Two reports were the basis for developing the AIS: The Role, Scope and Development of Recreation in Australia (1973)[4] by John Bloomfield and Report of the Australian Sports Institute Study Group (1975)[5] (group chaired by Allan Coles). The need for the AIS was compounded in 1976 when the Australian Olympic team failed to win a gold medal at the Montreal Olympics, which was regarded as a national embarrassment for Australia. The institute's well-funded programs (and more generally the generous funding for elite sporting programs by Australian and State Governments) have been regarded as a major reason for Australia's recent success in international sporting competitions.
In 2011, Minister for Sport Mark Arbib announced the AIS would take responsibility for the strategic direction of high performance sport in Australia.[6] In November 2012, the ASC released "Australia's Winning Edge 2012–2022", a high performance sport plan, which highlighted a new role for the AIS particularly in terms of developing coaches and talent identification but not directly managing national sports organisations elite athlete programs as it had done since 1981.[7]
Timeline
A brief overview of the history of the AIS follows.[8]
Year
Event
1980
Establishment of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) announced by Bob Ellicott, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Environment, on 25 January
1981
AIS officially opened by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on 26 January.
Don Talbot appointed inaugural director of the AIS and Kevan Gosper Chairman of the AIS Board.
Commonwealth Games, Brisbane – 37 current and former AIS athletes competed three sports and won 12 gold, 12 silver and 7 bronze medals. Australia won 107 medals.
1983
Facility development – Gymnastics training hall, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, and swimming complex completed
Commonwealth Games, Edinburgh, Scotland – 75 current and former AIS athletes competed in five sports and won 19 gold, 16 silver and 17 bronze medals. Australia won 121 medals.
Commonwealth Games, Auckland, New Zealand – 87 current and former AIS athletes competed in six sports and won 25 gold, 25 silver and 27 bronze medals. Australia won 162 medals
1991
Oceania Olympic Training Centre established in Canberra
Lifeskills for Elite Athletes Program (LEAP) commenced
1992
Olympic Games, Barcelona, Spain – 139 current and former athletes competed in thirteen sports and won 3 gold, 5 silver and 6 bronze medals. Australia won 27 medals.
Paralympic Games, Barcelona, Spain – 12 current and former athletes competed in two sports and won 10 gold, 8 silver and 6 bronze medals. Australia won 76 medals.
Commonwealth Games, Victoria, Canada – 87 current and former AIS athletes competed in five sports and won 35 gold, 16 silver and 15 bronze medals. Australia won 184 medals.
Paralympic Games, Atlanta, United States – 26 current and former AIS athletes competed in seven sports and won 22 gold, 22 silver and 5 bronze medals. Australia won 106 medals.
Women's Football began as an Olympic Athlete Program (OAP) initiative July 1998. In May 2000, Women's Football was made a permanent program.
Australian Institute of Winter Sports (AIWS) established by the Australian Olympic Committee and the AIS.
Commonwealth, Games Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – 138 current and former AIS athletes competed in twelve sports and won 34 gold, 29 silver and 21 bronze medals. Australia won 200 medals.
Olympic Games, Sydney – 319 current and former athletes competed in nineteen sports and won 8 gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze medals. Australia won 58 medals.
Paralympic Games, Sydney – 54 current and former athletes won 29 gold, 17 silver and 15 bronze medals. Australia won 149 medals.
Commonwealth Games, Manchester, England – 168 current and former athletes competed in fifteen sports and won 45 gold, 23 silver and 34 bronze medals. Australia won 207 medals.
2003
Facility development – Archery Centre and AIS Rowing Centre extension opened. AIS Golf facility located at Moonah Links, near Rye on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula opened.
2004
Olympic Games, Athens, Greece – 289 current and former athletes competed in twenty sports and won 10 gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze medals. Australia won 49 medals.
Paralympic Games, Athens, Greece – 47 current and former athletes won 13 gold, 27 silver and 23 bronze medals. Australia won 100 medals.
Facility development – New extension to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Diving dry land training facility at the Sleeman Centre in Chandler, Queensland opened.
Facility development – New $17 million Aquatics Training and Recovery Centre was constructed. The 50 metre training pool has a range of high-tech performance analysis devices and biomechanical systems including instrumented start blocks and turn walls, timing gates, strategically placed cameras, filming dolly and tracks.
Winter Olympics, Turin, Italy – 23 current and former athletes competed in six sports and won 1 gold and 1 bronze medal. Australia won 3 medals.
Winter Paralympics, Turin, Italy – 9 current and former athletes competed in one sport and won 1 silver and 1 bronze medal. Australia won 2 medals.
Commonwealth Games, Melbourne – 177 current and former athletes competed in thirteen sports and won 42 gold, 34 silver and 34 bronze medals. Australia won 222 medals.
2007
Facility development – AIS Hub opened. The AIS hub features a 110-metre indoor running track (with jumping pit), new physiology laboratories and an enhanced strength and conditioning gymnasium. New AIS Athlete Residences opened.
Commonwealth Games, New Delhi, INdia – 158 current and former (including Paralympic scholarship holders) competed in 12 sports and won 88 medals; 41 gold, 23 silver and 24 bronze. Australia won a total of 177 medals.
Matt Favier commenced as director of the AIS in March.[9]
Australia's Winning Edge strategy provides a new leadership direction for the AIS, with national sports organisations taking full responsibility for AIS sports programs at the end of 2013.[10]
2013
AIS Combat Centre established.
2014
Australian Institute of Sport launched a new brand and logo.[11]
Annual awards renamed AIS Sport Performance Awards.
The former archery centre converted to the Football Centre.
Peter Conde appointed ninth AIS director in August.
