Tokyo 2020 (21) olympics

know its unpopular. with criticism of how bmx gold medalist crowd funded her way to Tokyo. but you cant argue with GB medal boom, since they changed the funding post athens. with funding depending on success & to in their words "get more value for money"

1924 - 2004 89 Golds 🥇
2008 - present 97 Golds 🥇
 
I think the biggest single factor is the markedly improved facilities for athletes to train on.

The big turning point for that was the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002. That saw the opening of the state of the art velodrome with the obvious benefits to track cycling. There was also a number of other top notch facilities created from that.

The amount of money that's spaffed on some of these events is insane though. To buy one Bronze medal for the two Hockey teams cost UK sport around 12.9 million pounds. That's 400,000 more than boxing received. I can't for the life of me see how Hockey can absorb that much money?

The 47.6 million combined spent on Athletics and Rowing failed to buy a single gold medal.

In fact, here's how much UK sport allocated for this Olympics to their funded disciplines:

 
The rightful winner was demoted to silver for beating his opponent in karate.
Yeah, it's a bizarre one but unlike Boxing, Judo and Taekwondo which are proper fights, the Kumite (pronounced Koo-Mat-A) is like sparring. It's basically showing off your moves without actually smacking anyone.

It's all a bit pointless really.

Still, it's not going to be anything to worry about going forward. Karate's time in the sunshine didn't last long. It was only included for this one Olympics and won't be back for Paris. (Unless the IOC change their minds I suppose).
 
In other news, thank Christ we'll get a brake from the Balding and Scott Show.

We've had to suffer two weeks of:

Scott: Good evenin and welcome. Tonight we'll be in the velodrome as we cycle through the racin, ha ha ha get it?

Balding: And I'll be talking about women and how great they are

Scott: But first let's talk about Tom and how he goes divin daily, ha ha ha I'm so funny.

Balding: But before we go over to the pool, here's a picture of Dora Spiddle who has just won a medal in the female bucket hurdling. Outstanding.

Scott: if I could just get you back on track Clare, tee hee, see what I did there?

Balding: Of course I did because you are a brilliant woman and so am I.
 
The funding for Team GB is basically for the Olympics, the athletes train to peak every four years and are paid by the British Olympic Association out of Lottery money set up by John Major after the disastrous Atlanta Olympic games though the excuse was to fund good causes. The amount of success depends on the Olympic Association's thoughts on which sports the medals could come from and how high the chances are, hockey being a team game has 11 players plus reserves and to pay them ( some part time others full time) is expensive, boxing is simpler as there are amateur competitions and the best are chosen for funding.
Some sports have expensive equipment like sailing and cycling, way back in the 60's when the UK sport was all amateur Rodney Pattinson was racing in the Flying Dutchman class, I was a young trainee submariner Tiff and we were asked to volunteer to make fittings for his boat as the cost of titanium fittings were almost unaffordable, we made various shackles, rudder mountings and general deck gear from various titanium extrusions by hand, Rodney at the time was a Lieutenant in submarines, he won, but in those days many of our Olympians were service personnel as that was the way round the amateur rule, the communist block athletes were all members of their armed forces, the USA tended to be college athletes or coaches from different disciplines ( you can't be paid in the chosen sport but can in other sports). The reduction of our armed forces and sports funding to the forces equipment reduced our Olympic success until it became Olympic failure in Atlanta.
Olympic success is expensive and billions are thrown at it for national pride, whether you think this is correct is immaterial, competition costs, whether in development or equipment in any sport, Mercedes pay the UK billions of pounds to be a successful German team, the Gulf States pay McLaren billions to be a successful British team and the Austrians pay billions to the UK to be a successful soft drinks company, it doesn't make sense but it is the way of the modern world, I wonder which team the Chinese will buy.
 
I do believe the blonde lady's name is pronounced Baldin...

Saw a wonderful post on a Facebook group the other day which said "GB Rowing received £24.6 million lottery funding. Did she not make enough money from those bloody Harry Potter books?"

