The two organisations will share facilities and knowledge through combined activities to focus on improving the cognitive and physical capabilities of Australia’s military personnel and elite athletes.

The Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Rick Burr AO, DSC, MVO, said this agreement was an important investment in maximising the potential of Army’s personnel.

“Army continuously looks at how we get the best out of our people. This partnership with the AIS focusses on what we can achieve to continually improve human performance,” Lieutenant General Burr said.

The partnership will include four key areas:

• mental health and wellbeing
• performance under pressure
• injury and illness prevention
• talent confirmation and induction into high performance.

“Our people are our most important capability, and to enhance our performance we need to be constantly working to improve. Through cooperation and knowledge sharing with the AIS, a respected world-leader in elite sport, we will give our people the best possible chance to out think and out perform any adversary.”

AIS Director Peter Conde said the Australian Army provided the ultimate mentoring example when it came to preparing its people for performance under pressure.

“The AIS sees this as an opportunity to develop our sports, athletes and coaches to help them convert more podium potential into medal success,” Conde said. “At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Australia had more athletes finish just outside the medals, in positions 4-8, than any other nation.

“When people think of army and sport, the image is often of boot-camps to build resilience. This partnership will be far more advanced, exploring education opportunities, mentoring, familiarisation techniques and strategies to deal with pressure. It’s a chance to develop our top athletes’ capacity to reach their peak performance and sustain that under Olympic conditions. We anticipate this program will benefit some 120 athletes, coaches and performance teams, in the next two years before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.”

During this collaboration, Army’s Special Operations Training and Education Centre (SOTEC) will work with the AIS to mentor squad members through a series of resilience and cognitive preparation activities.

These key focus areas allow improvement for Australian athletes, coaches and their support staff, looking toward the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

The first activities under this program are proposed for November 2018.