The NBA Academy opened at the AIS in Canberra, sharing facilities with Basketball Australia's Centre of Excellence.[13]
2018
Australian Government launched the National Sport Plan, Sport 2030
2019
The AIS, in partnership with Volleyball Australia launched the first Australian all-weather beach volleyball training facility on the AIS Canberra campus.
2020
The AIS helped to deliver the $6.5m water jump in Brisbane for Australian aspiring Winter Athletes to train at home.
2022
The AIS/ASC published the National Sport Research Agenda.[14]
The AIS became an active partner in one of 11 IOC Research Centres for 2023–2026, led by La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine (LASEM).[15]
There are a number of sculptures located throughout the Bruce Campus, such as 'Acrobats', 'Gymnast', 'Pole Vaulter' and 'Soccer Players' by John Robinson and the 'Swimmer' by Guy Boyd. After the Sydney 2000 Olympics, two of the three sculptures - ' Gymnast' and 'Wheelchair Basketballer' - that were located on the Sydney Tower Eye prior to the Olympics were installed at the AIS.
The AIS Arena is a 4,200 capacity indoor stadium which has been used for sports such as basketball, gymnastics and volleyball as well as music concerts. Directly adjacent to, but not strictly part of the institute is the 25,000 capacity outdoor Canberra Stadium which has hosted matches of all the major forms of football played in Australia.
In 2005, 2009, and 2010 the institute won awards at the prestigious Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards.[16] These awards were given in recognition of the daily public tours that are available. Each tour, which takes in several different buildings of the institute as well as the arena and the Sportex zone, is led by an athlete currently training there.[17]
Logo
Original AIS Logo 1981–2014
Shortly after its inception in 1981, the AIS held a competition for a symbol that would depict the AIS aim of "achieving supremacy in sport". Over 500 designs were submitted. The winner was Rose-Marie Derrico, a design student from Bendigo, Victoria. Her design showed an athlete with hands clasped above the head in recognition of victory. The colours of the logo were red, white and blue, which are the same colours as the Australian flag.
On 3 February 2014, the AIS launched a new logo in line with its new direction as outlined in its Winning Edge program that was launched in 2012.[11]Landor Associates designed the new brand and logo. The gold in the brand representing Australia's pursuit of gold.[18]
The AIS does continue to support other athletes in other sports however they are self funded and not under the National Training Centre banner.[citation needed]
Former sports programs
Up until 2013, the AIS offered scholarships to athletes across 36 programs in 26 different sports:[21]
Since 1984, the AIS has named an Athlete of the Year. For the first twenty years, the award was predominately made to one athlete only. In 2004 a male and female athlete were awarded with the accolade; and the awarding has varied over the ensuing years.
AIS was established to provide high level coaching to Australian athletes. Since its establishment in 1981, the AIS has employed highly credentialed Australian and international coaches. Original coaches were - Bill Sweetenham and Dennis Pursley (swimming), Wilma Shakespear in netball, Adrian Hurley and Patrick Hunt (basketball), Peter Lloyd and Kazuyu Honda (gymnastics), Jimmy Shoulder (football), Ray Ruffels and Helen Gourlay (tennis), Kelvin Giles, Gary Knoke and Merv Kemp (track and field), and Lyn Jones (weightlifting).
In March 2022 the AIS released the National High Performance Sport Research Agenda, designed to prioritise resources in areas of critical importance to Australia's high performance sport system.[29] In July 2022 the AIS awarded grants to six Australian research teams, aimed at optimising the performance of alite athletes, coaches and support staff.[30] The document "Recommendations for conducting AIS-supported research in high performance sport" was also released in 2022.[31] The National Sport Research Agenda was released in December 2022.[14]
The Elite Athlete Education Network (EAEN), formerly known as the Elite Athlete Friendly Universities (EAFU) network, is a network of universities and other education providers who are committed to supporting elite student athletes in partnership with the Australian Institute of Sport. The guiding principles which underpin the network include:[32]
Appointing a dedicated staff contact to support elite student athletes during their studies. This contact is responsible for advising student athletes in regard to academic planning, as well as supporting flexible arrangements to fulfil academic requirements.
Tailoring or developing flexible study options to support the needs of elite student athletes.
In 2014, after Basketball Australia assumed responsibility of the AIS basketball program,[40] the team returned to the SEABL under a new moniker, the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence (BA CoE).[33] The AIS women's team originally played in the WNBL from 1983 to 2012, before being resurrected in 2014 alongside the men's team, thus entering the SEABL for the first time.[40]
Both teams were ineligible for the playoffs between 2014 and 2017 due to not playing full seasons. With a change to playing full seasons in 2018, both teams became eligible for the playoffs for the first time.[41] Following the demise of the SEABL, both BA Centre of Excellence teams played in the inaugural NBL1 season in 2019.[42]
In 2020 and 2021, both BA Centre of Excellence teams competed in the Waratah League.[43][44][45] The men's team were crowned co-champions of the 2021 season.[46]
In 2022, both BA Centre of Excellence teams were entered into the NBL1 as part of a Wildcard conference playing against the top teams from all five NBL1 State Conferences.[47]
In 2023, both BA Centre of Excellence teams played in the NBL1 East.[48]
^"Annual Report 2020–21"(PDF). Australian Sports Commission. 27 September 2021. Archived(PDF) from the original on 11 October 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
^Commission, Australian Sports Commission; jurisdiction=Commonwealth of Australia; corporateName=Australian Sports. "What is the AIS?". www.ausport.gov.au. Archived from the original on 18 June 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^"Copeland makes the numbers add up". The Age. 14 September 2002. Archived from the original on 28 April 2024. In the East Conference, the Australian Institute of Sport beat Geelong Supercats 111-100. Another Giant, Rhys Carter, had 27 points, six rebounds and six assists for the AIS to be chosen finals MVP.
