The tragedy of Dan Vickerman’s passing at 37, not long after the end of his international rugby career, and the continuing troubles of former super fish Grant Hackett have again cast the spotlight on the retirement of our sporting stars.
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There have been numerous calls this week for sports to do more to prepare athletes for the end of their time at the top, but the reality is that, with the possible exception of a handful of the professional codes, the vast majority of sport are hopelessly under-resourced to do so.
Nor is there any prospect that even with a huge injection of funding, they could do the job as might be desired.
Just as the roll out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme has demonstrated, funding is not enough – the availability of sufficient service deliverers is vital.
Most sports have neither available to them.
Olympic rowing gold medallist Kim (Crow) Brennan is a deep thinker on all matters of athlete welfare. Her in-depth comments reported in The Australian this week identified and reinforced the root causes, but left the solution for resolution.
Some of our very best athletes prepare well for retirement. They are comfortable with a split from the limelight and if opportunities arise, they either take them or leave.
Even for them, they really have no idea how their minds, and to a much lesser extent their bodies, will cope with leaving elite sport behind.
But there are many who have no plan at all. Sadly there are those who rely completely on a misconceived notion that somehow their notoriety will provide all and sundry.
However genuine some such comments might be, it is almost scary every time a sports star utters their hope for a career in coaching or the media.
For a percentage there is some logic, but for the majority it is but pie in the sky.
Brennan is spot on when she says that athletes ought to be having the conversation about life after sport right at the beginning.
But in proposing that sport will drives it, her hopes are surely misplaced.
For most sports, any foray into the area would necessarily be too little, and perhaps even dangerous.
And whilst the focus has been on our elite, these issues can have just as great an impact on grass roots participants – many of whose careers last even longer, making severance even more difficult.
The rich professional codes aside, the solution for other athletes may best rest with a centralised service provided jointly by the Australian Olympic Committee and the state and territory institutes of sport.
But it would need funding and personnel – real funding and real personnel.