Radio National's The Sports Factor

with Amanda Smith
10/08/01

Sport & Optimism


Summary:

 One of the great moments of the Olympic Games opening ceremony last year was when athletes from East Timor marched in the Parade of Athletes. Now, the search is on for a team of volunteer coaches to spend 9 months in East Timor, establishing sports programs for children there. CARL SOLOMON, from Olympic Aid, and JAN WADDY, from the Australian Sports Commission talk about the idea behind the project.

ROBBIE SLATER, former Socceroo and English Premier League Championship player, discusses this week's leadership spill at Soccer Australia. Earlier this year, Slater was charged with "bringing the game into disrepute", for his outspoken criticism of Soccer Australia. Does the change at the top address those criticisms?

Plus, what do you do if you're a teenager who's well above average weight and height, and you've spent your life bumping into things and getting teased for being fat? In JONO DERRICK's case, chance led him to weight-lifting, and he's now regarded as a rising star in the sport. But more importantly, lifting weights has lifted his self-esteem.

Details or Transcript:

THEME



Amanda Smith: On The Sports Factor this week, the spill at the top of Soccer Australia: will it make any difference to the status and success of soccer in this country?



Plus a project that’s sending Australian sports coaches to East Timor: the humanitarian side of sport.



Also coming up, we’ll meet a teenager who felt he didn’t fit in anywhere until he stumbled on a sport at which he found he could excel. After an accidental entrëe into weightlifting, 17-year-old Jonathan Derrick is one of Australian weightlifting’s rising stars.



Martin Leach: Every few years an athlete appears out of nowhere, and they display a certain characteristic which shows that they’ve got some potential that is beyond what you normally see in boys and girls when they come into a sport like weightlifting, and Jono’s displayed that.



Jonathan Derrick: Since prep I was teased and still am, which is pretty sad. I did used to care but not any more because I’ve come so far in this sport and it’s really helped me, so I don’t really care what people think.



Gay Derrick: I’m either at the market, at the supermarket, in the kitchen. It’s an amazing amount of food that he does eat, but he’s having eight pieces of fruit a day. Before he wouldn’t even look at the fruit bowl.



Amanda Smith: And more on this very big lad who now lifts heavy weights and eats fruit, later in the program.



Before that though, to this week’s changes at the top of soccer in this country, with Ian Knop deposing Tony Labbozzetta as Chairman of Soccer Australia, and Nick Greiner appointed as the new President.



Can the game finally find its feet here with this new leadership? Robbie Slater is the club Captain of one of the National Soccer League teams, the Northern Spirit. He’s a former Socceroo and English Premier League championship player.



Robbie, you’ve been openly critical of the Board and administration of Soccer Australia for some time now; what’s your view on the changes?



Robbie Slater: Well I think it’s certainly too early to start saying that everything’s going to be fine, and we’re going to have a great national league and all that sort of thing. I think any change at this point was going to be a positive change, so that’s been really good, and the game in this country is absolutely crying out for people with business sense and who have contacts in the corporate end of town.



Tony Labbozzetta had been there for a long, long time and he was obviously giving great service to the game but I think it was just time for a change now.



Amanda Smith: Well last February, Soccer Australia actually charged you for bringing the game into disrepute, Robbie, for your criticisms of the way Soccer Australia was run. What did you say that was so objectionable to that regime?



Robbie Slater: Well at the time I just got very frustrated playing in the National Soccer League, and obviously there’s not much respect there. I think there’d been an outbreak of, how would you say? … minority ethnic group in one of our clubs that caused a bit of a riot somewhere in one of the grounds, and I just got fed up with it. We had no sponsorship of the NSL, we haven’t had that for two years, there’s certainly no marketing, there’s no ‘hero status’ for our players, and the game just in general seemed to be stagnating, basically run by a few minority ethnic clubs.



Amanda Smith: Well do you think that Ian Knop, Nick Greiner, et al can make a difference to those things? After all, many have tried and failed in the past.



