Narrator [00:00:03] This is a Sport Australia podcast production. Hello and welcome to our Coaching and Officiating podcast series. My name is Cam Tradell and i'm the Project Lead for Coaching and Officiating at Sport Australia. Over this series, we will look at what it takes to modernise Australia's coaching and officiating system. Each podcast, we will be joined by a special guest who will share experiences and practical tips on their topics. Today, we're joined by Peter Condie, who's the CEO at the Australian Institute of Sport. Good afternoon Peter, how are you?

Peter Conde [00:00:41] Good afternoon Cam, very well. Nice to be with you.

Cam Tradell [00:00:43] Peter, I just thought we'd start with a really holistic view of Australian sport. Over the last 20 years, so much has changed. There's been so much growth in different areas and obviously technology and so on has really advanced. How have you seen the changes in sport and the impact in sport over the past 20 to 25 years?

Peter Conde [00:01:02] Well, it would be presumptuous of me to talk back that far. So my involvement with high performance sport really started from about 2005 onwards, and that was really transitioning out of my previous role in business. And I was asked to do a review of the sport that I was connected with, which happened to be the sport of Sailing, which happened despite Australia's pretty good performances, very good performances at the 2004 Olympics. The sport that I was engaged with came home empty handed and so no medals at all. And I was asked to, because of my business strategy background, to do some work in helping to turn that around. And, you know, quite frankly, I had no real expertise in the area. I was engaged heavily in sport. Would it be my early days of running, which I didn't particularly enjoy or my actual sailing experience before I moved into business. So really, that was a great experience, though, because what it gave me was an opportunity to to be engaged with some really outstanding people who really knew quite a lot about high performance and gave me an excuse to go around and talk to a whole bunch of sports and a whole bunch of coaches, athletes, managers in my sport nationally, internationally and overseas, and to synthesize what we rather hopefully termed was the gold medal plan. And fortunately for us, the gold medal plan came good in Australia's won in sailing multiple gold medals at every Olympics since, that's not quite true, only one gold medal, but three silvers in Rio. And, you know, I think back to to that is a little microcosm of what we're after, I think. And it was actually Victor Kovalenko, who's known as the medal maker, a head coach of that program, who really led me to this sort of understanding that what we really needed to be successful was three things gold medal athletes, gold medal potential athletes, gold medal coaches and gold medal support systems. And that without, you take one of those three legs of the chair away, it's going to fall over. And so I think that, you know, when we look at the the changes in the performance of Australia over a period of time and, you know, we still punch well above our weight. You know, we're still an Olympic Games top 10 in the world. Some people are disappointed with that. It's actually and I'm probably one of those because I think we can do better. But it's a damn good performance for a country of 25 million people. But, you know, when we looked at how those performances have changed at the elite level over the last 17 years old or thereabouts, I think that that's where we've got to look, you know, where are we in terms of identifying, nurturing, retaining, developing, those athletes have got the potential to be the best in the world. Where are we in terms of developing the coaches? Certainly at the elite level that are going to be able to take them along that journey or move along that journey with them. And where are we in terms of building the right support systems? And, yeah, look, there's been lots of technological advances and so on, but we do pretty well in that. So I think that's where we look when we look at our performance trajectories. And certainly that's a model that underpins what we're thinking about in terms of the priorities in the Australian high performance sports system in the AIS and in the National Institute Network that supports athletes around the country.

Cam Tradell [00:05:05] It's incredible when you think about the role and the breadth of the role of something like the institute with regards to how you support the multiple sports understanding that the nuances between the team sports, the individual sports, what do you think the role is or the optimal role that you see from the community level to supporting you?

