Australian sportspeople in Beijing and Australian soldiers in Afghanistan will use the same technologies under a new collaboration established by the Australian Government.

The Minister for Youth and Sport, Kate Ellis, and the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Warren Snowdon, opened the first Frontiers of Human Performance workshop in March 2008, which examined the relationship between preparing high performance athletes for competition and high performance soldiers for combat.

From nutrition through to recovery, equipment design and even talent identification, the research from Australia’s brightest scientists will be pooled to improve the performance of our elite athletes and the Australian Defence Force.

‘The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has been getting the best out of Australian athletes for over 25 years, and is the ideal venue for the first Frontiers of Human Performance workshop,’ Ms Ellis said.

‘Applying new ideas and technologies to sport will give our athletes a tremendous competitive advantage leading into the Beijing 2008 Olympics and beyond.’

The workshop brought together representatives from the Defence Science Technology Organisation, CSIRO, AIS, National Information Communication Technology Australia, industry and academia.

‘Australia’s national identity is largely defined by the efforts of our soldiers and sportspeople,’ said Mr Snowdon.

‘This collaboration will study, among other things, injury prevention, remote monitoring, and performance in extreme environments, and will give us good science to underpin our future decision-making.’

More information:
Brent Hooley (Kate Ellis):   02 6277 7350 or 0434 561 033
Kate Sieper (Warren Snowdon):  02 6277 7620 or 0488 484 689
Simon Langford (AIS):   02 6214 1298 or 0418 605 541
Lorraine Mulholland (DSTO):   02 6128 6385 or 0424 779 498