The Australian Sports Commission said that it cut staff by 35% in the past five years and "is adamant it is committed to athletes and sports for the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games despite a federal government review of its operations," according to Chris Dutton of the CANBERRA TIMES. There has been criticism by some leading sports officials that the Canberra-based Australian Institute of Sport has become a "ghost town" after shifting away from its traditional role as an athlete hub when the Winning Edge program was introduced four years ago. The ASC still injects A$100M ($72M) in funding to high-performance sport to fund 800 athletes directly as well as injecting A$12M ($8.6M) "to grass-roots sports, participation and women in sport."
ASC CEO Simon Hollingsworth said, "The Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Institute of Sport are committed to working with sports and our key partners to try to get the best possible outcomes at the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games. ... The ASC has reduced staff by 35 percent since 2011 to enable more money to be directly invested into our sports and athletes." Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates criticized a review of the AIS as "superficial" and "lacking concrete proposals."
Hollingsworth said that the AIS "had increased Olympic sport funding" by almost 11% since '12, with almost A$340M ($245.8M) injected in recent years (CANBERRA TIMES, 2/22).
