James Munro, Brainless twonk or stimulating debate?

georgee

after his thoughtful blog from China, I thought I might gage opinion in the man?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics/200 ... _is_i.html

Jez mon

He is just trying to stimulate debate and perhaps he does have a point, however, there were strong performances from other countries. Australia had a very dominating Track team last olympics but have now faded. Britain will find it hard to continue at such a high level.

Nevertheless, America are very dominating in running short distances (although this games they aren't as good) and athletics still sells out the Birdsnest.

bobpzero

seems balanced enough opinion of james munro tho i sense a lack of british patriotism from him. j m in british fashion wants to dumb down the amazing gold winning efforts of our cyclists. as we all know cash does nothing without true determined talent.

Capo

I thought some of the personal attacks on him were a bit unwarranted (and in one case an obvious case of sour grapes from a wannabe sports journo).

The Danish rider quoted had a good point though - while Manchester might have been packed for the World Champs, would the same happen in Copenhagen if the public thought that GB would sweep the board again and Denmark had little chance of success?

It did seem pretty clear though that half the people posting hadn't read all of his post - he said at the end that he was looking forward to hearing the national anthem three times at the Velodrome, shame Cav & Brad couldn't do it - and in many cases had done a knee-jerk response to the headline.

The people spluttering about the use of their TV license fee were my favourites.

SmellTheGlove

Capo wrote:

I The Danish rider quoted had a good point though - while Manchester might have been packed for the World Champs, would the same happen in Copenhagen if the public thought that GB would sweep the board again and Denmark had little chance of success?

Copenhagen's not so far to go for British fans - I reckon the place would be full to bursting

ris

it is an interesting subject for debate, and i'm sure the bbc sees it as part of its remit to ask 'non-patriotic' questions like this.

for my 2p - does anyone see the australians apologising for battering all and sundry at cricket/rugby for the last 15 years? this is professional sport for goodness sake, not a non-competitive sports day at a primary school.

i heard something on the radio from a dutch rider saying he had got sick of hearing the GB national anthem at the worlds, and was starting to feel the same in beijing. all i can suggest is that he takes that feeling, bottles it up for training and uses it to get faster.

4kicks

Of course these things are cyclical (!) but all the UK has done is diverted lottery money, call it a tax on the poor and hopeless if you will, into sports where, for a combination of high expediture on kit & relatively low international interest, they have been able to get the best bang for the buck, That much you all know. However, http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/summer_ ... ts_-_home/ would suguest that currently our Oliympic Gold medals are around 13 million pounds each if Ive done my sums right. Surely there could be some syncronised swimming, diving or god knows what other sports judges we could have bribed for less than that.

on the road

I don't hear anyone complaining about China's gold medal haul or the Americans; I don't hear anyone complaining about the Americans dominating the medals at every Olympics.

It seems when we have a bit of success everyone puts us down but it's OK for everyone else to be dominating the medals.

And what about Michael Phelps, no one's saying it's bad for sport that he's got all those gold’s.

dessertwarrior

So, (some of) our sportsmen & women finally receive the kind of financial backing required to compete on the world stage & the team is accused of being like Chelsea! Surely not sour grapes...

For years there have been complaints about our poor showing at successive Olympics but nothing was done about it - we should start looking at funding our junior tennis players; perhaps then we could produce a winner at Wimbledon?

Well done Team GB (long may it continue).
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Ride on ...

unclemalc

Agree totally with Desertwarrior...
The input of funding (as a result of success by Boardman) led to good facilities, training and now gold medals.
For Goodness' sake lets lap this cycling success up without 'embarrassment' or somehow 'feeling guilty'and hope i) it continues and ii) other countries move along. The idea that their interest will wane because of lack of success is daft. It didn't here...

daniel_b

I think the article is interesting, but don't see it as being an issue long term.

Clearly Britain are leagues ahead of the masses, but that will force other countries to train harder, and find time through developments to their equipment, thus raising the game for everyone.

5 Years ago Federer was unbeatable, that didn't stall anyones interest in the sport of Tennis, but what it did do is mean Nadal, Djocovic etc HAD to up their game, which they have now done, and Fed is no longer number 1 - at the moment.

Fo me, a personal interest in a sport does make a difference, but the main thing for me is the event of competition, and watching the people who are at the pinnacle of skill in their chosen sport competing against each other.

Whether it be all British, British/French, French/German, I will still watch it, it's the competing that attracts me, but if there are Brits involved, I will be more inclined to watch that is true, especially if it is a sport I don't usually take notice of.

I would hope that would go for other countries as well, but perhaps not.

Very true comment though, you wouldn't see the US even discussing their domination in a given sport being detrimental, winning is all over there, and screw the opposition, as that is what they are.

Dan

DavidBelcher

SmellTheGlove wrote:

I reckon the place would be full to bursting

Well, this is Copenhagen we're taking about, so probably

David

DavidBelcher

unclemalc wrote:

Agree totally with Desertwarrior...
The input of funding (as a result of success by Boardman) led to good facilities, training and now gold medals.

Looking back, it's staggering to see the 'snowball effect' resulting from Boardman's achievement on the track. Plus a pretty lean Olympics in cycling terms in '96 was no doubt an extra spur to knock things into shape.

David

passout

I think we are underestimating Johnny Foreigner. They will raise their game in order to beat us even if it takes years and provide us with excellent competition in the longer term. It will only take a few imore individuals from overseas to upset the present dominance. Team GB is pushing the sport forward, nothing more.

Whatshisface should be proud of our boys/girls, because of the cracking individual performances by Wiggans and co. It's not just about funding, it's about drive, determination & talent been recognised and rewarded. Perhaps he just isn't used to winning?