, not only from a bricks and mortar perspective but in athlete development and innovation.

"We certainly make no secret of the ambition to rejuvenate those facilities, to make them world leading and better suited for the next 40 years," Conde says.

"We've got a critical role to play in going forward to make sure that we are really collectively providing the best possible support so that athletes can be the very best they can be and providing that support when and where it can be of greatest advantage, whether that be at our campus at Canberra or other locations around the country.

"That's probably the most critical thing, that leadership role in being a collaborative environment that really means that we're all together bigger than the sum of the parts in what we can provide to Australian athletes so they're well positioned to inspire the nation and indeed the next generation of Australian athletes."