Robbie Slater: I think Ian Knop is a businessman, so he comes into the game with a lot of experience and a lot of contacts, and Nick Greiner as well in the corporate end of town, and that’s certainly what our game needs. But I think more importantly, it comes at a time when football, or soccer as we call it over here, is the most popular and most played sport of our young children in the country, so there is a market, you don’t have to create a market, so we just have to capture that market and get them along to some of the NSL games and stop the drainage of Australian players going overseas.



Amanda Smith: What do you think of the idea that’s been touted by both Jeff Kennett, the former Premier of Victoria, and Brendan Schwab from the Soccer Players’ Association, to get rid of the democratic structure that soccer runs on, where all the stakeholders, the National League clubs, the State federations and so on, have a vote. Instead their idea is to bring in an independent commission, something like the Australian Football League’s commission. Now I note that the new Chairman, Ian Knop, has already rejected that idea, but what’s your view on that?



Robbie Slater: You know I think it’s a great idea. The trouble with Soccer Australia in the past and as it is now, even though we’ve had a change which I think is very positive, has been the transparency. It’s been run almost like a secret society where there’s been no accountability. It’s bumbled from one failure to another, and really, the same people just seem to circulate within that circle and keep their jobs. I think it’s a definite idea that independent people should be brought in, people with no baggage and these people should be accountable for what happens in the game. And it’s a massive challenge for anyone who takes over in any of the positions within Soccer Australia or the NSL Executive Committee. There’s a case also of people who have knowledge of the sport. There are people like myself, there’s lots of others in this country: Graham Arnolds, Farinas, Mitchells, Krncevices who have all played overseas, and played in the top European leagues, and we never seem to get asked; I’ve never had someone at Soccer Australia ring me up and ask me, ‘Well Robbie, you played in the premier league, what did they do that was so good in this area or that area?’ And I think there’s certainly a role for an ex-player on whatever eventuates from this coup, if you could say, at Soccer Australia.



Amanda Smith: Robbie Slater, club captain of The Northern Spirit National Soccer Team. Thanks for your time.



Robbie Slater: No problem, pleasure.



Amanda Smith: Now can sport play a role in rebuilding a society that’s been torn apart by political instability and armed conflict?



The Australian Sports Commission, along with the international organisation, Olympic Aid, thinks it can. These two organisations are working together to recruit a team of volunteer sports coaches to go to East Timor.



Now before we get onto the particulars of this project, let me take you back to the 15th September last year and one of the most memorable moments of the parade of athletes at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games.



Commentator: And this very special entry into the Olympic Stadium.



PA: Individual Olympic athletes coming …



Commentator: These are the athletes from East Timor who are marching under the Olympic flag.



Commentator: And they are delirious with happiness and pleasure at being here.



CHEERS



Commentator: And so is the crowd.



Amanda Smith: The Australian Sports Commission is now looking to send coaches of athletics, basketball, netball, soccer and volleyball, on a nine-month mission to East Timor, where they’ll establish sports programs for children in camps and villages there.



So what’s the aim behind this mission, and what might it achieve?



Jan Waddy, from the International Division of the Australian Sports Commission is co-ordinating the project.



Jan Waddy: Well obviously East Timor suffered tremendously through the political in-fighting and the breakdown of government in East Timor in 1999, and since then there’s not been an awful lot happening in sport. We saw the East Timorese athletes, there were four who went to the Sydney Olympics and their participation there created a lot of interest, but there’s very little being done on the ground at this stage, to help those young people and others in East Timor to be involved in sport. And so this provides an opportunity to go in and coach volunteers working in the community.



Amanda Smith: And what will these volunteer sports coaches be doing? How will they be working?



Jan Waddy: They’ll run play programs and sport activities for young children in the communities. They’ll also be required to work with UNHCR in other activities in the communities, and one of the things that they will be responsible for doing is to train between 20 to 50 East Timorese locals in coaching and about sports administration, because obviously going in on nine-month placement, once the nine months is up, they need to be able to have some sustainability, and it’s hoped that the local people will feel empowered to continue the programs.



