Everybody's missing the point here. It's not about coming second place, winning lots of medals or beating China and Russia. What really matters, is that we beat France.
No, but they have a larger pool of athletes, and thus a larger chance of getting a good (medal-winning) one.
Of course, one of the big issues with the Olympics is funding; I imagine that people in poorer countries don't get many sponsorships, thus have to train in addition to having a normal job, while GB athletes can fit in a lot more training, get the best coaching, and the best medical care if they injure themselves.
If there were a country that spent (proportionally) as much as we do on the Olympics, and sports, with double our population, they would definitely out-perform us.
China place a lot of emphasis on Olympic athletes though, I believe they even line up exit jobs for them upon retiring. ( I may be confusing them with Russia)
No, but they have a larger pool of athletes, and thus a larger chance of getting a good (medal-winning) one.
Of course, one of the big issues with the Olympics is funding; I imagine that people in poorer countries don't get many sponsorships, thus have to train in addition to having a normal job, while GB athletes can fit in a lot more training, get the best coaching, and the best medical care if they injure themselves.
I was really excited with the results during the first week. *Then last weekend it suddenly hit me how important money is. *So how can we level the playing field? *Clearly it is important to keep drugs out of sport, but should money come into the equation too?? * *
At the end of the day I have enjoyed the Olympics and been very proud of my country achieving medals in so many sports. *I am looking forward to Tokyo, but with Russia back to full strength, the medal table might look different. **
Everybody's missing the point here. It's not about coming second place, winning lots of medals or beating China and Russia. What really matters, is that we beat France.
Everybody's missing the point here. It's not about coming second place, winning lots of medals or beating China and Russia. What really matters, is that we beat France.
its because 1.) the uk is more genetically diverse than china, i.e. black people obviously perform better in track and field events, and 2.) the national lottery act has given billions upon billions to athletes and is now paying back dividends
I don't get the British. You spend a lot of money making a few athletes very rich. When that money could have been spent on hospitals and schools.
Actually it's only £543 million a year which really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things (and it comes out of National Lottery ticket prices) . The NHS budget is forecast to be over £140 billion next year for example. Our Foreign Aid Budget is about £10 billion annually to put our funding in perspective.
I don't get the British. You spend a lot of money making a few athletes very rich. When that money could have been spent on hospitals and schools.
I don't get idiots. They make sweeping statements without any knowledge of reality and expect their statements to be true despite tonnes of evidence to the contrary.
The sad thing about Britain's success in the Olympics is most Brits won't feel inspired to get off their corpulent backsides and take up sport, beating both the Chinese and the French in the obesity league table.
BBC is reporting the "cost of the Olympic programme as £1.09 per average Briton".
Average? So per capita?
So the Olympic program costs what, say £65m? Yeah, somehow I really doubt that. Especially considering this article says that it was estimated that each medal costs £5.5m
So the Olympic program costs what, say £65m? Yeah, somehow I really doubt that. Especially considering this article says that it was estimated that each medal costs £5.5m
At over 60 medals that is roughly £350m which makes the cost five times the one you stated per capita.
Which part of "the BBC is reporting" did you not understand? Those aren't my figures.
Again, I'm quoting:
"Team GB's 67 medals won here in Brazil cost an average of £4,096,500 each in lottery and exchequer funding over the past four years. ... the average cost of this Olympic programmeto each Briton - a reported £1.09 per year ..."