Peter Conde [00:05:23] Well, I think overwhelmingly it's about introducing young athletes to or potential athletes, young people to to sport, creating an environment where they really love their involvement with sport for all those reasons of physical fitness of the social interaction that they get, the ability to challenge themselves, develop themselves. But at the end of the day, they won't make it through to where we see them in elite sport unless they have a real love of what they do. And certainly coaches play an absolutely pivotal role in that. And I can think back to my days as a youngster or my kids days and in various sports you'd find those. But that, you know, despite great intentions, might really have turned the kids off that particular sport or those that just created an absolutely terrific environment for those kids to thrive, develop, love their sport, really get engaged in not just doing exactly what the coach says, but really help with the coach, helping them to think about their their own development and that sort of self directed journey, and then to be able to explore the limits of their potential and really be fully engaged in it. And that's probably what is successful, not always the traditional model that people think about when they think about coaching and the way it's often portrayed, say, in movies. Don't ask me to name one right now, but, you know, you often see the, you know, really hard nosed coaches yelling and so on and on. I'm not sure that that's actually the model that is going to hold us in in great stead these days when, you know, we really want as I say, those athletes are pretty well rounded, engaged in their own development, love their sport. And I think the research shows, have a exposure to a great variety of sport along the way. And, you know, while there are some examples of very highly specialised early specialisation in certain types of sports that that have produced very highly successful athletes over time, they'll also really sound body of evidence that says, you know, early specialisation in many sports is not what leads to to great success. And part of that, I suspect, is skill development. Part of it is exposure to all sorts of different experiences and figuring out what they really like. And part of it is just enjoying themselves and really enjoying being part of that sort of sporting environment with all the sort of personal achievement and social engagement that it can offer.

Cam Tradell [00:08:33] It's that adaptability and able to see things through different lenses is crucial. Knowing that we've got these different environments that people enter into having to understand what Japan would look like, what Rio looked like, and is there ways that that the AIS supports the athletes once they get to that level through the coaching or through whatever, to be exposed to those sort of environments.

Peter Conde [00:08:58] Well, certainly on the AIS's role is is in part to administer the public funds that are directed to enable those high performing athletes to be able to achieve on the world stage. And that's certainly something that that that most athletes wouldn't be able to afford to do themselves. So the AIS does absolutely contribute in terms of the funding that we provide to national sporting organisations to to support their strategies, the strategies we've agreed with them around providing international training opportunities, international competition opportunities, supporting them to have, as I say, those high potential athletes to have great coaching and to have great support systems around them, that is essentially our role to ensure that across the broader system, through the national sporting organisations programs supported, by not just the Canberra campus of the AIS these days, but rather by the broader network of state and territory institutes and academies of sport that provide those distributed opportunities, geographically diverse opportunities for athletes to develop in a really good daily training environment with great coaches, great peers, and to be able to do so in close to, in most cases, close to their support systems, their family support structures and so on, which I think is quite important. We're always trying to get, I think, what's the right balance between getting the critical mass and the great thinking that you get when you bring groups of athletes and groups of coaches together into that sort of critical mass, but at the same time balancing that against the support systems that they need to be well-rounded young adults and and those that are well positioned to be successful not just through sport, but in life after sport and sport can be a great a great way of preparing young people for, you know, what happens when you when you knuckle down and and work hard and focus on how you can improve and developing all sorts of other skills around how to interact with team mates and how to support each other and so on. It's a great developmental environment and I think we're damn lucky that the Olympic Committee has been able to secure the 2032 Brisbane Games, because I think it just brings a focus to those opportunities. And I think there's a lot of positive things happening around our sporting system at the moment, particularly our elite sporting system, and I think gives us that opportunity to really springboard off those recent changes and to really achieve our aim of truly being a world leading sporting nation, world leading sporting system.

Cam Tradell [00:12:07] Yeah, that's again, I think it is a really exciting opportunity. What do you see the the you know, the short term and maybe the long term future looking like knowing that you're starting to get some really exciting pieces of work done here at the AIS around the taskforce and so on. What do you see the future looking like? What are you what do you what are you heading towards?