Amanda Smith: And where in East Timor will these Australian volunteer coaches be based?



Jan Waddy: At this stage we’re still waiting on confirmation from Canada as to the exact location, but we’ll have two coaches; they’re going to set three centres up and those will be where UNHCR is already based, so we’ll have two coaches in each of those centres.



Amanda Smith: And these will be in refugee camps?



Jan Waddy: They will be, and in working with the communities in the general area. There’s 13 districts within East Timor so we’re certainly not going to be covering the whole of the island but we’ll be making every effort to try and get to as many people as possible.



Amanda Smith: What sorts of facilities and equipment will these coaches have at their disposal in order to establish these kinds of sports programs in East Timor?



Jan Waddy: I think in terms of facilities, it’ll be very basic, and there isn’t a lot. A number of the facilities that were existing in East Timor were damaged during the trouble times, and a lot of those still have not been fixed up at this stage. But Olympic Aid will be providing them with a sports kit, and there’ll be opportunities for these coaches to get more equipment in as they see the need, and obviously working with other aid agencies, looking at trying to get some facilities up and running that are practical enough to allow them to carry out their programs.



Amanda Smith: And the sports kit I think is called Sport in a Box, isn’t it?



Jan Waddy: That’s correct, yes. And it’ll have lots of equipment, it’ll have training material, some resources for coaches and everything else.



Amanda Smith: Well once you’ve chosen who’s going, do you offer these volunteer coaches any sort of training or briefing on the sorts of situations they’ll be encountering?



Jan Waddy: I guess that is where Olympic Aid will come in. The Australian Sports Commission has been asked at this stage to try and identify the coaches, so we’ve gone out to a number of organisations and we have a closing date of the 17th August for applications. We will then have a look at those applications, and they’ll go through to Olympic Aid in Canada where the final decisions will be made, and then they will be arranging a three-day workshop for those volunteers prior to heading off to East Timor.



Amanda Smith: Does the Australian Sports Commission get involved in much of this sort of humanitarian work through sport, Jan?



Jan Waddy: I think it’s probably fair to say this is probably the largest humanitarian project that we are involved in. Through the International Division we’re also involved in some development programs in Southern Africa, in the Caribbean, in Oceania and we’ve just completed one in Asia, and we’ve got one about to start in Papua New Guinea, so we’re working with sporting organisations in those countries to help develop sport, and using the excellent models that Australia has developed over the years.



Amanda Smith: Jan Waddy, from the International Division of the Australian Sports Commission.



As Jan mentioned, this project to East Timor is being run in conjunction with Olympic Aid, which is a humanitarian organisations that was established by Olympic Athletes. The Executive Director of Olympic Aid in Australia, and a former head of its international office in Canada, is Carl Solomon. He set up this volunteer coaching program.



Carl Solomon: The idea behind it is to encourage children, regardless of their background, to participate in sport and to build all those kinds of skills like interpersonal skills, communication skills, team-building and confidence, which will help them in the rest of their lives. So the idea is to use sport as a tool to help children, particularly in disadvantaged situations such as refugee children, really prepare themselves for a brighter future.



Amanda Smith: And with the East Timor project that’s getting under way later this year, how did that start?



Carl Solomon: Well in June last year we took Samantha Riley and Greg Welsh, the world champion triathlete, up to East Timor to introduce them to some children and to start a bit of a coaching clinic for the kids in Dili. They had such a great time and the kids responded so well to the concept of these sports days and the coaching clinics that were run by Sam and Greg, as well as two coaches from the Australian Institute of Sport, that the idea sort of sprung from there I guess. We’ve now decided to make it a nine-month program where the coaches go full-time for nine months, and basically work with the children to develop their skills in sport, but also all of those other skills that we were talking about, such as team-building and co-operation and all those sorts of thing.