On a serious note, the money spent does go in to the economy, although I'm involved with a couple of charities and getting central Lottery funding is now impossible even for a few thousand pounds. As much as I love to see British sportsmen and women winning medals I'd love even more to see fewer people living rough or dying through addiction, which a few tens of thousands of pounds could do.
 
cider_and_toast im glad i only saw hazel irvine, gabby logan & jason Mohammed. never saw the review of the games so was spared what you went through 😄

the turning point was disaster of Atlanta. because we were amateurs in olympics that were "professional" for 8-12 yrs. highly recommend this show on iplayer. some horror stories from Kelly Holmes & Darren Campbell. its no wonder we were rubbish.

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cider_and_toast hockey got alot in this cycle because of the gold in rio. will get less to Paris because of the bronze & women are basically carrying hockey as the men have been poor last 3 Olympics. cant forget 9m watched the gold medal match

rowing will always get funded well because of Steve Redgrave legacy. athletics yes we had alot of bad luck. with alot of our gold medal hopes injured early on. but the management/coaching needs looking at because they are the blue Riband events at the games. they got lucky & it was very poor

but overall i think the national pride. you get every 4 (or 5 yrs) is worth it. Britain has increasingly less to be proud 1 of & this is fantastic for 2 weeks. surely we all still look fondly at numerous events of national pride in the last 4 olympics. too many to mention as id be here all night. we are nowhere near as bad as China who basically take it from primary school. with the amount of teenage Olympians

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The best thing, after a successful Olympics, is how the BBC help to drive the legacy of sporting success by keeping those less shown sports on our screens and in the public eye.....

Oh wait, hang on, no, they'll ignore it as always or at the very best stick an hour or abridged coverage on the Red Button.

Anyone else dream of the days when we had Grandstand on a Saturday and actually got to watch sport?
 
I only started watching the coverage on Eurosport in the last week of the games. Better presenters and better picture quality, the only problem for me is that you have to subscribe to watch on the Eurosport player to find the things not shown live and I'm not a fan of watching things on my laptop. The good thing about the iPlayer is that it is either accessed through the red button or has it's own app on the TV.
 
it would be nice & they have with triathlon & badminton being broadcast. but did wasnt grandstand back then. not live as i believe the BTCC was a week delayed & in this current media ages even 24hrs is long time
 
Grandstand was a mixture of live and pre-recorded. It didn't matter with most sports because their results were rarely covered anywhere else.

ITV had World of Sport and Mid Week Sports Special.

Even Channel 4 had a sports round up on Saturday mornings.

After terrestrial TV companies lost the battle for football broadcast rights they seem to have given up with everything else as well.

The BBC for example had a golden opportunity with Formula E but bizarrely buried it on the red button.

ITV have the broadcast rights to the BTCC and I appreciate they couldn't show a full days coverage on their main channel but they don't even bother showing any of the races live on ITV.
 
the irony of Russian accusing Americans of this. but strangely not Chinese funny that & i love the idea that country that has had 32 medals stripped since 2008 olympics & "banned" from the last 2. has said its seized to be honest competition


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Ironic post given that our 4x100 relay team are on the brink of losing their silver medals due to one of them failing a drug test.

The big difference between Russian athletes and every one else is that Russia ran a state sponsored doping program for national pride while every one else (especially US and UK athletes) seem to do it more for personal financial gain and fame.

It was easier to catch a whole country with their fingers in the cookie jar than it is to catch a tiny handful of individuals.
 
Ironic post given that our 4x100 relay team are on the brink of losing their silver medals due to one of them failing a drug test.
1 athlete out of 376, & i believe it will be our 1st summer olympic medal to likely be stripped & 2nd only to alain baxter in 2002 winter olympics which wasnt doping it was something to do with vicks vapo rub i think, which is disappointing but we arent close to ban yet

jamaica & tyson gay was done for the same offence in the last 2 olympics
 
Another view to efficiency participating in this Olympic :)
It's only jock without any serious conclusions.
TOP 10 countries by "Athletes per Medal" Rank

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Ironic post given that our 4x100 relay team are on the brink of losing their silver medals due to one of them failing a drug test.

The big difference between Russian athletes and every one else is that Russia ran a state sponsored doping program for national pride while every one else (especially US and UK athletes) seem to do it more for personal financial gain and fame.

It was easier to catch a whole country with their fingers in the cookie jar than it is to catch a tiny handful of individuals.
The irony is that claims against Russia express USADA.
I.e. those who have disgraced themselves with a bunch of doping scandals
and whose athletes come to the Olympics with therapeutic exceptions
allowing them to "legally" take psychotropic drugs.
 
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