Her job is to produce our best-ever Olympic team in 2032. She says we’re on track

The woman charged with delivering Australia’s best-ever Olympic team has been re-appointed for three more years just days after it was revealed that Brisbane 2032 organising committee chief executive Cindy Hook was on the way out.

Matti Clements, the director of the Australian Institute of Sport, will remain in the post until at least 2029.

While Games organisers are on the hunt for a successor for Hook, the re-appointment of Clements has been made to provide continuity as the clock to the 2032 Olympics ticks down.

It follows the extension of the tenures of Australian Sports Commission chair Kate Jenkins and chief executive Kieren Perkins until 2029 and 2031 respectively.

Responsible for implementing the ASC’s national Win Well high-performance strategy in the lead-up to Brisbane, Clements’ job is effectively to produce Australia’s greatest Olympic team on home soil in six years’ time.

The Australian team collected a record haul of 18 gold medals at the Paris Olympics in 2024. But as the host nation, expectations of an even better result will be sky-high.

Clements, who became the first woman to run the AIS after Tokyo in 2021, said she was determined to help steer Australia to its “best-ever Games” in Brisbane.

“I’m unashamedly proud of being the first female to hold the role, and to be re-appointed, I’m super proud,” she said.

“Of course there are expectations leading into a home Games, but the system is working better than it ever has. We’ve still got some work to do, but we’re doing some amazing things and we saw that in the results in Paris and in Milano-Cortina [at the 2026 Winter Olympics], and obviously, we smashed it at the Commonwealth Games [in Glasgow].”

A qualified psychologist who had worked previously in athlete wellbeing, Clements is among a group of women who hold some of the most senior positions in Australian Olympic sport.

They include Jenkins, Australian team chef de mission Anna Meares and winter Games leader Alisa Camplin-Warner, Rowing Australia CEO Sarah Cook, AusCycling chief Marne Fechner, as well as Sport Minister Anika Wells, who is also a vice-president of the Brisbane 2032 committee.

The NSW Institute of Sport and Victorian Institute of Sport also have female heads – their respective CEOs are Olympic swimming medallists Kirsten Thomson and Nicole Livingstone.

“Having Matti continue as AIS director provides important stability as we build towards LA 2028, the 2030 Commonwealth Games and French Alps Winter Olympics and Paralympics, and ultimately Brisbane 2032,” Perkins said.

“I am delighted that Australian sport will continue to benefit from her experience, passion and drive through this critical period.”

The renewal of Clements’ contract comes after it emerged that between 40 and 50 jobs were being cut at the ASC, the federal government agency that funds Olympic sports. They include redundancies at the AIS, the agency’s high-performance division.

The reduction of staff, which amounts to about 10 per cent of the ASC’s workforce, has been described as a “restructure”.

Clements said the process was ongoing but maintained it would not affect the country’s production line of athletes in the approach to 2032.

“We remain clearly united to deliver upon our objectives. They are not jeopardised,” she said.

The Australian government is spending $250 million to upgrade the AIS campus in Canberra and in June announced a two-year $513 million sport funding package.

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