Back in 2004, Mick Green, one of the co-editors of the original 2008 version of this text, noted that `… achievement on the international stage is now a much more significant policy objective on the political agenda.` He went on to point out that `… the emergence of "elite sport development" as a discrete area of (policy) interest is conspicuous for its absence` (Green, 2004, pp. 365-366). The Athens Olympic Games, held in the same year as Green's article was published, saw some £70 million allocated in direct financial support to UK athletes by the UK government. At the Games, the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team obtained a total of 30 medals, 9 of which were gold - an approximate cost of £2.3 million per medal. In the run up to the Beijing Games in 2008, the government allocated a sum of £75 million in direct financial support. Fast forward to the funding cycle for the 2024 Paris Games and the sum was around £300 million in financial support for specific sports (UK Sport, 2023; see Chapter 14). The United Kingdom is far from being alone in providing substantial support for its elite, and especially, Olympic athletes. The poor performance by the Australian team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics prompted a government enquiry which led to sustained and substantial investment of public funds in elite training facilities, such as the Australian Institute of Sport, and in direct support to athletes and domestic Olympic sports federations. At around the same time, the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; former East Germany) was reputed to be spending about 1 per cent of its gross domestic product on elite sport. East Germany's sports system, arguably the template for the majority of successful elite sports systems today, produced the most Olympic medals per capita with a population of just 17 million (Dennis and Grix, 2012). The GDR elite sportscape is recognisable in China's current elite sport system (see Chapter 6), with its sports schools, talent identification practices, abundant facilities and high levels of investment in coaching. One modern addition to China's system has been the `naturalisation` of Chinese athletes to boost some sports where they remain weak, a practice usually associated with states with little home-grown talent (cf. Qatar). Even in free market, non-interventionist and decentralised political systems, such as the United States, draconian government intervention in sport was not unusual, if it was deemed necessary to protect elite sport success. For example, in 1978 the US Congress legislated to resolve the long-standing dispute between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) for control over elite track and field athletes (cf. Hunt, 2007). The Amateur Sports Act marginalised the AAU and gave the US Olympic Committee primary responsibility for the preparation of teams to represent the United States.
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