15/04/2024 - SASI: Talent Search - South Australian Sports Institute

The Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games presents an opportunity for the South Australian Sports Institute (SASI) to conduct expanded testing sessions to discover potential world class athletes who could compete at these Games.

Typically, an athlete who represents Australia at an Olympic/Paralympic level will have spent between 7-10 years in a sport development pathway before emerging as a senior international athlete.

Given the Brisbane 2032 Olympics/ Paralympics are less than 10 years away, the process of identifying and developing talented athletes is crucial in ensuring that South Australia is able to produce medal winning athletes for the 2032 Australian Olympic and Paralympic teams.

Two Talent Search sessions will be held in the April school holidays with the first taking place today (15 April) and the second happening on Monday 22 April.

 The tests conducted range from generic fitness testing, to sport specific tests across sports that SASI works with - athletes could discover that they excel in a sport they have never tried before!

If athletes continue to develop and succeed in each talent development stage, they will eventually receive a SASI scholarship which gives them access to all of SASI’s high-performance services including movement science, athlete wellbeing, nutrition and strength and conditioning.

 In this segment, we hear from Simon Cain, who has more than 15 years’ experience managing high performance elite teams and programs. He has been with SASI for the past eight years and is the Manager for Sports and Programs. Max Liebeknecht is a sprint cyclist within the SASI cycling program. His potential to achieve cycling success was picked up through the SASI Talent Search Program.