GEORGIE PARKER: Why can’t athletes pass the pub test?

Last week it was the Sydney Swans. This week, English cricketers are making headlines after a night of drinking causing trouble. Every year there is story after story involving athletes, alcohol and poor decisions. At what point do we stop treating these as isolated incidents and ask whether there is something fundamentally wrong with the drinking culture in elite sport?

I want to be clear that I am not talking about the allegations surrounding the Swans. The young women at the centre of that matter remains the most important consideration, and the legal process should take its course. I am talking about the behaviour of athletes themselves when alcohol enters the equation.

This isn’t a ‘holier than thou’ piece because, oh, I love a drink. Arguably too much. But I’m not an elite athlete anymore. Performance isn’t at the forefront of my mind and when I think back to my biggest years as an athlete, I barely drank. Not because I was told I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to. I couldn’t justify it.

In 2014, we were preparing for a World Cup, and in 2016 everything was geared towards the Rio Olympics. We had rules around training, daily monitoring, physical standards and the likes. What we didn’t have was a calendar telling us when we were allowed to drink. And I didn’t need one telling me when I couldn’t. I drank at the end of tournaments, but when we were preparing to perform, I simply chose not to.

I have a theory that money might also play a part here. We, as Olympic athletes, weren’t being paid anything like AFL, NRL or international cricketers are today. That made the sacrifices feel even more significant. I was giving up my twenties I couldn’t get back: career progression, parties, weddings and the normal fun of being young. If I was going to give those things up for sport, I wanted to make sure it was worth it. I wanted to put my best foot forward and know I’d done everything I could to succeed. You’re not an athlete for long, but you’re retired forever.

That’s why I find the way professional sport manages alcohol so interesting. The AFL and NRL have designated rules around when players can and can’t drink, and many sports, including English cricket, have imposed curfews at various points. Yet whether athletes are given restrictions or freedom, we keep seeing alcohol involved when athletes have caused trouble.

Maybe the rules aren’t the problem. They are there to safeguard players, clubs and leagues, and I understand why they exist. But rules can only do so much. So maybe the bigger problem is the culture?

There is something about binge drinking that seems particularly ingrained in sport. We finish a season and have Mad Monday. We finish a tour and go out. We win, we celebrate. We lose, we commiserate. When drinking is restricted and then suddenly permitted, it can feel a little like telling a kid they’re not allowed in the lolly cupboard, then opening the door every few months and wondering why they eat everything in sight.

That was what bothered me about the drinking element of the Swans story, entirely separate from the serious allegations. If you’re an elite athlete two weeks out from finals, drinking until 6am is, in my opinion, a poor performance decision and surely performance should still be front of mind.

I don’t think athletes need to live like monks, nor should they be banned from drinking. They’re adults and should be able to enjoy themselves. But perhaps that’s exactly why I struggle with allocated drinking nights and curfews. Because ultimately, culture isn’t just about what you are allowed to do. It is about what you choose to do when nobody is telling you what to do.

The best sporting cultures I experienced didn’t need to tell us not to drink before a major tournament. We knew what we wanted and what we were prepared to sacrifice to get it. I’d already missed enough of my youth chasing the chance to be an Olympian. The last thing I wanted was to compromise that chance myself.

Perhaps elite sport doesn’t need better drinking rules. It needs athletes to understand why, sometimes, they shouldn’t need the rules at all.