Australian Institute of Sport: The powerhouse behind sporting icons

From cricketers to swimmers, tennis players to golfers, track and field athletes to skiers... The Australian Institute of Sport has been a finishing school for many Australian sporting greats.

Adelaide: It's a nippy morning in Canberra where the drizzle has taken a short break. As you stroll down the well thought-out footpath, a preadolescent zooms past you in his skates. A little distance away, a woman, perhaps in her early 20s and with headphones on, is on her morning run. As you move further, you see a man racing away in his sports cycle. 

These are the scenes on loop across the cities in Australia driving home the point how deep the sporting culture is entrenched among the country's 2.65 crore population. It's not hard to fathom why they are one of the global superpowers in sports. If you needed further attestation, they finished fourth in the medals tally at the recently-held Paris Olympics, behind only the USA, China and Japan.

While it's one thing to have a sporting culture, it's quite another to provide wings to the sporting ambitions of millions of aspirants. One such place is the Australian Institute of Sport where the country's finest talents train to smoothen their rough edges. From cricketers to swimmers, tennis players to golfers, track and field athletes to skiers... The institute has been a finishing school for many Australian sporting greats. 

To name some of them -- cricketers Ricky Ponting and David Warner, tennis stars Lleyton Hewitt and Ash Barty, swimmers Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim and Petria Thomas and hockey legend Jamie Dwyer. The AIS alumni list is endless and started supplying national heroes from 1981 when the institute was established in the suburb of Canberra, Bruce.

Over the years, it has become one of Canberra's favourite tourist attractions with guided tours that will take about 90 minutes to go through the entire facility spread over 163 acres. 

Our tour guide on the day is Georgie West, who is part of Australia's under-21 hockey programme. West hopes to be playing for Australia at the 2032 Olympics which will be held in her hometown Brisbane.

After a quick introduction and exchange of information, she gets down to business like a pro. That she herself is an athlete, helps her understand the nuances of the sports better and break down complex information in layman's terms. Like when she explains why the air around the swimming pool is warm. 

"That's to keep swimmers warm after they leave the pool. This prevents or reduces the evaporation of moisture from skin," she explains to a curious kid.  

Every budding athlete is expected to do this job as and when required, a regimen that helps them not only learn about the country's great sporting legacy but also take inspiration from their incredible journeys.

Our tour starts with Sportex, an interactive sports exhibit set among a rare collection of Australian sporting memorabilia. Here you can try your hands at football, rowing, basketball and skeleton run. While a few young kids have a whale of time, the rest scan through the memorabilia which include images from Melbourne 1956, Australia's first ever Olympics; jerseys contributed from Ponting and star woman cricketer Elysse Perry and Cathay Freeman's autographed photo of her winning run at Sydney 2000 among many others. Of course there are mandatory Don Bradman exhibits.

There is a huge strength and conditioning gym, a gymnastic centre, track and field centre, basketball and volleyball courts, combat sports centre, tennis courts and outdoor fields.

Basketball and combat sports arenas were particularly buzzing with activities with men and women of various groups in action. 

Australia, Georgie says, is majorly focusing on combat sports which constitute 25 percent of Olympic medals. And Australia had their most successful campaign at Paris 2024, returning with two medals in boxing.

Jerseys of former Australian captains Elysse Perrty and Ricky Ponting. 

We next head to AIS arena, a 5,200-capacity multipurpose indoor stadium. "We recently hosted a Lady Gaga concert," the guide tells the group. We then head to the Aquatic Centre, which houses an Olympic-size pool with cameras fitted across all four walls to record and analyse swimmers' performances.

Swimming contributes the highest number of medals to Australia's tally in the Olympics.

State-of-the-art recovery centre which has wet and dry areas. The wet area includes ice bath, sauna and cold and hot shower while the dry area has massage tables, a float tank and a warm down area with exercise bikes and stretching mats.

Whether it's training, like in swimming, or recovering, you can see the striking attention to details that go a long way in producing just an Olympian and an Olympic medallist.