Damning findings of recent independent reviews have helped motivate Australia's Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth sporting bodies to join forces on a collective strategy to "win well" ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and beyond.
Announced Thursday, the first-of-its-kind partnership between the three organisations aims at challenging "win-at-all-costs" mentalities and balancing sporting excellence with support for elite athletes.
The terms "unity", "winning well" and "holistic" were floated repeatedly at a launch event attended by sporting greats such as Nova Peris, Patrick Johnson and Kurt Fearnley but actionable targets for the new strategy are yet to be set.
Swimming champion and Australian Sports Commission CEO Kieren Perkins said just committing to the strategy was a "watershed moment" for Australian sport, though, after recent reviews into swimming, gymnastics and hockey unearthed significant culture problems.
Last year's review into Swimming Australia was triggered when Olympic medallist Maddie Groves made claims of a misogynistic culture in the sport and culminated in a report that made 46 recommendations.
A similar independent review into Australian gymnastics found the sport's culture enabled physical, sexual and emotional abuse of its participants.
In March last year, Sport Integrity Australia unearthed a "dysfunctional" culture in elite women's hockey that was not conducive to athlete wellbeing or sustained on-field success.
"The lessons from history need to be learned and brought forward and actually put into action so that we can make it better in the future" Perkins told reporters on Thursday.
"There is no doubt that the output from all of the reviews that have been done, the bringing to light the challenges that athletes have had ... these are generational, these are not new.
"I do think that endemically for a long time in sport there has been a bit of a question that if you're not willing to do whatever it takes to win, then you can't possibly win. In fact, we know that's not true.
"Now's the time for that conversation and there is a lot of commitment from the system to drive that forward."
Perkins said the "win well" strategy was not necessarily focused on stopping toxic behaviour from ever occurring, but on empowering athletes and staff to manage such behaviours and setting common standards.
"In any very complex system like this, there is no time when anyone's ever going to be able to stand up in front of the community and say, 'This is absolutely never going to happen'. The reality is, we have a very broad church of human beings," he said.
"The biggest thing that we can do on the start of this journey is come together to provide the right support and environment that when those things occur, it isn't accepted, it's called out and that we do have an entire system of sport that has an acknowledgement and an agreement around what is acceptable and how we're going to ensure that we drive more of that.
"We all have a responsibility to set the tone and be a part of the culture and delivery of sport in the future."
