With Mark Tronson's subsequent appointment as the Australian cricket chaplain in 1984 and the concurrent establishment of chaplaincies in professional sports, he was in a good position to discuss with Kevan Gosper an appropriate chaplaincy role for the Los Angeles Olympics.
He was thus able to combine four quite separate activities with this Los Angeles sojourn. These were:
o to be part of the Los Angeles Olympics Religious Services;
o to write about the Olympic field hockey The Australian newspaper;
o to undertake his first study tour of USA sports ministries, and
o to kick off a US postgraduate doctoral dissertation program with the Baptist University network.
Upon his return Mark Tronson began to ponder how to implement the knowledge he had gained from USA sports ministries into an Australian context. One of the outcomes was to initiate discussions with Kevan Gosper about ways to initiate a chaplaincy at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.
The Reverend Ken Bond was the first chaplain appointed, and he was followed by the Reverend Peter Nelson who is now celebrating his 23rd year at the AIS. Both these ministers have also had ongoing commitments with the Olympics; Ken Bond, Barcelona (1992); Peter Nelson, Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000).
After the Atlanta Olympics, Mark spoke to Kevan Gosper regarding developing a protocol for host city Olympic Games' Villages Religious Services'. As a result, Mark Tronson was invited to the IOC in Lausanne Switzerland in February 2000 to assist IOC staff in the development of a 'Protocol of ideas' for IOC Religious Services.
Since that time, Mark Tronson has sent a 'Protocol of ideas' to each subsequent summer and winter Olympic host city for their consideration. On Monday 9 February 2009 he and his wife Delma were in Vancouver discussing 'Religious Services' with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Committee.
Leading up to 17 March 2011 the same type of discussions occurred via Skype and Email with the Protocol of Ideas in consultation with the London Olympic Village administrative persons.
Reverend Peter Nelson the AIS chaplain has also been tremendously helpful with the young athletes visiting 'Timeout in Moruya', Basil Sellers House, in Moruya for athlete respite, a facility for this purpose, which was opened in 1992. Peter Nelson's interview on the Australian Missionary News IPTV can be viewed here.
The athlete respite ministry was an idea Mark Tronson picked up at that 1982 Hong Kong conference where he met Gernot Kunzelman, an Austrian sports star who had established a respite lodge in the Austrian Alps at Tauernhof.
The miracle of the AIS ministry has been the welcome by its personnel and the integrity of the chaplains: Reverend Ken Bond who initiated it, and Reverend Peter Nelson who has been the chaplain for 23 years and his associate Peter Prior who has been involved in the AIS ministry for eleven years.
