The squad will be narrowed down to a final team of 12 in the coming months for the Tokyo Paralympics in August. Dodd will fly to Basketball Australia s Centre of Excellence at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra for a week-long camp this week. She is excited about the opportunity after a year of interrupted training and lack of competition due to coronavirus restrictions. I m super excited and happy we re back into the final run (to the Paralympics) again, she said. We (Australian squad) haven t seen each other since Paralympic qualifiers which were at the end of 2019 so I m keen to get back on court with everyone and finally get back into it.
The man whose idea led to the Australian Institute of Sport
By Tracey Holmes for The Ticket and ABC Sport
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MonMonday 25
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JanJanuary 2021 at 8:33pm
Andrew Dettre pushed for a national institute of sport to prevent Australia falling behind the rest of the world on the global stage.
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Amongst the celebrations, discussions and debates that are taking place this Australia Day, there will be a certain group marking the 40th anniversary of the Australian Institute of Sport.
But, like the day itself, the Institute has become controversial.
And yet, also like the day itself, it is the history of the place that sits quietly, sometimes not recognised, as the volume of the debate cranks up around it.
Sporting greats share fears for Australia s Olympic standing as Australian Institute of Sport marks 40 years
SunSunday 24
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JanJanuary 2021 at 9:31pm
Former athletes Robert de Castella and Nova Peris are concerned over the future of the AIS and Australian sport.
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When the 180 Australian athletes returned home from competing at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, the sporting-mad nation could not believe they had not brought a single gold medal home with them.
Despite competing in 20 sports, the team brought home just one silver and four bronze medals.
It was in the face of the subsequent public backlash that the government of the day set up the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in a bid to elevate the nation as a leader in sport.
“My preference would be to get vaccinated before I go to Japan, certainly,” Solomon said. “If I am not vaccinated by then, I will still go. That is a risk I am willing to take to represent my country. I firmly believe that the vaccine needs to be given first to those parts of the population that are most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Athletes are not part of that population.”
Therein lies the problem for sporting organisations that desperately want the Olympics to go ahead. Olympians are typically young, fit and healthy – not a group at high-risk from Covid-19. High-profile IOC member Dick Pound recently called for athletes to jump the vaccine queue, but the IOC has not publicly sought priority from governments. Its official position remains that vaccination will be preferred but not compulsory. The optics of queue-jumping – while thousands in high-risk categories die daily from the virus – are extremely poor.
Australian heavyweight boxing champion Justis Huni says he turned professional late last year with one goal in mind – to become Australia's first Olympic.