Olympics overdose

Seems everyone is a sport enthusiast these days. That's all the kids seem to be studying at school: Olympic themed art, research projects and even language (conveniently Chinese + Greek at our school) are all centred around this 2 week event. Lunacy!

This morning as I was going through my usual Tuesday morning ritual of strong coffee before the gym and looking over the SMH I was interrupted by a friendly stranger. He was enquiring whether I'd seen the spectacular results of the 1500m... I had no idea what he was talking about!

Now I know that to a stranger I may look like a sporty type since I am sitting here in my gym outfit but I really don't get the Olympics. But this guy was from Tunisia and he was obviously very proud of his fellow countryman, who I've now worked out must be Oussama Melloulli (who beat Australia's Grant Hacket at the 1500m freestyle event -thanks Google).

A discussion about elite sports and its funding ensued, the Tunisian telling me Oussama was completely self funded. I doubt it.

I'm curious about what it costs countries to fund each medal so I type into Google "cost of Olympic gold medals per capita Australia" and come up with this really interesting article eschewing the bias of medal tally/ capita count. By the tables here Australia comes second to the Bahamas for medals won per capita. But that's not exactly what I'm looking for.
I'm really more interested in how much it costs for Australia to fund these medals and where the money comes from and at the expense of what?

Crickey's James Conner sheds some light:

"Each Olympic gold medal in the last 20 years has cost Australian taxpayers about $40 million...

So the next time an elite athlete whines about it (drugs in sport) not being "fair", ask them how many years of assistance they have got from the Australian public purse, how many coaches, physios and sports scientists helped them, how often they get special high altitude training at Thredbo, how many times their technique has been mapped and analysed at the AIS to micro-manage it. Let’s remember the other athletes, the ones not lucky enough to be born in a wealthy country obsessed with sporting success."

$40 million per medal! Ouch, that's a lot of hospitals and schools.