Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has thrown a jab at athletics officials, hitting out at claims that moving the sport's training facilities has seen it "slowly die".
Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Tamsyn Manou (nee Lewis) told the Herald Sun McGuire was a member of the Athletics Australia board that oversaw their base shift from Olympic Park (where Collingwood trains) to Lakeside Oval in Albert Park.
The former track star accused McGuire of having a conflict of interest in being part of the decision-making process
"As a track and field athlete and somebody who is watching our sport slowly die, I know that part of the problem is that we don't have Olympic Park anymore," she said.
"That was a huge conflict for people who were on the Athletics Australia board at the time that were very heavily involved at Collingwood.
"And you know what, well done to them because they got what they wanted, but we were stupid in track and field and didn't stand our ground and fight harder to hold onto that track."
Speaking on Triple M's Hot Breakfast on Wednesday morning, McGuire said he admired the Olympian's feats on the track but then pointed to what he believed was a key contributor to the sport's demise.
"Tamsyn Manou had a crack yesterday – fair dinkum," he said.
"Yes, the demise of athletics as a sport is because they're not at Olympic Park anymore. Nothing to do with systematic drug cheating throughout the whole industry over the last 25 years or the fact that their governing officers, the IOC, most of them are in jail over the last period of time. Nothing to do with any of that.
"I feel for Tamsyn though … she ran in the semi-finals so often and just did such a great job. The great thing about Tamsyn is that she just turned up in Australia and ran all the time … unlike a lot of her compatriots who didn't turn up for the Australian summers and ran, literally and figuratively, the competition and the interest in the sport into an all-time low."
The Collingwood boss stated that bigger powers were at play when it came to redirecting the track and field athletes to Albert Park. Along with the financials, he said the move was the logical response.
"They were losing a million dollars at Olympic Park and it was falling down. And, I'll tell you exactly what happened, Lachlan Murdoch walked in to Steve Bracks' office, the Premier of Victoria, and hit the table and said: 'Build me a stadium for my rugby league team and for rugby league, as you've promised, or else it's on.'
"And at that moment, the premier of Victoria rang me up and said: 'You know how you're pretty happy down there with your oval that you built next to the athletics track? Well we made it back.' And that's where it started from," McGuire said.
"I had a contract that said Collingwood's ground could be no further from where that was, so it was either going to be built across the road at the Tennis Centre or on the athletics track. Athletics was going to be shunted out to Doncaster or even to Aberfeldie where there's two tracks – and we fought really hard and got a fantastic facility with the VIS down there at Albert Park … it was a pretty good deal from a very low base.
"If people want to say I've played a major role in facilitating the best sports entertainment precinct probably in the world – and a second one down there in Albert Park – I'll cop it."
While the purpose built facility meets the needs of the athletes according to McGuire, Manou said the move to Albert Park had been disastrous.
"Albert Park is a terrible track."It's soulless compared to Olympic Park and because of the conditions, it's next to impossible for our current day athletes to compete well.
"These days it's closed a lot and not accessible to the public. During the middle of the domestic season when our athletes are preparing for either the Olympic trials or the World champs trials … it has to close down because of the Grand Prix.
"I was annoyed then and I'm still annoyed now because Olympic Park was our home, the home of track and field in Victoria.
"It was synonymous with our sport in Australia.
"Cathy Freeman broke 50 seconds for the first time at Olympic Park. There was so much history there and you would be hard pressed to find anyone in athletic circles that would be happy about us losing it.
"I get that the market in Victoria is towards football and athletics doesn't have a leg to stand on when you are talking about marketing our sport and where the money is going to come from, but I still think that an athletics track in the hub of the sports capital of the world was an important thing to have.
"I would have liked to have thought that there was a way around keeping it, especially when what it has been taken away for is a training ground for a football club."
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/news/eddie-mcguire-hammers-athletics-in-ground-stoush/f969fb96-723d-4601-b5fd-92af0b870b82
0 Comments