Sport has long played a central role in Australian life. Triumphs on the sporting field rank among the most celebrated moments in our history, and have helped shape the national character.
No more so than at the Olympic Games, where names such as Dawn Fraser, Betty Cuthbert, Kieren Perkins and Cathy Freeman rank among the upper echelon of national heroes.
![John Coates has controlled the AOC for almost three decades.](/web/20170419184011im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/l/1/4/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvlrkd.png/1492317940896.jpg)
That the president of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, would find it appropriate to use a vulgar obscenity to intimidate a rival at an athletics meeting, and then boast about it in the pages of a national newspaper, has caused considerable public outrage, and rightly so.
The Age, along with a number of prominent Australians, condemns Coates' abhorrent words, which do not meet the standards expected by the community or the values enshrined by the Olympic movement.
![Challenger Danni Roche.](/web/20170419184011im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/9/0/4/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvlrkd.png/1492317940896.jpg)
Next month Australia's 33 summer and seven winter Olympic sporting codes get the chance to vote on a new AOC president, after gold medallist Danni Roche made the bold decision to challenge Coates.
We say bold because Coates has controlled the AOC with an iron first for almost three decades, during which time all challengers to his autonomy at the helm of the Australian Olympic movement have been quickly and unceremoniously dispatched.
If this were an election in any other arena bar the opaque world of a global sporting body, it is fair to say the result would be all over bar the shouting.
Roche is an Olympic gold medallist turned successful businesswoman. She was educated at Harvard, and has spent the better part of the past decade involved in sports administration at the highest level.
Coates has already spent 27 years as AOC president, a period of time that would seem far too long by any interpretation of reasonable corporate governance. In that time the AOC has been accused of financial largesse for administrators and a lack of funding for athletes. There have also been claims of bullying of female staff by some AOC executives.
It also should be highlighted that Coates has presided over an era of diminishing returns for our Olympic athletes, and public disenchantment with the nation's lack of Olympic success. Reasons for this lack of success were laid bare in the AOC's accounts, released last week.
While other nations, notably Britain, have lifted the funding granted to athletes, the AOC's funding model sees 52¢ in every dollar spent on the cost of administration of the AOC itself.
Just 28 per cent of all revenue goes on sending athletes to the Olympics, a job that must surely be the AOC's raison d'etre. Looking at it a different way, if you add up what the AOC president, chief executive and media director get paid, plus the lease of their Sydney Harbour office, it comes to eight times more than the AOC gives to the 15 smaller Olympic sports combined.
It's against that funding model that Roche, a member of the Australian Sports Commission board, has decided to stand. She has vowed to axe her own pay should she win, and divert the money to athletes. She has also promised to limit the term of the AOC president, hold the AOC's accounting practices up to public scrutiny, and drag the organisation and its culture into the 21st century.
The Age backs Roche's challenge, and believes it's time for generational change at the AOC if Australia is to see another golden era of Olympic glory. Unfortunately for Roche, being the best candidate is no guarantee of success in the murky world of global sports administration.
When the ballots are cast in early May, every sporting body will get the same number of votes. That means the leaders of those bodies that have long supported Coates and enjoyed AOC patronage will be able to stand by their man.
Unless the leaders of Australia's 40 Olympic sporting bodies make a stand and vote for change, the sad loser could be the next generation of athletes.
- A note from the editor – to have Age editor Alex Lavelle's exclusive weekly newsletter delivered to your inbox sign up here: www.theage.com.au/editornote