Almost 70 per cent of athletes competing at the Tokyo Olympics, and a large majority of para-athletes competing in the Tokyo Paralympics, have received direct grants from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in this Games cycle.
In a statement, the AIS said its dAIS scheme provided Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games athletes with direct financial support to enable them to focus on training and competitions so they could achieve their goals.
“In 2020-21 alone, the AIS provided 1,448 payments to 827 athletes across Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games sports, with $21 million directed to Olympic athletes across the cycle,” the AIS said.
The Institute said Government had committed funding to maintain current dAIS levels of $14.03 million a year through to the 2024 Paris Games.
It said Commonwealth Games Australia had also committed an additional $2 million for its Breakthrough2022 athlete support program to support athletes preparing for Birmingham 2022, to be run by the AIS alongside dAIS.
“dAIS will continue to evolve after the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics,” it said.
“The focus will shift more towards identifying and ‘awarding’ athletes who can contribute to performance outcomes at the next pinnacle event, rather than a retrospective ‘reward’ for past performance.”
The AIS said the revised dAIS scheme would align with the National Athlete Categorisation Framework and further details would be shared with athletes and sports after the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
