SYDNEY, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Olympic team have been welcomed home has heroes at a rousing reception at Sydney's international airport on Wednesday.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull greeted the some 300 Aussie Olympic athletes as they departed the chartered Qantas Airways flight, saying the nation should be proud of their achievements.
"They are all champions, every single one of them," Turnbull told Australia's Seven Network just prior to the plane's arrival.
Australia took a team of 421 athletes, with the remainder to arrive on another charter on Thursday.
The celebration however has been dampened by the public spat between the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Olympic Committee on funding after Australia failed to achieve its top five ranking.
Australia finished tenth on the medals table with eight gold, the same as its dismal performance at London 2012 following the poor performance of its swim team.
The authors of a landmark 2009 report on the future of Australian sport on Wednesday said despite the athletes doing "incredibly well at Rio," the country needs a rethink on what they wish to achieve as a top-five finish is an "unrealistic expectation" and "hugely unfair to our athletes".
"Our view is we should define the sports we wish to succeed in and back these up with reasonable investment," the authors of the Crawford report wrote in an opinion editorial, published by News Corp on Wednesday.
Investment into the medal count for Australian athletes come at a huge dollar cost that competes for funding with other community and sports programs, the authors argued.
According to Turnbull, Australia spent over 500 million Australian dollars (381 million U.S. dollars) in public funds for its Rio campaign, though funding for Tokyo 2020 could be cut back.
"Resources are scarce," Turnbull said when asked about future funding for Australia's sports programs.
