Many benefits of investing in sport

IF your household is anything like mine, your TV dial probably hasn’t moved far from the Olympics over the past week as you’ve sat glued to the inspiring performances of Australia’s athletes in Tokyo.

As a football-loving family, we’ve been particularly enjoying the efforts of the Matildas and Olyroos – with that incredible first-up win over Argentina surely one of our men’s team’s all-time greatest results.

But be it our swim stars in the pool, our Boomers and Opals basketballers, or any one of a number of other sports, all of the men and women wearing green and gold are giving the children and young people in our local community something to aspire to.

With Brisbane now confirmed as the Olympic host city in 11 years’ time, there’s even more reason for young athletes to be setting their sights on reaching that largest of the world’s sporting stages.

As a council, we invest in sporting facilities primarily to encourage participation and the resulting health and wellbeing benefits.

Sport is obviously great for our physical health, but it has a huge impact on our mental health as well.

Membership of any community-based club or group provides an opportunity to develop social connections with people of similar interests.

This creates a feeling of belonging to the local community, and often results in life-long friendships.

The council wants to make these opportunities available to everyone in Greater Geelong, and for that to happen we need high standard facilities across a range of sports, right across the region.

In recent years we’ve had a particular focus through our annual budget and Community Grants program on helping local clubs update and expand their facilities.

Changeroom upgrades have been especially important given the fantastic boom in female sporting participation.

We need to get to a point where all clubs have capacity to welcome males and females, boys and girls at the same time, with modern facilities that meet everyone’s needs.

Beyond participation, the added benefit of course is that better facilities give our most talented athletes the best chance to develop and progress to higher levels of competition.

With swimming firmly in focus during the first week of the Games, it is worth noting that the council is investing $44.84 million to deliver the new Northern Aquatic and Community Hub in Norlane in partnership with the federal and state governments. We’re also partnering with the federal government on a new 50-metre outdoor pool for the north Bellarine in Drysdale.

Geelong swimmers already have the international standard Kardinia Aquatic Centre at their disposal, and as part of this year’s council budget it is now funded to open year-round. (Prior to COVID, it operated only in the warmer months of the year.)

While this decision, again, was primarily aimed at assisting the health and wellbeing of the general community, the Geelong Swimming Club has graciously acknowledged it played a big part in local swimmers’ success at this year’s national championships.

In terms of the round ball game, we are conducting the early scoping work for a regional soccer facility in Geelong – potentially as part of the new Northern and Western Growth Areas, which will begin to develop in coming years near Lovely Banks and Batesford.

At the moment Geelong doesn’t have a purpose-built venue capable of hosting A-League matches or large regional and state tournaments.

This is something we need to address if we want to give our growing base of local players the opportunity to see top level matches up close, and to develop themselves to the best of their ability.

Budding athletes in our northern suburbs have been making great use of the upgraded Goldsworthy Reserve athletics facility in Corio.

Council invested $1.3 million to install a new IAAF-approved synthetic rubber surface with in-ground timing and date logging technology.

The makeover also included new triple and long-jump facilities and improvements to the throw cages.

So, as Geelong’s young people watch the remainder of the Olympics and start dreaming of one day swimming, running, kicking or even skating their way to gold, they can do so knowing the facilities will be nearby to help them achieve their potential.

Go Aussies.
Cr Kylie Grzybek