WAIS IAP program supporting athletes to international success

The WAIS Individual Athlete Program (IAP) provides supports Western Australian athletes outside of a sport where WAIS operates a sport program to achieve international sporting success.

The program is overseen by Performance Services Program Mangers, Carolyn Morrison and Laura Piromalli. Offering two types of scholarship; Individual Athlete Scholarship (IAS) and a WA Connect Grant (WACG) for athletes based outside of WA to remain connected to family and their sporting community.

“The program provides performance services to athletes that don’t have a WAIS coach and who fall outside of a WAIS sport program,” explained Piromalli.

“The athletes need to be categorised by the AIS framework as developing or above, supported by their National Sporting Organisation (NSO) and fall within being Olympic, Paralympic or Commonwealth sports.”

“So essentially they’re going to the next World Championships, biding for the next Olympics or the Olympic cycle after that.”

The program is split between WAIS National and Pathway Performance Enhancement Teams (PET), where athletes access tiered servicing based on their individual needs, program goals and the services that the national team provides.

The National IAP group, under Carolyn Morrison covers wheelchair rugby, surfing, equestrian and para equestrian, para power lifting, para badminton, skeleton, weightlifting and water polo.

“These athletes can access full servicing at WAIS, some are based within Perth, some are based interstate and internationally.”

“There’s also another group, the WACG, who don’t have access to servicing, but can access up to $1500 a year for travel funding.”

Laura Piromalli oversees the program in the Pathway PET, covering athletes from para triathlon, shooting and para shooting, para archery, artistic swimming, boxing, wrestling and lawn bowls.

“Some athletes, like the wrestlers, are in here every day, using the full suite and we’re programming for them with their coach.”

“Then from there it scales back to someone like our para shooter, who accesses medical services for medical management. Then you’ve got everything in between,” Laura said.

Kristina Kristic from lawn bowls was a new addition to the IAP program this year, with the performance servicing provided supporting her to the Commonwealth Games, where she won gold in the pair.

“It’s been a dream of mine to represent Australia at the Commonwealth Games, and that dream in itself came true earlier this year. But to win gold with my best friend, Ellen Ryan, is something else,” said Krstic.

“Many hours spent on and off the green were put towards achieving my goal of Commonwealth selection and our gold medal, I’m so grateful to have been awarded a scholarship at WAIS to help achieve this.”

“I can’t put into words how supportive, caring and attentive all the staff at WAIS have been, I have been lucky enough to work with Beth [Allanson] who specialises in nutrition, Dobbo [Michael Dobbin] who devised a strength and conditioning program for me, Courtney Riggs who helped me to develop self-belief, courage and confidence through sports phycology, Dr Goodman for all medical needs and Laura who always checked up on me and answered all my questions.”

With selection ambitions for the Australian Team for next year’s world championships, Kristic is looking forward to this next block and the ongoing performance support from WAIS to achieve her goals.

The support provided to individual athletes varies, depending on their goals and how WAIS can best support them.

“The neat thing about the program is athletes get themselves to a level based on their talent and then don’t know what performance services can do for them to enhance their performances both in and away from their sport,” said Piromalli.

“We get to put a team around individual athletes to give them that extra support, to help them get to the next level.”

It is a sentiment echoed by Morrison, “It’s a really flexible, tailored approach to each individual. Some athletes will use one or two services and some will use a whole suite of services, like Kristina.

“All the planning is in conjunction with the National Sporting Organisation, and the coach, as much as we can within this program. Hence there is a real variety in the management of all the different stakeholders involved with each athlete.

Performance Services Program Mangers, Carolyn Morrison and Laura Piromalli, are excited by the opportunity the program holds across the next ten years (in the lead up to the Brisbane Olympics) and beyond.

“Across the last couple of years, we have typically had around 30 – 40 athletes in IAP. One of the exciting things for Laura and I looking forward, is that leading into the Brisbane Olympics, there’s a lot of opportunity to develop this program,” Morrison concluded.