London 2012 Summer Olympics |OT3|

Status
Not open for further replies.
World record
Jamaica (Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Yohan Blake, Usain Bolt) 37.04 Daegu, South Korea 4 September 2011

Jamaica is still favorite imo


I stand corrected, but it will be a competitive race atleast. Unlike Bolt smashing everyone on the 100 and coming soon 200.
 
Don't know enough about the situation to comment on the rest of your post but,





wat

That was obviously in jest.

Equality works both ways you know.

Is he our best athlete in the 110m hurdles, proven through GB trials to qualify to run? Then yes he should get support. What are we supposed to do, only support poor athletes and force rich parents to pay for training? Get that reverse snobbery the fuck out of here

I might be wrong, but I don't think he was our best athlete. He's young and his aim was to get to the semis. He massively exceeded his expectations and broke his PB. That's all you can ask from an athlete, so it was a remarkable performance, but never at any stage was he ever a potential medal hope. Andy Turner was the "main" British athlete in this event that failed to get through to the final (due to a shit season with lots of small injuries). Andy Turner was also considered to have a good chance at a medal, although that obviously didn't materialise.

It's not reverse snobbery. There are means tested grants for nearly every benefit in life. Student grants/scholarships, taxes, prescriptions, bus passes etc. Does it make me a snob to wonder if National Lottery good causes funding to athletes should be means tested? Independent school boys/girls are already massively over-represented by team GB, so all I want to do is restore the natural balance and promote social mobility and sport to an obviously disadvantaged class. If refusing National Lottery funds to ex Etonians and " heir apparent to the baronetcy's" means I'm a reverse snob, then so be it.

It's not like that. He's just an idiot. The raison d'être of the national lottery was to support sports and arts. The situation in Britain where 50% of athletes in the team come from the independent sector is lamentable, but that is basically down to the poor state of sports teaching in the state sector and the lack of talent spotting. I wish it was better than that and everyone had a chance of competing in the Olympics, but the way we have it now works, Team GB are having their best ever games because of lottery funding changing the formula to please some idiotic political agenda would be a disaster.

The key is to improve sports in state schools, not to hobble funding for people that make it far enough to compete. I'm not sure how it can be achieved but I hope they can figure out a way, 220 playing fields sold since 1999 is surely not the way to go about things though. :/

And the reason why the Government can get away with reducing spending on sports/arts is because they can point to the National Lottery and shirk their own responsibility. That's a government problem, not a National Lottery one, and pressure should be put on them to change that, but in the mean time is means tested funding for the good causes such a terrible idea. Isn't UK sport a quango? So even though the revenue raised through the lottery is not a tax, the money is still raised overwhelmingly from the working class. So the funding is still going uphill (from the working class to independent school boy/girls) albeit not through HMRC.
 
Only watches from Omega, the official timekeeper (including timekeeping fencing matches) of the 2012 Olympic Games, allowed.
 
Actually thats not the correct attitude to take either. I would rather no percentage of money go to the arts or sport. Let big business strike deals with Team GB for sponsorship deals and leave it at that.

Atlanta 1996 - 1 gold. That's what this model leads to. £312m over 4 years is not exactly going to break the bank, and 40% of that comes from Treasury with the remainder split between sponsors like Addidas and Sky and lottery funding.

Let's improve sports in the state sector, not hold back people who have ability because of their background, that is no better than having a poor state sector sports and will leave Team GB in a terrible place.
 
_62132358_countries-medal-count-over-last-5-olympics-464.jpg


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19180854

Interesting BBC article, USA were aiming for 42 golds, but 13 less overall than Beijing.
 
Lol The USA relay team always fucks up the baton change so I wouldn't hope for anything there if I were you.

The women have already corrected that and won the world championships in 2011. The men need lots of prayer, but if they don't drop it they medal.
 
The best should be funded so they have the financial support to become a full time professional athlete, end of story. It does not matter what thier background is. Just because someone's parents are rich, the parents can not be forced to fund their child's career.

The best should be supported no matter who they are.
 
Not a bad 1st quarter by USA up 7.

Russell Westbrook is just trying to destroy the rim on every opportunity, even if it destroys his body. Charles Barkley would truly be proud on him.
 
Atlanta 1996 - 1 gold. That's what this model leads to. £312m over 4 years is not exactly going to break the bank, and 40% of that comes from Treasury with the remainder split between sponsors like Addidas and Sky and lottery funding.

Let's improve sports in the state sector, not hold back people who have ability because of their background, that is no better than having a poor state sector sports and will leave Team GB in a terrible place.

I say that money is better spent on improving IT sector of the UK than on sport or the arts. Lotto should be used as an excuse to have bingo on a saturday night on BBC night, a cheaply run quiz show and have mega rollovers.
 
And the reason why the Government can get away with reducing spending on sports/arts is because they can point to the National Lottery and shirk their own responsibility. That's a government problem, not a National Lottery one, and pressure should be put on them to change that, but in the mean time is means tested funding for the good causes such a terrible idea. Isn't UK sport a quango? So even though the revenue raised through the lottery is not a tax, the money is still raised overwhelmingly from the working class. So the funding is still going uphill (from the working class to independent school boy/girls) albeit not through HMRC.

I bet if you put a poll out over whether national lottery funding represented value for money in terms of Olympic performance, I think you will find that the C2DE group would be fervently in favour of it given how much this has lifted the nation. Who cares if some of the athletes are double-barrelled toffs, they are out there representing our nation and we should get behind anyone who makes the grade, not just the deserving poor.

Fuck anyone who tries to mess with lottery funding.
 
I say that money is better spent on improving IT sector of the UK than on sport or the arts. Lotto should be used as an excuse to have bingo on a saturday night on BBC night, a cheaply run quiz show and have mega rollovers.

What IT sector would you spend £80m a year on improving? What can that money even buy in terms of IT? An £80m tax cut to attract tech businesses would get us nowhere, £80m spent on IT goods is hardly going to make a dent in the poor state of our IT manufacturing sector or software development which gets literally billions in private sector investment.

£80m a year is not a lot of money in the scheme of government spending, and if that £312m over four years can get us to 3rd place in the medals table and make Britain a sporting power again and give kids something to aspire to other than being in Big Brother or on X-Factor then that's money well fucking spent.
 
What IT sector would you spend £80m a year on improving? What can that money even buy in terms of IT? An £80m tax cut to attract tech businesses would get us nowhere, £80m spent on IT goods is hardly going to make a dent in the poor state of our IT manufacturing sector or software development which gets literally billions in private sector investment.

£80m a year is not a lot of money in the scheme of government spending, and if that £312m over four years can get us to 3rd place in the medals table and make Britain a sporting power again and give kids something to aspire to other than being in Big Brother or on X-Factor then that's money well fucking spent.

pendleton, ennis and trott are terrible...i want any future daughter of mine to emulate a bint like Amy childs.
 
Atlanta 1996 - 1 gold. That's what this model leads to. £312m over 4 years is not exactly going to break the bank, and 40% of that comes from Treasury with the remainder split between sponsors like Addidas and Sky and lottery funding.

Let's improve sports in the state sector, not hold back people who have ability because of their background, that is no better than having a poor state sector sports and will leave Team GB in a terrible place.


The lottery funding doesn't care who it trains. I expect most comprehensive school kids want to be Wayne Rooney when they grow up, and school supports that with lots of football. Private schools offer a broader range of sports so they are more likely to be feeders into more sports.

One of the women rowers (ex army I think) got recruited simply for being tall and athletic. So perhaps UK sport could also do a little more to reach out to a wider community when looking for talent - eg like football clubs do at a junior level.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom