The recent work to streamline the national sporting system has seen the National Elite Sports Council (NESC) undertake an important project to devise a common terminology for athlete scholarships around Australia.
From a WAIS point of view this project has seen the national system take aboard a lot of the scholarship classification system and terminology which the Institute introduced following the 2008 Olympic Games.
One key change however is the re-naming of one of the four athlete scholarship categories.
It is important to note that this is simply a terminology change – an athlete’s level of benefits and the requirements to attain this level of scholarship remain the same.
The 2008-2010 WAIS athlete scholarship hierarchy was as follows:-
|
CATEGORY |
DEFINITION |
|
WORLD CLASS ATHLETE |
Individual competitor placing top 8, and/or a member of a team finishing 1st – 4th at the benchmark competition of that year and deemed likely to retain this level of performance. |
|
INTERNATIONAL CLASS ATHLETE |
Individual competitor in an individual event and/or a team member of a National team at the benchmark competition and is deemed likely to retain or progress their level of performance. |
|
EMERGING INTERNATIONAL ATHLETE |
Athletes with the capability to achieve at least International class status within 1-3 years. |
|
POTENTIAL INTERNATIONAL ATHLETE
|
Athletes with the capability to achieve at least International class athlete status within 4-7 years. |
The new 2011 onwards WAIS athlete scholarship hierarchy, consistent with the new NESC framework and with the change highlighted in red, is as follows:-
|
CATEGORY |
DEFINITION |
|
WORLD CLASS ATHLETE |
Individual competitor placing top 8, and/or a member of a team finishing 1st – 4th at the benchmark competition of that year and deemed likely to retain this level of performance. |
|
INTERNATIONAL CLASS ATHLETE |
Individual competitor in an individual event or a team member of a National team at the benchmark competition and is deemed likely to retain or progress their level of performance. |
|
DEVELOPING INTERNATIONAL ATHLETE |
Athletes with the capability to achieve at least International class status within 1-3 years. |
|
POTENTIAL INTERNATIONAL ATHLETE
|
Athletes with the capability to achieve at least International class athlete status within 4-7 years. |