Peter Conde [00:12:27] Well, I think I've just sort of touched on it. There is you know, we have what I think is a pretty balanced set of aspirations for the system, which is that, you know, unequivocally, we want to be able to deliver. We want our athletes to be able to win medals, stand on the podium at major international events like the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games, Commonwealth Games. And but that's not the only thing we're after here. We're really investing quite heavily. And I think having quite a lot of success in the helping to produce those well-balanced, well-rounded athletes who are role models for their communities and engage with their community. So that's the second set of objectives are now. And our third is what I just touched on, which is having what we describe as a truly world leading system. And in a world leading system, I think we we have a system that is able to identify and support those athletes most likely to be able to succeed on the world stage. We'll have a system that outstanding at identifying, developing, retaining the very best coaches in particular. And that's the subject of the work that's going on right now to create that outstanding coach development environment in the high performance sector. And I know, as as you know, we're working really hard to link with the work that you're doing at Sport Australia in community coaching, and those have separate requirements, but a lot of commonalities. And, you know, I think we're very pleased that we're working, I think, very effectively across the system to ensure that that's very well connected and and we're leveraging off the insights that you've generated and vice versa. So I think, you know, we could talk about a range of things that that that would comprise a world leading system. But, you know, that's what we want to have. And and I think that, you know, the what's required to be there has certainly moved a lot over time. And we just this year celebrated the 40 year anniversary of the AIS and that came about back in 1991 because, you know, essentially Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and others in his cabinet decided that that the the the performances of Montreal in 1976 weren't really what the Australian public expected. And the AIS a centralised hub of great developing athletes, great coaches, great sports scientists, sports medicine practitioners, really made a massive difference in the period immediately following the AIS' opening in 1981, certainly right up to 2000, 2004. But like all systems, we have to if we want to stay at the top, we have to move forward. And, you know, one of the great strengths I think that we have now, and it was indeed foreshadowed by Don Talbot, who was the initial director of the AIS, that, you know, in his view, one day we'd have an institute in each state. Well, we do and we have had that for a little while now. But what we've got in more recent times is a recognition that if we're going to to be a world leading system, then we need to be highly coordinated and collaborative across that system. So we've got a real national approach to how we support our athletes and our teams and our sport. And that, I think is a major means that it's a major game changer. I think that all of those resources and the significant resources put in by all of the states are really coordinated and marshalled and insights are shared, rather than duplicated across the system. Work is research. Insights are leveraged for the benefit of all. I think that that we've got a really good, good base there for for that sort of system that can support athletes no matter where they are across the country. And we as I say, we we work with the sports and with the institutes to make sure that we've got a really good balance about bringing together that critical mass, finding ways that in a more modern environment of really connecting the coaches, for example, to learn from one another. You know, what does that you know, what are those mentor relationships look like? What does it look like to be an apprentice coach in or scholarship coach? Different terminologies for somewhat the same thing. Because, you know, we can we can teach people a lot about coaching in a classroom, but it's not nearly enough. It's that opportunity to work with the greats who have built their art and craft combined with science, if you like, that really makes for an outstanding coach. And in this day and age, coaches are not enough to be a technical expert or a tactical expert. The biggest requirement that almost got to be given and what you need to have is people who are outstanding at dealing with individuals that are outstanding at developing those individuals and getting the best out of them, understanding how to communicate to them effectively, how to give them really effective feedback to be able to to guide them and collaborate with the athlete in order to to be able to help them to be the best.

Cam Tradell [00:18:31] It's no doubt about it. Definitely an exciting time. And that cohesive operating model with regards to some really clear roles and responsibilities and setting ourselves all up for success, I think is a really exciting prospect for Australian sport collectively, whether you live in the community, it's something to really sort of celebrate. But I also think something to really get behind and aspire to knowing the Brisbane Olympics is such an exciting prospect. Thanks very, very much for your time this afternoon, Peter. We really appreciate it. Thank you for joining me today. If you'd like to find out more about coaching and officiating or have any feedback or questions, please email us at workforce@sportaus.gov.au. My name is Cam Tradell and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the Coaching and Officiating series.