Australia's Green and Gold Olympians Bring Home Silver and Bronze

It all began well enough. Australia won gold in the 4x100 women's freestyle relay on the first day of the Olympic Games placing us towards the top of the medal table. I made a bet with my English girlfriend that Australia would easily finish above Team GB.

It all began well enough. Australia won gold in the 4x100 women's freestyle relay on the first day of the Olympic Games placing us towards the top of the medal table. I made a bet with my English girlfriend that Australia would easily finish above Team GB. My friends and colleagues were exchanging good-natured gibes about who invented various sports and who came to perfect them. All was right with the world. And then, something strange happened.

Australia stopped winning. In fact, Australia failed to win any more gold medals in swimming at all - traditionally the country's strongest discipline. This in spite of James 'the missile' Magnussen being regarded as one of the best swimmers Australia has produced in years. Gold continued to elude us until a few days ago when we rallied to eleventh place. Unless something dramatic happens between now and Sunday, this year's Olympics will be Australia's worst performance since the 1990s.

Languishing at the bottom of the table for more than a week the recriminations in Australia began. TV news reports showed only the top nine competing nations in the medal tally after New Zealand (our eternal rivals) broke into the top ten. One paper even went so far to try to conflate Australia and New Zealand into 'Aus Zealand' so as to artificially buoy our medal count. Sacrilege.

Questions have been asked of our Olympic athletes, the head of the Australian Institute for Sport and even the Prime Minister. Australia's Sport's Minister Kate Lundy will be forced to suffer the indignity of paddling down Eton Dorney in Team GB colours after losing a bet with her British counterpart.

And yet, for all the sporting woe my hope is that this might become a moment of recalibration for Australia. My island nation has long performed above its sporting station, winning far more medals and competitions than it should, considering it has a population roughly a third the size of the UK.

Sporting success is unquestionably linked to investment. Countries that do well in sport spend serious money on their athletes. Australian Olympic Committee officials claim that the country's comparatively poor performance at this year's Games is due to a shortage of funding. In preparation for London 2012 the Australian Olympic Committee's request for an extra A$100m per year was turned down in 2009 by the national government.

In an interview on ABC national radio, Kevan Gosper, Australia's most senior Olympic official put it very plainly: "money is the difference between silver and gold"

Yet it seems right to me that Australia should have returned to a position on the medal table that befits a country of our size. I hope that it leads to a reprioritisation away from sporting accomplishment towards other areas of achievement. Australia is crying out for further investment in arts and culture. Not to mention education, health, agriculture and the environment.

As Australia's Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean moves towards unveiling his new cultural policy in the coming months - a policy that is set to be "bigger than anything since Paul Keating's creative nation statement of almost 20 years ago" - it is my hope that money which may previously have been earmarked for sport might be redirected into funding for the arts. If I can't see Australia win gold at the Olympics, perhaps a little bit of wise investment could see us pick up a few more golden gongs at the Academy Awards next February.

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