TAXPAYERS have forked out $16.7 million through direct federal grants for each of the 13 gold medals won by Australia's Olympic team in Beijing.
But sports academic James Connor said even that figure is an underestimate once funding by state governments, and the cost of sporting infrastructure, such as the high-tech $17 million Australian Institute of Sport swimming pool, are taken into account.
"The real price of a gold medal would be three, four or five times higher, up to $100 million," Dr Connor, from the Australian Defence Force Academy, told The Sunday Age.
In athletics, $19.3 million has been poured in over four years, and a European training base established. Although Australia did well, winning one gold medal, two silver and a bronze, most athletes failed to make the finals of their events.
Eddie McGuire, who is on the board of Athletics Australia, was scathing about the performance of Australian athletes, and called for much more money. Speaking on SEN radio, he accused them of a "lack of tactical nous".
"I just don't think they race enough … the four of us (radio hosts) may as well turn up in London at the moment to run in the 100 metres because at least we'll get to the first round. No one will get to the second, but who does anyway?"
Acting Australian Institute of Sport chief, Brent Espeland, has confirmed that sports such as cycling and gymnastics, which disappointed in the medal count, will need to fight for funding.
He said AIS programs were focused on medal success at Olympics. "They have all got to be looked at: what are the reasons (for the relative failure), can it be turned around, what are the priorities?"
Dr Connor said there was a fundamental problem in Australia's elite sport funding system, including the AIS, which he said "focuses on 18 Olympic sports, and Australia has won gold medals in just six of them".
"We've got to ask serious questions about how we spend money in elite sports, and what sports we target," he said.
The Australian Olympic movement has already begun demanding a massive increase in funding. Australian Olympic Committee chief John Coates launched an inquiry to ask how much extra money was needed to win 55 medals at the 2012 London Games and 60 at the 2016 Olympics.
Swimming coach Alan Thompson said Australian sport was "on the verge of a crisis" without a funding injection.
But the Federal Government is sceptical. Sport Minister Kate Ellis launched an inquiry in May into the efficiency of elite sport funding.
"We're never going to be able to compete dollar for dollar with much larger populations and economies, and when you look at it per capita Australians are incredibly generous," she told The Sunday Age. But Ms Ellis said money could be spent more efficiently by reducing duplication between the AIS in Canberra and state institutes.
Part of the problem, according to sources, is that different institutes waste money by bidding against each other to buy star athletes for the sake of "bragging rights".
But Ann Marie Harrison, chief of the Victorian Institute of Sport, which has a $7.1 million annual budget, including $5.6 million from the State Government, said she was "confused about what their interpretation … is" regarding duplication.
In Beijing, the Queensland Academy of Sport blitzed the AIS in producing the bulk of medallists, including all of swimming's individual gold medal winners - Stephanie Rice, Leisel Jones and Libby Trickett. This is despite the AIS recently sinking $17 million into a world-class "instrumented" swimming pool at its campus in Canberra.
Mr Espeland defended the AIS pool, saying all Olympic athletes, including those from Queensland, had visited Canberra for a short time in the lead-up to Beijing for help with the fine analysis of their problems.
The impetus behind setting up the AIS in 1981 was the national humiliation felt at the failure (one silver and four bronze medals) at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. Montreal is now acknowledged as the most drug-corrupted in history and the USSR and East Germany won the bulk of medals.
