Sport and Recreation Minister John Kobelke welcomed an announcement today by Hockey Australia that will see the national high performance hockey training program remain in Western Australia.
"This decision means Australia's internationally successful Hockeyroos and Kookaburra hockey teams will continue to be based in WA," he said.
"The State Government put forward a strong proposal for Perth to retain the high performance program, including a $2.7 million package, including a marketing executive to promote the program.
"In addition, we have also made a commitment to fund an athlete recovery centre at Perth Hockey Stadium to help Australia's hockey players return rapidly to peak performance after intensive training and major competitions."
The Minister said taxpayers had largely funded the Perth Hockey Stadium at Curtin University - which was the training ground for Australia's gold medal winning hockey teams - and this would continue.
He said the decision was the result of extremely hard work by the Department of Sport and Recreation and Hockey WA amid a campaign mounted against WA claiming a Perth-based program would not allow Hockey Australia to attract major sponsors.
Several international teams including China, Canada, Malaysia and Korea will use the facilities at Curtin University in their lead-up preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Other factors in Perth's favour include:
- outstanding sport science and sports medicine support;
- direct support from the WA Institute of Sport and its world-leading science and athlete support programs;
- unrivalled climate, lifestyle and transport ;
- a strong and supportive local hockey community; and
- close proximity to South Africa and the Indian and Asian rim which field highly competitive teams.
"Hockey is the only centralised national training program in WA and has delivered outstanding results," Mr Kobelke said.
"When anyone thinks hockey, they think of Perth; it is so synonymous that it would almost take surgery to separate them in peoples minds."
