£22.1 million

iainf72

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/au ... feed=sport

That's an eye watering number.

lloyd_bower

Yep, certainly is but less than the money some football clubs spend on ridiculously overpaid pemier league footballers.

andyp

£22.1 million over four years isn't that much money when you look at it from a business perspective. I read somewhere that UK Athletics received £26.1 in the same period and they have been nowhere near as successful so I think BC can make a strong argument that they provide value for money.

If my understanding of funding is correct then they stand to receive more money now as those sports that are successful, i.e. win World and Olympic titles, will be rewarded.

iainf72

I wonder how much it works out per day of competition?

stoobydale

Why would you want to know how much per day of competition it is? These guys work seven days a week.

top_bhoy

For what has been achieved over the years and what has been put in place for the future, if you consider sport needs to be publicly funded in the way it currently is, it seems a bargain.

Wimbledon and The Lawn Tennis Club spend fortunes each year and produce no real talent. They in fact, could do with looking at the track cycling set-up to learn a few things about identifying and producing talent.

pjm-84

Bargain in my books.

I wish they had something like this 22 years ago and things may have been different. I chose employment......

method

http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/summer_ ... ts_-_home/

Less than Athletics, Rowing and Sailing.

Kléber

I know what's on Brailsford's ipod.

But the two sports where Britain has done exceptionally well are rowing and cycling. Both are sports are surprisingly similar - you don't need Romero to remind you of this - as you can precisely measure the abilities of competitors. Attach the person to an ergometer, whether it's the SRM bike in the lab or the Concept II rowing machine and you can tell pretty quickly if they are world class or not.

It's telling that the medals on the velodrome that were not won by "Team GB" were in the points and madison races, the two races where you need to get in breakaways, attack and where skill and chance come into play. Cooke did brilliantly to win gold but she could have got silver if the tactics had played out differently.

In sports like tennis or football, you can't program the skills required. So for as brilliant as the cycling and rowing look, they are highly measurable and quantifiable sports where we also benefit from a reduced participation of athletes, track cycling is not a global sport.

So any brilliance from Brailsford is great but make him England football director, the chair of the LTA or the Chinese athletics coach and he'd lose that midas touch.

moray_gub

iainf72 wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/24/olympicscycling.olympics2008?gusrc=rss&feed=sport

That's an eye watering number.

By my calcs, we have spent some £80.5 million on sports that didnt produce one medal, fling in Gymnastics at 9 mill (ok i know we won a bronze) and thats some 90 million on sports with no virtually medal return. Ok maybe thats a harsh way to look at it and doesnt take into account development levels but targets were set for most sports and ill bet a few sports were some way off target.

cheers
MG

moray_gub

Kléber wrote:

I know what's on Brailsford's ipod.


It's telling that the medals on the velodrome that were not won by "Team GB" were in the points and madison races, the two races where you need to get in breakaways, attack and where skill and chance come into play.

Weve been quite skillfull/ lucky (delets as applicable)at that event in previous WCs and Olympics


Cooke did brilliantly to win gold but she could have got silver if the tactics had played out differently.

I dont see the point of that statement at all , you could say the same about any road race.

cheers
MG

Kléber

My point is that we can win medals in events where. say, you know in January that if the rider doesn't get injured, then they are almost guaranteed a medal. If they hit X watts on the ergometer, they will stand on the podium.

So my point is that in rowing and cycling, you can spend money very effectively and almost predict your medal haul. It's fine to criticise other sports for "failing" to win medals but they involve a lot more chance, random events and other unmeasurable components. Hope this explains it, Moray Gub.

moray_gub

Kléber wrote:

My point is that we can win medals in events where. say, you know in January that if the rider doesn't get injured, then they are almost guaranteed a medal. If they hit X watts on the ergometer, they will stand on the podium.

So my point is that in rowing and cycling, you can spend money very effectively and almost predict your medal haul. It's fine to criticise other sports for "failing" to win medals but they involve a lot more chance, random events and other unmeasurable components. Hope this explains it, Moray Gub.

Ok two points here first off your statement about Nicole Cooke can be said about any road race ie..... so and so could have been silver if the tactics had been different, well yes but the fact is she won the race so the tactics were spot on.Paulo Bettini could have won silver last year at the Worlds if the tactics had been different......and so on and so on.

Secondly i wasnt really criticising these sports but if what you say is true then why are we so poor at say Athletics when they have had the most money in particlar the sprints and throwing events were we should be able to predict what they can run and throw ?


cheers
MG

Michuel

The Manchester centre is obviously successful. But the Olympic cyclists are almost 100% dependent on it. Take the staff, rider salaries, equipment away and all track medals vanish. As Nicole's gold owed some part to British Cycling (Dave Brailsford) and Emma's silver a greater part those medals would be in doubt. Maybe Wiggins would have the same success. Expressed in another way the Manchester centre is a new heart grafted into the body of cycling. If it vanishes the club and pro team infrastructure can't carry the load. The GB cycling success is due to Dave Brailsford and staff and Manchester not the cycling bodies and cyclists of UK. Our domestic race standards have been unaffected by it.

Moomaloid

what is the point of this thread? Are you complaining about the amount spent on cycling? too much? Too little? and why are people not heaping praise on the GB cycling team.

Kleber you are saying anyone who can produce a certain wattage will get on the podium. Surely other factors come into play. I'm sure there are many cases of track cyclists that produce more power that don't end up on the podium. Why are there people on this site who always seem speak in a negative way about the track teams fantastic achievements? The whole attitude of 'well we should've won because weve spent the most money is really poor.' I just don't understand the negativity.

iainf72

Moomaloid wrote:

Why are there people on this site who always seem speak in a negative way about the track teams fantastic achievements?

