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Labor To Commit $10 Million For Kurt Fearnley Centre Of Excellence

Written by MOS Editorial Team

Published on 7 May 2019

The Australian Labor Party has announced they will commit $10 million to build the Kurt Fearnley Centre of Excellence, a world-class, high-performance athletics centre.

The centre will be located at Sydney Olympic Park and will be a state-of-the-art training venue for Australian athletics, providing significant benefits to community athletics right through to elite high performance.

Athletics Australia CEO, Darren Gocher, said the centre is a great step forward for athletics in Australia.

“Labor has committed $10 million to build the facility, which is tremendous news for athletics in Australia.

“We all know the amazing career that Kurt achieved, so to build the centre in Sydney Olympic Park where Kurt commended his decorated international career at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics is great,” Mr Gocher said.

Three-time Paralympic gold medallist, Kurt Fearnley, said this centre is a great way to secure the future of Australian Para Athletics and the wider athletics family.

“Next year is the 20^th Anniversary of the Sydney Olympics and I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate time to establish this centre, it will give our future athletes the best possible facilities to take on the world.

“It’s an honour to have my name attached to the venue that will develop the future of my sport and it’s exciting to think that around the country developing disabled athletes see one of their peer’s names attached to the centre that will assist all of the athletics community,” he said.

Fearnley announced his retirement from Australian representative athletics last year after the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to focus on ‘other endeavours’ such as teaching and his family life.

Fearnley told the ABC last year, after being awarded NSW Australian of the Year, “I graduated from teaching in 2005 and for the past 25 years it’s been nothing but racing, for the next couple of years I want to focus on my family and continuing supporting and advocating for people with a disability.”