The federal government has provided a major funding boost to Australia’s Olympic rowing team based on the belief that a happy family is a healthy family.

And, Rowing Australia (RA) hopes, a gold-medal winning family.

RA will offer its athletes and coaches, who have dependent school age children or younger, a grant to help their families visit in the lead up to the London Games.

Partners and children will have airfares and accommodation paid for by RA if they visit the Olympic training base in Varese, Italy.

The program won’t be means-tested and is expected to cost almost $300,000 over the two years before the Olympics.

“Basically, we’ve said if you have kids and want to do it, then it’s available,” RA chief executive Andrew Dee said.

“It’s up to the discretion of the families. Last year, we had six athletes and eight coaches take it up.”

The grants were trialled before the world rowing championships last year in Slovenia, where Australia enjoyed a record haul of 10 medals.

“It started out as an initiative to help those with really young families, where they were away for a really long time and the kids missed them,” Dee said.

“We really believe in it. It made such a difference last year to the athletes’ focus.

“It just makes that little extra one or two per cent difference.

“We put a lot of investment into the athletes in so many other ways … but you don’t get the full benefit from that if they’re distracted.”

Dee said it was unlikely the funds would be there to make the grants available every year, but that RA would hope to offer them in the two years before every Olympics.

And he’s confident RA has invested smartly.

“We’ve evolved the concept over time. In 2009, we had a nanny travel with the team because one of our athletes had only recently had a baby.

“The grants will allow our older athletes to stay in the sport longer.

“If we’re going to get the benefit of all the investment that we make over the previous 10-15 years, then we need the athletes there when they’ve hit their peak.”

The scheme was approved as part of the government’s Green and Gold Project, separate to RA’s base Olympic funding.

“We weren’t sure whether it would get up,” Dee said.

“It’s easy to accept a proposal to fund a new piece of equipment or technology. It’s not so easy to approve a submission where you’re supporting families to go overseas.

“It’s a bit lateral, but it’s really made a difference.”