Amanda Smith: How do you deal with safety issues for sports people in unstable areas, Carl? I mean foreign aid workers can and do find themselves in dangerous situations, as in indeed in Afghanistan this week.



Carl Solomon: Well that’s a very good example. Afghanistan is somewhere where we wouldn’t be able to send volunteer coaches. What we try and do, is we stick very much to the security framework that’s developed by the United Nations and that framework gives you certain I guess, key points where we would evacuate staff that are of a non-essential nature, so that means that as soon as there is some sort of conflict, or if there is impending danger, then we immediately evacuate our staff from the field.



Amanda Smith: What’s the background to the idea behind Olympic Aid?



Carl Solomon: Olympic Aid sprung from the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, where several athletes, including Johann Olav Koss who’s the current Chairman of Olympic Aid, got involved in trying to use the Olympic ideals to support children living in situations of disadvantage.



Amanda Smith: Now Johann Olav Koss was a speed skater gold medallist.



Carl Solomon: Yes, he’s been the major patron and the chairperson of Olympic Aid since 1994. From ’94 the campaign moved to the Atlanta Games in ’96 and then on to Sydney last year, and the idea is to use the event of the Olympics to not only raise awareness for children who are living in disadvantage, but also raise money to support their needs and support programs that will assist them.



Amanda Smith: And during the Sydney Olympics last year in your fundraising attempts for example you had an auction that got a lot of attention, auctioning things like Ian Thorpe’s ‘fast suit’, and Roy & HG’s wombat.



Carl Solomon: That’s right. It was a very successful auction. It was quite a lot of fun too, I have to say. Yes, Ian’s swimsuit went for over $100,000 and as you know Roy & HG’s wombat did extremely well as well. And we had bidders from all around the world who were prepared to participate, grab a piece of Olympic history as well as supporting some great projects, both in Australia and around the world.



Amanda Smith: Well with this program of sending Australian sports coaches to East Timor, what do you hope will be achieved there? What do you hope will be the kind of lasting benefits?



Carl Solomon: Well these programs are designed to be sustainable, and what we mean by that is that they build skills that the community can use to enhance co-operation within the community. So what we’re really trying to do is establish good communication networks, we’re trying to promote peace and we’re trying to promote conflict resolution. In a place like East Timor you have a lot of people who have come out of a situation of conflict and they’re not necessarily able to live in harmony, or sometimes that’s difficult. They’ve got to rebuild their lives, so they’ve got to build skills such as working in teams again and all those sorts of skills that a lot of us take for granted. It’s not about elite sport, we’re not going to create the next Ian Thorpe from East Timor or anything like that, although who knows? … that may well be an outcome. But what we’re trying to do is give these kids some confidence that they can actually achieve something, that they can take on the world, that they can build a better future for themselves, and that’s I think the most sustainable skill that we can leave in these places.



Amanda Smith: Carl Solomon from Olympic Aid. And if you want to find out more about the volunteer coaching positions to East Timor, we’ll have details of who to contact at the bottom of this transcript.



The Australian Weightlifting Championships are being held in Sydney this weekend. One of those competing in the super heavyweight division will be a 17-year-old schoolboy from Melbourne whose outlook on life has changed remarkably since pure chance led him to take up weightlifting.



Jonathan Derrick has always been much bigger and heavier than his peers, the kind of kid who was always bumping into things and the butt of many a joke. But since he’s found a sport at which he excels, life has changed for Jonathan Derrick. It all started quite by accident two years ago.



Jonathan Derrick: I was at school and it was the Schoolboys Championships where the schools can compete, and I was in the crowd, I skipped maths to go see it, and this guy came up to me and said ‘Do you want to lift? Because one of our lifters is out’, and I go, ‘Yes, no problem.’ And he set me up in a woman’s suit and it was like right up my crutch, and I was wearing boxers and you had to take your boxers off, so, but it was good fun, and he said, ‘I want to see you down here’, and I’ve been doing it ever since, so it was really good.



