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Australian Sport 10 years ago...

age_master

age_master

Hall of Fame Member
After possibly the worst weekend ever in Australian sport I was reminiscing this morning about 10 years ago when we were on top of the world.

There were 2 of the great sporting moments against South Africa in the cricket and rugby world cup semi finals. Stephen Larkham's 50m drop goal secured an extra time win against the Boks and Allan Donald being run out to tie the cricket semi up after Lance Klusener's onslaught was possibly even more exciting. Australia went on to win both finals comfortably. We also retained the Bledisloe.

We won the 98-99 Ashes series 3-1.

Pat Rafter was world number 1 in tennis (well, for one week ayway).

We also managed a win in the Netball World Championship.

The 1999 Pan Pacs saw Australia win 13 events and included wins to Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Michael Klim and Susie O'Neill.

10 years later we have lose the Rugby World Cup and the Bledisloe. We retain the cricket world cup but have lost the ashes TWICE, and are no longer at the top of world cricket. Lleyton Hewitt is our highest ranking tennis player at no 32 but isn't much chance of winning another grand slam, according to wiki we are still no 1 in netball but I have a feeling NZ might have won last time we played them. And we have slipped from 2nd to 4th in the swimming rankings.


Why were we so good 10 years ago and why have we fallen off in so many sports?

More importantly how do we get back to the top?
 
NUFAN

NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
I just think there are so many sports out there and so many countries in competing in a lot of them that it's impossible to be great in them all, but of course we could be better!

Too many of our best athletes are playing sports that don't get the world recognition such as League and AFL, good on them, but from a world dominance perspective it's not great.

Also take a look around you (you better not be in a sports organisation or sports club) but think about how many people have a passion for sport, I think the numbers are less then they used to be, I don't have stats to back this up, just what I think.
 
Johnners

Johnners

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Sam Stosur is actually Australias highest ranked tennis player, 19th iirc.

It's not all bad though. 10 years ago people would have laughed at you had you said our national Football team would be ranked 16 and qualify for 2 World Cups in a row, let alone make the first knockout round in the first of those. In the just completed Athletics world champs, we had our best ever medal tally with 2 gold and 2 bronze. Not amazing I know, but considering Australia had only 5 WC gold medals before Berlin, that's a fair achievement. In terms of Motorsport, Mark Webber became the first Australian to win a GP in twenty something years. Marcos Ambrose became the first Australian to win a NASCAR race (he's now won 2, and is more than holding his own in what is one of the toughest motorsport series in the world).
 
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ripper868

ripper868

International Coach
NZTailender said:
Possibly feeling the after effects of certain governments being in power...:ph34r:
Click to expand...
AWTA....Ruddy took away the cash promised by Johnny to create a Rugby Academy in Brisbane, and gave it instead to the arts, Painting won't help the fat kids of Australia, Sport will, be it League, Union, Afl, Soccer, Tennis, Badminton, quiche eating, squash etc etc. Particularly League and Union, as they accomodate for said fat kids.
 
NZTailender

NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
ripper868 said:
AWTA....Ruddy took away the cash promised by Johnny to create a Rugby Academy in Brisbane, and gave it instead to the arts, Painting won't help the fat kids of Australia, Sport will, be it League, Union, Afl, Soccer, Tennis, Badminton, quiche eating, squash etc etc. Particularly League and Union, as they accomodate for said fat kids.
Click to expand...
Actually, was going to say if you look at in a sense of long term plans, the liberal government could theoretically be held responsible for the downfall. All the great cricket players who came through started in the mid-90s after years of Labor, and their not-as-good replacements coming through after years of the Liberal government. Rudd has only been in power for a couple of years, and you don't notice the effects of cut funding on such a large scale in terms of player and team quality that we are talking about.


But then I'm just being anti-Howard (not our forum friend) and trolling...
 
dontcloseyoureyes

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
ripper868 said:
AWTA....Ruddy took away the cash promised by Johnny to create a Rugby Academy in Brisbane, and gave it instead to the arts, Painting won't help the fat kids of Australia, Sport will, be it League, Union, Afl, Soccer, Tennis, Badminton, quiche eating, squash etc etc. Particularly League and Union, as they accomodate for said fat kids.
Click to expand...
Dumb post.
 
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