Breaking the norm Australia sinks bucks into surfing rather traditional Olympic sports like rowing.

Past and present Australian champion surfers attended – from left-to-right – (L-R – Owen Wright , Harley Ingleby, Dean Bowen, Mark “Occy” Occhilupo, Luke Egan, Chelsea Hedges, Justine Elliot (Local Member), Layne Beachley, Kate Ellis (Minister for Sport), Andrew Stark (CEO Surfing Australia) , Joel Parkinson and Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew).

A friend of mine is a rower who has represented Australia in two Olympic games. He wakes up at three am and drives an hour and a half to training 6 days a week. Rowing was a good earner and he and his team-mates expenses were well subsidised by the Australian Government. But the tide has turned on traditional Olympic sports like rowing in this country and finally the government’s sporting body has decided to put some capital into more popular (and competitively successful) sports like surfing. While that’s bad news for my friend, it’s great news for the hundreds of budding shredders manning our beaches. Where is the new money being spent? One prime example is a $2 million pledge given to Surfing Australia for a dedicated training facility at Casuarina, in Northern NSW.

As part of its commitment to the sport, Surfing Australia will build the world’s first purpose-built high performance training facility. Why? I hear you say. With the way surfing’s headed I’d imagine the set up would include a gymnastics section, skate parks and specialized surf coaching programs. If a professional surfer in the near future is to be pulling off 720-degree spin aerials, cross training will be a much needed component just like we have in snowboarding etc.

How the Surfing Australia high-performance training facility will look.

Not sure how down she is with backhand tube riding or air-reverses? But our Minister for Sport The Hon Kate Ellis is certainly down with helping future Mick Fanning’s and their quests for claiming prestigious world titles. She and 7 x ASP Women’s World Champion Layne Beachley (Sydney, NSW), 1978 ASP Men’s World Champion Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew (Coolangatta, Qld) and 2009 ASP Men’s World no.2 Joel Parkinson (Coolangatta, Qld) were all present for the announcement.

Even the enigmatic former world champ Mark Occhilupo was on hand and was quoted as saying, “What an incredible breakthrough for surfing – a dedicated facility to train surfers – in my time I would have loved access to such a facility but it’s just fantastic to see our future surfers will – The rest of the world are trying to be the worlds number one nation in the sport but a facility like this goes a long way in giving us the edge  - it’s just fantastic.”

Minister for sport Kate Ellis and Layne Beachley talk cut backs and rising tides (not taxes).

The thought of a dedicated surfing facility almost laughable ten years ago, yet now we see one not only being built but also funded by the government. Fortnightly Dole payments used to be the only way aspiring pros could pay their bills or buy gym memberships in days gone by. Today we’ve bypassed the CES and got the dough straight from the source. My how things change!

A portion of old school surfing pundits will scoff at the idea, maintaining surfing isn’t a sport, and competition surfing is a toxic plight on surfing. Most modern thinking surfer however (especially parents) will be glad our grommets (and children) can waste their days surfing and if so desired possibly go on to make a living at it WITH the support of the suits in Canberra.

Construction on the facility will begin shortly and we should see the joint operational as early as next year. Then surfers from all over Australia will be finally able to utilize a state-of-art world first Surf training facility.

My only question is can old burnouts get a little help there for rusty backhand re-entries?

Note: My rowing mate has now had job offers to coach in Europe where unlike Australia funding for Olympic sports have increased. Win win.