Amanda Smith: How did you go that first time?



Jonathan Derrick: Well I came last, but it was just to get some points on the board.



Amanda Smith: Well you compete in the 105 plus kilo weight class, which is I think the heaviest division there is in weightlifting. How much do you weigh and how tall are you?



Jonathan Derrick: I weight 140 kilograms and I’m about 194 centimetres tall.



Amanda Smith: Right, so that’s in the language about 6 foot 3 and about 22 stone.



Jonathan Derrick: About that, yes.



Amanda Smith: Have you always been the kind of kid who, because you are physically different from the average, got teased for it by others?



Jonathan Derrick: Yes, quite a bit actually. So since prep I was teased and still am to this day, not as much as I was but it’s still going on, which is pretty sad.



Amanda Smith: Did you care about it? And do you still care about that?



Jonathan Derrick: I did used to care about it, but not any more because I’ve come so far in this sport and it’s really helped me, so I don’t really care what people think.



Amanda Smith: Martin Leach is Australia’s Olympic Weightlifting coach. He thinks Jonathan Derrick has the potential and ability to go a long way in the sport.



Martin Leach: Every few years an athlete appears out of nowhere, and they display a certain characteristic which shows that they’ve got some potential that is beyond what you normally see in boys and girls when they come into a sport like weightlifting, and Jono’s displayed that. He has always find life not particularly easy because of his size, he was a very big boy at school and picked on a little bit because of that, and he’s come into a sport where size doesn’t really matter because we cater for people of all different sizes, and he’s found acceptance and something where he can excel, and his enthusiasm has grown as a result of that.



Amanda Smith: What did you think the first time you met him, Martin? Did you immediately see the potential or did it take a little time to emerge?



Martin Leach: Whenever you see anyone coming to the gym for the first time you try and assess them, and after 25 years in a sport you get pretty good at picking whether somebody’s got something special or if they’re just going to be a battler. I guess pretty much straight away Jono came across as somebody who had the potential to be something special, but I’ve seen many athletes or boys and girls come in who have that and the difference between having that potential and actually achieving your potential involves the desire to be able to work and Jono’s displayed that he’s got that desire and that ability to work hard.



Amanda Smith: Well in weightlifting, what is that potential to be special though, aside from the hard work that obviously is required once you’ve been identified as having some talent. What is that raw talent that’s required in a weightlifter?



Martin Leach: Well physiologically you need to be flexible and you need to be fast, and obviously, lifting weights, you need to be strong. The strength factor can actually be built, people can get stronger by lifting weights. The flexibility can also be improved, but the natural ability to be fast is something that you’re born with, you’re either fast or you’re a slow person, and Jono has that speed and obviously he’s going to get stronger as he grows, and he’s just a bit of a puppy at the moment, but as he gets older he will get stronger and he’s very supple, he’s got good flexibility. So he has the innate skills that are necessary in a physiological sense.



Psychologically, you need to be something a little bit special as well, because it’s no good having one side of an athletic ability without having the other side of athletic ability, and that is really being intelligent about your sport and being brave and being able to perform under pressure. And John, even at this very early age, has shown that he has the ability to perform under pressure, he’s a better competitor than he is a trainer, he trains very hard but his best results always come out on competition day.



Amanda Smith: Well Gay Derrick, you’re Jono’s mum; what difference has finding something that your son is good at, and where his out of the ordinary height and weight is an advantage, made to Jono?



Gay Derrick: It has made … I cannot believe … it has made so much difference, it really has. He’s always been over-sized. He wasn’t a big baby, but he was as big as the primary school teachers when he was in primary school, and just so enormous really. But once he got into weightlifting he was with people his own size, and he wasn’t the odd bod out. It’s just made the world of difference, his whole temperament. He’s always been a happy-go-lucky sort of guy, but really he was picked on, early on, and I don’t want keep going on about that, but he’s got a lot of self-esteem now where he had no self-esteem and I just think it’s made the whole world of difference to him, it’s just wonderful.



