[shooks]

According to The Telegraph, there's a "Twitter backlash" in France against the continuing success of Team GB in the Olympics.

Apparently France's slide down the medal table has been accompanied by a surge of tweets about British fair play, amid complaints about a restarted rowing and cycling race.

That's something of a change of tune: the Twitter complaints are coming just a week after French president Francois Hollande said Britain had “rolled out a red carpet for French athletes to win medals,” back when GB was making a rather slow start in the medals table.

The 'sour grapes' label seems pretty apt, don't you think? Or has Team GB really benefited from some home bias to boost its medal count?

[Mr Smurf]

Not any worse than some of the Twitter comments after the Japanese appeal made us get bronze instead of silver.

[Casshern1456]

Well, we all know the French..

[Miracle Day]

(Original post by shooks)
According to The Telegraph, there's a "Twitter backlash" in France against the continuing success of Team GB in the Olympics.

Apparently France's slide down the medal table has been accompanied by a surge of tweets about British fair play, amid complaints about a restarted rowing and cycling race.

That's something of a change of tune: the Twitter complaints are coming just a week after French president Francois Hollande said Britain had “rolled out a red carpet for French athletes to win medals,” back when GB was making a rather slow start in the medals table.

The 'sour grapes' label seems pretty apt, don't you think? Or has Team GB really benefited from some home bias to boost its medal count?

what does.. "rolled out a red carpet for French athletes to win medals" actually mean exactly?

[simibean]

Typical French.
They were the main rivals for the 2012 Olympic bid aswell, so they are probably still jealous over that

[drummer]

Sour Grapes is the phrase of the Olympics huh

[Bellissima]

actually been spending some time with a french couple this week and funnily enough i asked them whether something like this was happening in france yesterday, they said not at all, there is some, but most french people are not upset. wouldn't be surprised if it's just the media stirring it.

[englishmad]

Hmm, I think it is a tough one - I think it is mainly due to 'sour grapes' as I suppose most people want their country to do well however I don't think we can completely dismiss home bias in the way that some athletes have been able to train in the area (track, lake etc) that they've used for the Olympics. This is particularly evident when Britain won Gold and silver in the Men's canoe double as the athletes themselves when talking to Gabby on Olympics tonight said that training on the course may have given them some advantage.

Then again, I think other athletes can come and train on the courses/tracks so this advantage is pretty small and also don't forget louis smith on the pommel horse who won silver due to judges giving him less execution points.

I think overall I going 'sour grapes'.

[Drewski]

So? It's a compliment. We only ever used to mock Ozzie sporting prowess because they beat us all the time. Now that we beat them as [seemingly] a matter of course it's a non-issue. Same with the frogs.


And, to borrow a line from the paper this morning re: the French. At least they've got the Tour De... oh, maybe not.

[zaliack]

They are also worried about Britain having magic wheels

[thunder_chunky]

Reminds me of a picture I saw after London won the games. It was a picture of the London underground symbol with the words "London 2012" on it and underneath it said "**** you Paris."

[shooks]

(Original post by Miracle Day)
what does.. "rolled out a red carpet for French athletes to win medals" actually mean exactly?

It was a little dig at the start of the Games, when France had picked up three gold medals early on. The phrase itself was in reference to PM David Cameron offering to 'roll out the red carpet' for businesses leaving France following the proposal of 75% top tax bracket.

(Original post by Bellissima)
there is some, but most french people are not upset. wouldn't be surprised if it's just the media stirring it.

Suspect you may be right!

[Architecture-er]

(Original post by shooks)
According to The Telegraph, there's a "Twitter backlash" in France against the continuing success of Team GB in the Olympics.

Apparently France's slide down the medal table has been accompanied by a surge of tweets about British fair play, amid complaints about a restarted rowing and cycling race.

That's something of a change of tune: the Twitter complaints are coming just a week after French president Francois Hollande said Britain had “rolled out a red carpet for French athletes to win medals,” back when GB was making a rather slow start in the medals table.

The 'sour grapes' label seems pretty apt, don't you think? Or has Team GB really benefited from some home bias to boost its medal count?

I think the scheduling has been arranged to give TeamGB a slight advantage, we've had all of our strongest events quite early on, in a compressed time frame, over the weekend. Additionally we had the men's cycle race on the first Saturday of the Games. So we've had plenty of crowd support when our teams have been competing at their best disciplines, and since it's so compressed they've been able to feed off of each other's successes (see Murray and his admission that he was motivated by GB's success so far).
But it doesn't get past the fact that our team has been performing incredibly well, instead of this incredible streak of medals it could've back-fired and seen us fail consecutively at all of our favoured sports and been a real blow to morale.. so I don't think the French have a leg to stand on

[Bellissima]

(Original post by shooks)

Suspect you may be right!

sometimes a couple of tweets can suddenly turn into a twitter storm of anger and jealousy when then media get their hands on it...

[Shabalala]

Maybe if the French didn't keep giving up and surrendering then they would be a bit closer to us

**** you France

[maverick123]

Our only advantage has been the incredible home support our athletes have received, other than that no...French jealousy and hypocrisy as usual.

[green.tea]

I dunno. My mate can lip read and he was at the rowing. He says after the first start one of them said "****, a bad start! Unscrew the seat quick!" So i think the french have a point tbh.

[The Cornerstone]

I ain't even mad

[Silver Aurora]

Maybe if we're lucky they'll get so pissed off they might have a revolution?

It's just a rivarly and a bit of banter.

[Lunch_Box]

You obviously didn't hear about the US swimming coach accusing the Chinese swimmer of doping. But that's the US, what did I expect?