If Team USA took all comers and dominated would you be praising them or say "typical Americans think they can buy results"?

guv001

22 million over 4 years is hardly buying results - compare that to what Chelsea have spent on players over the last four years - now that is attempting to buy results.... Plus America has a massive population in comparison to GB so have more talent to choose from.

Anyway all winners should be praised regardless where their from.

Michuel

guv001 wrote:

22 million over 4 years is hardly buying results - compare that to what Chelsea have spent on players over the last four years - now that is attempting to buy results...

Anyway all winners should be praised regardless where their from.

We all praise British success. In addition we're all aware of the suffering involved in that success for the cyclists.

But a grass roots transformation is better than an elite Manchester "black box" transformation of GB cycling, ie what happens when the money stops ...and it always does.

May I quote Andy Hodge, gold in mens coxless fours:-

" Andy Hodge (club captain) has vowed to see Molesey Boat Club match his achievement and become the best rowing club in the world .. the club has supported him and he has worked hard for this club..."

moray_gub

iainf72 wrote:

Moomaloid wrote:

Why are there people on this site who always seem speak in a negative way about the track teams fantastic achievements?

If Team USA took all comers and dominated would you be praising them or say "typical Americans think they can buy results"?

I can think of a dozen sports where America dominate and people dont get too worked up about it so why should we get so negative about the cycling teams success is beyond me.

cheers
MG

moray_gub

Michuel wrote:

guv001 wrote:

22 million over 4 years is hardly buying results - compare that to what Chelsea have spent on players over the last four years - now that is attempting to buy results...

Anyway all winners should be praised regardless where their from.

We all praise British success. In addition we're all aware of the suffering involved in that success for the cyclists.

But a grass roots transformation is better than an elite Manchester "black box" transformation of GB cycling, ie what happens when the money stops ...and it always does.

May I quote Andy Hodge, gold in mens coxless fours:-

" Andy Hodge (club captain) has vowed to see Molesey Boat Club match his achievement and become the best rowing club in the world .. the club has supported him and he has worked hard for this club..."

Mmmm this be the same Andy Hodge who has spent 6 years on the World Class Pathway and has bagged some swag from the 26 million rowing booty !

cheers
MG

John Stevenson

It's National Lottery money isn't it?

So who cares how it's spent - it's a tax on people who are too stupid to understand basic probability.

If they want to fund elite sportspeople so they can get all excited over the IOC's overblown high school sports carnival, good luck to 'em.

moray_gub

John Stevenson wrote:

It's National Lottery money isn't it?

So who cares how it's spent - it's a tax on people who are too stupid to understand basic probability.

If they want to fund elite sportspeople so they can get all excited over the IOC's overblown high school sports carnival, good luck to 'em.

Bit of a sweeping generalisation there John.

cheers
MG

knedlicky

John Stevenson wrote:

It's National Lottery money isn't it?

So who cares how it's spent - it's a tax on people who are too stupid to understand basic probability.

If they want to fund elite sportspeople so they can get all excited over the IOC's overblown high school sports carnival, good luck to 'em.

Of the overall £ 235 million, I think it’s 40% National Lottery money and 60% Government-Funded, i.e. from regular tax payments. I presume the ratio is the same for the £ 22 million of cycling funding.

Maybe to know they also contributed out of their pay slips will increase the feel-good factor of those who get excited by the number of medals achieved by an elite?

ddraver

Moomaloid wrote:

The whole attitude of 'well we should've won because weve spent
the most money is really poor.' I just don't understand the negativity.

How else do i justify my new bike?! :P :? :P

top_bhoy

The only problem I see with funding athletes from the public coffers, irrespective whether from lottery or direct taxation, is that after receiving funding, athletes are not required to pay anything back - unlike students attending Unis and Colleges who have to pay their own tuition fees and take out loans to pay their education and day-to-day living costs. At the very least, to retain consistency, sportspeople should be required to pay back funding once their annual income, from all sources, reaches a certain level.

eh

Kleber's points are bang on, in that the events cycling did well in, are on the whole those with minimal tactical requirements (Womens RR excepted). You can't blame BC for doing this as they got asked to win medals nothing more. Still I do wish the BC would put more into grass roots RRs, MTB etc. especially in terms of vocal high level lobbying support even more so than money.

NB: Athletics is a bit harder to quantify performance than cycling and rowing, due to the lack of good measurement techniques e.g power. Still GB athletics performance is poor and seems stuck back in the amateur days.

drenkrom

You save a lot of lives with 22 mil.

This is just f'ing sport, after all.

method

drenkrom wrote:

You save a lot of lives with 22 mil.

This is just f'ing sport, after all.

I hear what you're saying but if we only spent money on what is necessary for saving lives life would be pretty dull.

As to the are/aren't we buying meddles, yes of course we are, but that's how it works in all sports. Talent + Development = Results, development costs.

leguape

drenkrom wrote:

You save a lot of lives with 22 mil.

This is just f'ing sport, after all.

And if that 22 million pays into getting more people into using a bike to some degree, correlating to a increase in general health and reduction in cardiac conditions, how much is that worth in saving lives?

cougie

No matter how many millions you spend - people die anyway - so lets not get hung up on saving life as being the number one goal of the nation.

Hopefully the obese couch potatoes may get a little more enthusiasm to take some exercise and not scoff that extra pizza - and their health may benefit slightly.

flattythehurdler

I think it was great great value for money. 22.1m is not much in that space of time. Funding should be increased for all sports. The country will/would be a far healthier and happier place if people enjoyed exercise more, and leading by example is a great way of starting this off. Coupled with the undoubted enjoyment watching the success brought it was a bargain.
Funding posh folk in boats is a different issue. They should ban hobbies like sailing from the olympics.