It’s August, and in the UK right now, the world is turning it’s attention to the major sporting event of Bog Snorkelling. There also happens to be a little thing call the Olympics happening at the moment there too, and I’d like to talk about this little known event today.

My attention was drawn to it when a work colleague informed me we were wasting a shitload of tax payer dollars on the Australian Institute of Sport, because our team at the Olympics is so shit, because they can only manage to get silver medals.

I instantly thought “What an amazing and insightful bloke this guy is”, before even I couldn’t hide the sarcasm from myself, and so I just had to point out to him how full of shit he actually was.

Australia really punches above it’s weight when it comes to sport, especially on the world stage. We have a very small population, only about 22.6 million people, which puts us around the size of North Korea & Yemen (24.5 million), Mozambique (23.7 Million), Taiwan (23.2 million), Syria (21.5 million), Madagascar/Angola/Ivory Coast (20.5 million) , and well below the current medal tally leaders China (1,347 million) people.

Australia is currently fifteenth on the medal tally with one gold, six silver and two bronze. Of the countries listed above, the next nearest is, well North Korea, with four gold and one bronze, but that is hardly comparing like for like. Apart from that, none of the other countries have even got a medal. Yep, Australia are a bunch of slackers.

Then there is the claim by this tool that the AIS is a complete waste of money. Yep, it completely is, when you think of it in the narrow sense, that the only thing they do is send four hundred odd people off every four years to go and fail to win gold in some country. Pity that is not the case.

The AIS provide a pathway for sports people from the most elite, to those just starting out. Look at any sport played in this country, and you will see some amount of AIS involvement, from improved training and coaching techniques, to better facilities for those participating. The AIS doesn’t waste millions of dollars to send a lucky few off to throw things around or run fast, they instead invest in people with potential to exceed not only on the sporting field, but in all walks of life. The AIS is not about burning money on elite people, in the hope they will go 0.0001 second faster over a given distance, that is just a small benefit of what they do, and as far as I am concerned, it is far from money wasted.

So the next time you want to get stuck into some athlete because they failed to win gold, think of it the other way. They didn’t fail to win gold, they managed to prove they are better than around seven billion other people on this earth, at a given sport. Not only that, but they can work harder and have the chance to be even better.

When it comes to the Olympics, Australia should be proud of what they bring to the table, and applaud our athletes one and all. You don’t make an Olympic team by being ok one time before the event, you do it by working hard for a lifetime. How many of those armchair shitheads out there would even make the effort to give it a go, before they opened their mouths? None I bet.