Vale Peter Bowman, an Unsung Warrior of Athletics

By Brian Roe

When Sydney was awarded the Olympic Games in 1993, perhaps no person was in a better position to impact on Australia's performance in athletics come the year 2000 than Peter Bowman - who lost his battle with a form of blood cancer on 12 July.

While his significant influence on sport and athletics, in particular, preceded and extended well beyond those seven years, this was Peter's opportunity to make a difference – and that he did.

When the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) was established in Canberra in 1981, the focus was unashamedly on elite coaching. It is often said that the administration side initially fell to just two folk – Director Don Talbot and his capable sidekick Peter Bowman.

It meant that Peter not only knew the AIS system inside out but heavily influenced its internal administration as well as its policy direction. While at various times Peter had oversight of programs affecting all or several sports, his passion for athletics was never hidden. He coined it the "banner sport" and never let any of his colleagues even for a moment believe he felt otherwise – unashamedly also including it as part of his answering machine message.

As he gradually became more focussed on athletics, Peter fostered myriad programs that had long term impact. While Australia had enjoyed some success in race walking historically, Peter saw much greater opportunities for that discipline, especially as more opportunities opened up for women.

The AIS in Canberra soon became a world-leading high-performance centre in race walking – the depth of performance in Australia rising quickly with a plethora of high-quality international results not far behind.

Circuit meet competition and the nation's international performances had waned in Australia during the mid-1980s – something which troubled Peter. He wanted a platform not only to showcase the rising talent at the AIS but to create opportunities for athletes around the country. He was crucial to the birth of the AIS Classic and then a series of other meets around the country which became the forerunner of the Athletics Australia Grand Prix Series of the 1990s.

Peter ensured that a core group of athletes were funded with travel and accommodation to the meets to provide the critical mass to make competition viable.

Two further initiatives had the Peter Bowman stamp all over them.

For the first ten years, AIS athlete scholarships were primarily residential, but that meant that many of Australia's best athletes, particularly in athletics where they were older, with families, already working or otherwise established at home could not make a move to Canberra.

Peter oversaw the process by which Australia's top 25-30 athletes became AIS scholarship holders wherever they were based - providing them with the funding and support never previously available. It was good for the athletes and their coaches but also a significant fillip for the AIS brand.

But of arguably, even more, a significant impact was the elite coaching program that Peter drove relentlessly. Within a year of the Sydney announcement, Peter was overseeing a cohort of a dozen or more full or part-time coaches across the country.

He was by then also officially Athletics Australia's high-performance manager. Now a standard moniker for the role, Peter was the first to have that title in any sport – then and in retrospect entirely appropriate for such a trailblazer.

When Government joined with the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) to deliver the Gold Medal Plan to increase the chances of Australian success in Sydney, Peter moved to a new level in innovation.

He found ways to make a very substantial amount of funding go way further than anyone could have anticipated.

Peter had a fondness for wood ducks – particularly the subspecies that inhabited the Bruce area in Canberra. He developed a unique insight into their propensity to hide their eggs. He acquired the skills to fossick for them in every nook and cranny before relocation - rather extraordinarily usually with their blessing.

His relationship with coaches across Australia was even closer. Whether they were part of his paid team or traditional volunteers, Peter tried his hardest to support them in the coaching environments ably assisted by his long term colleague Carol Grant. They were a formidable team who delivered much for Australian athletics in so many ways.

It was thus not surprising that he eventually took the helm of the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association (ATFCA), serving as president and thereby as chair of the Athletics Australia Coaching Commission from March 1998 until his retirement 14 years on in 2012.

As recalled by ATFCA's Glynis Nunn – "Peter led the Association through some tumultuous times but his drive to ensure that the needs of athletes were always met at the forefront of his actions. He will be remembered for leading the Association through a period of difficulty - ensuring that it continued to function." 

Within Athletics Australia's governance structure, Peter not only served as its high-performance manager but in voluntary roles as chair of its International Tours Commission and the Coaching Commission. He also took on national team management roles – most notably for several editions of the World University Games.

Peter was made a Life Member of Athletics Australia in 2008, having received its Merit Award the previous year. He was a recipient of the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 for "his outstanding service as an administrator, coach and team official, especially in high performance".

Outside sport, Peter served a term on the Kiama Municipal Council. He took up a very different role with relish but not surprisingly took a particular interest in the recreation services that the Council provided. He was also a long term board member of the Illawarra Academy of Sport which bestowed him with life membership earlier this year.

He was a style-king but with an occasional penchant for a little kitsch. He is fondly remembered for the white flares he favoured throughout the 1980s. This extended to always ensuring in concert with Jane Flemming that the AIS athletics kit was modern and stylish. He was not afraid to don it himself – especially for his daily lunch-time runs on O'Connor Ridge.

Fortunately for those visiting on athletics business, those runs were often cancelled on Fridays when Peter was known to host barbeques outside his office using leftovers from the AIS dining room. The athletes must have eaten well on those occasions.

Peter was highly regarded by his peers and those he supported. He has variously been described by them over the past week as "a warrior for the sport", "always wise on the vertical links of government funding", "hard-line on accountability but sensitive to the unique elements of track and field", "definitely ahead of his time", "an inspiration for all - above all with his fair dinkumness" and someone "who's humour and personality you could enjoy".

In simple summary, a wonderful servant who put athletes and coaches first and whose contributions were always valuable.

Peter is survived by his wife Pam and children Grant, Simon, Tara.