Amanda Smith: Well how has life changed for your family, having a weightlifter amongst you now?



Gay Derrick: Well I’m not working as much as I did before because I’m basically in the kitchen. I’m either at the market, at the supermarket, in the kitchen. Now Jonathan’s been put onto a fabulous nutritionist, Terry Martinez, and at first it was very hard, you know, the porridge and all that sort of thing, well, and we can’t quite come at the porridge. But it’s an amazing amount of food that he does eat. But he’s having eight pieces of fruit a day; before he wouldn’t even look at the fruit bowl and he’s just keen to do the right thing. I couldn’t tell you, it takes me hours a day just thinking about food and this is for the rest of the family too. They’ve got to eat what he eats, so we’re all going to be unbelievably healthy. But I enjoy every bit of it, and I’m just happy to help him out, because really it’s hard for them to do it by themselves, they’ve got to have some family involvement and the cheer squad behind, and the chief cook and bottlewasher, and we’re lucky that I can stay at home and help him to do that, because really it’s a full-time job.



Amanda Smith: While Jonathan Derrick’s got a very supportive family, there’s one thing that’s hindered his progress to date in weightlifting: his size 17 feet.



Jonathan Derrick: Yes that is very correct.



Amanda Smith: Because you can’t get weightlifting shoes big enough to fit you, is that right?



Jonathan Derrick: Yes, we’ve actually found someone who could make them for us, so I’ll be getting them pretty soon, so that’s very good for me.



Amanda Smith: Well Ian Thorpe, who also has very big feet, doesn’t have to find special shoes to do what he does in the swimming pool, so what’s special about weightlifting shoes?



Jonathan Derrick: Well the weightlifting shoe is to support your foot. You can’t have a soft sole because you need to use a wooden sole to get the full power of your legs, because if you don’t have that your feet will just sink and you wouldn’t be able to lift properly, and that’s why I’m not going up much from what I am doing. So as soon as I get them I’ll be going much better than I am now.



Amanda Smith: What sorts of weights are you lifting now in the snatch and the clean and jerk?



Jonathan Derrick: My best snatch is 110 kilograms and my best clean and jerk is 135. So that qualified me for these nationals.



Amanda Smith: And what does that need to build up, say over the next three or four years, if you’re to compete in the next Olympic Games say, and/or be internationally competitive?



Jonathan Derrick: Well it would be a big challenge because I would have to do a total of 365 which would be a 160 snatch and a 210 clean and jerk. So that’s quite a bit of travelling to do. Hopefully I’ll get there.



Amanda Smith: You reckon that’s do-able?



Jonathan Derrick: Yes I do, and my coach does too, so hopefully we do get there.



Amanda Smith: And as one of the steps along the way, Jonathan Derrick is competing at this weekend’s National Weightlifting Championships. Not with the proper shoes yet, but hopefully he’ll have them soon.



As well as speaking there with Jonathan Derrick I was also speaking with his Mum, Gay, and the Australian Olympic Weightlifting Coach, Martin Leach.



And that’s The Sports Factor for this Friday morning. Michael Shirrefs is the producer, and I’m Amanda Smith.

Guests on this program:

Robbie Slater
Former Socceroo and English Premier League player. Currently Club Captain of National Soccer League team Northern Spirit.

Jan Waddy
Co-ordinator of the sports program in East Timor, being run by the International Division of the Australian Sports Commission and Olympic Aid.
Ph: +61 2 6214 1928
Fax: +61 2 6214 1451

Carl Solomon
Executive Director of Olympic Aid in Australia and a former head of its international office in Canada.

Jonathon 'Jono' Derrick
Competitor in the Super-Heavyweight division of the Australian National Weightlifting Championships.

Martin Leach
Australia's Olympic Weightlifting Coach.

Gay Derrick
Jono Derrick's mother.

Presenter:
Amanda Smith

Producer:
Michael Shirrefs

© 2002 ABC