Olympic graphs

iainf72

Did a few graphs. Because someone kindly did a single track thread, it was easy to do some numbers. I appreciate it might swell over the next few days, and there were other threads sort of related but the same was true of road events

First up - Pages per thread.




Next up, if we average across the track events (10 of them)



And not a graph, but British Cycling budget for this olympic cycle was £26.39m (via inrng)

If you weighted the medal with a 3 for gold, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze the average cost per medal was c £910k.

Lichtblick

Because someone kindly did a single track thread, it was easy to do some numbers

Yes, it was me. viewtopic.php?f=40002&t=12869657&start=460

Lichtblick wrote:

I would like to thank everyone here <starts crying> for supporting me <wipes tears away> in this thread which has gone on <gulps> <smiles bravely> for 24 pages!

My most successful thread EVER on BikeRadar, and me a newcomer. Thank you <takes bow> Thank you <waves to audience> Thank You ALL !!!

joke, guys, ok?

rick_chasey

Excellent graphs. 8/10.

iainf72 wrote:

If you weighted the medal with a 3 for gold, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze the average cost per medal was c £910k.

I read something similar. Compared to the cost of the golds in the horse events however, the cycling seems like pocket change.

TheBigBean

This is a pro-race forum though, so you would expect the road race to have more posts.

TheBigBean

You should probably include the triathlon as well. That has 5 pages.

Spiny_Norman

TheBigBean wrote:

You should probably include the triathlon as well. That has 5 pages.

But only a third of that's cycling, so arguably that's worth 15 pages pro rata.

skavanagh.bikeradar

It would be good to see the breakdown of cost per medal (by colour and/or total) per sport. I guess you should also take into account interim World Championships/other big events in each sport.

Is the total figure for each sport's funding a 4 year cycle or a per year figure?

Do you include road racing and TT's in the BC funding? What about Wiggo's TdF win?

Also some sports while not winning medals might argue that they have shown improvement in depth - swimming for example probably looks p**s poor on cost per meda but they are getting more swimmers into finals perhaps?

And trialthlon's numbers probably come out a bit funny as there is only one event and a small pool of athletes, so do you have to take age group events outside of the olympics into account for all sports?

Someone more geeky and with more time on their hands than me can sort that lot out.

shinyhelmut

Spiny_Norman wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

You should probably include the triathlon as well. That has 5 pages.

But only a third of that's cycling, so arguably that's worth 15 pages pro rata.

Surely it counts as 1.7 pages.

Spiny_Norman

ShinyHelmut wrote:

Spiny_Norman wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

You should probably include the triathlon as well. That has 5 pages.

But only a third of that's cycling, so arguably that's worth 15 pages pro rata.

Surely it counts as 1.7 pages.

The cycling was only a third of the race, and I'm assuming that no one was interested in the other boring bits, so if the race had been completely cycling, like all the others, it would have had 3x the interest here, hence 15 pages. I think.

We need to sort this out, though, or Iain's graphs will be meaningless.

derbygrimpeur

Spiny_Norman wrote:

ShinyHelmut wrote:

Spiny_Norman wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

You should probably include the triathlon as well. That has 5 pages.

But only a third of that's cycling, so arguably that's worth 15 pages pro rata.

Surely it counts as 1.7 pages.

The cycling was only a third of the race, and I'm assuming that no one was interested in the other boring bits, so if the race had been completely cycling, like all the others, it would have had 3x the interest here, hence 15 pages. I think.

We need to sort this out, though, or Iain's graphs will be meaningless.

I think your logic is broke

hammerite

iainf72 wrote:

If you weighted the medal with a 3 for gold, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze the average cost per medal was c £910k.

This funding of £26m is this purely for competition? Or is funding in to the whole of British Cycling from UK Sport? If so BC use this money for all their activities, as well as securing corporate sponsors and membership income.

I was at a BC event earlier in the year, and whilst I can't remember the actual numbers I'm sure it showed that BC provide best value for money for all their funding of all the sports UK Sport dish money out to (the analysis had been done by UK Sport).

derbygrimpeur

Innerring said the £26M was purely the lottery money for the track team olympic period 2009-2013

Spiny_Norman

derbygrimpeur wrote:

Spiny_Norman wrote:

ShinyHelmut wrote:

Spiny_Norman wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

You should probably include the triathlon as well. That has 5 pages.

But only a third of that's cycling, so arguably that's worth 15 pages pro rata.

Surely it counts as 1.7 pages.

The cycling was only a third of the race, and I'm assuming that no one was interested in the other boring bits, so if the race had been completely cycling, like all the others, it would have had 3x the interest here, hence 15 pages. I think.

We need to sort this out, though, or Iain's graphs will be meaningless.

I think your logic is broke

It was only a throwaway comment, but I don't think it's a question of logic, just different ways of dealing with a special case.

One point of view is that the race got 5 pages, but only a third of that was cycling, so you should only count 5/3 = 1.67 pages. You can make a case for that.

Alternatively, you could say that we don't have threads here on the athletics or swimming for obvious reasons, so those 5 pages only existed because of the cycling bit of the race. You could therefore extrapolate (possibly with tongue firmly in cheek) to a claim that if the swimming and running legs had also been cycling, there would have been 5 pages on each of those, or in other words 15 pages for the whole race.

That's a silly claim, but once you start attaching some sort of significance to the number of pages particular threads ran to, I reckon all bets are off in the silliness stakes.

derbygrimpeur

Don't be daft

iainf72

derbygrimpeur wrote:

Innerring said the £26M was purely the lottery money for the track team olympic period 2009-2013

ORLY? Hmmm. In that case, each medal cost £1.147m

avoidingmyphd

I don't understand graph 2.

iainf72

avoidingmyphd wrote:

I don't understand graph 2.

Track = 10 events in total.

Number of pages divided by number of events.

avoidingmyphd

I get it now. I was mixing up my blues. Thank you.

In that case you need to go through the track thread and check for posts that talk about multiple events.

iainf72

Steady now :P

As it's track cycling, and therefore a lot like sprinting on the road, I suspect the most posts will be where there was a crash or some kind of "unjust" DQ.

iainf72

iainf72 wrote:

derbygrimpeur wrote:

Innerring said the £26M was purely the lottery money for the track team olympic period 2009-2013

ORLY? Hmmm. In that case, each medal cost £1.147m

Ok. Based on performance thus far using same scale (3 for gold ,2 silver, 1 bronze)

Athletics : £2.09m per medal
Rowing : £ 1.4m per medal
Swimming : £ 6.27m per medal
Sailing : £ 3.27m per medal

inkyfingers

iainf72 wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

derbygrimpeur wrote:

Innerring said the £26M was purely the lottery money for the track team olympic period 2009-2013

ORLY? Hmmm. In that case, each medal cost £1.147m

Ok. Based on performance thus far using same scale (3 for gold ,2 silver, 1 bronze)

Athletics : £2.09m per medal
Rowing : £ 1.4m per medal
Swimming : £ 6.27m per medal
Sailing : £ 3.27m per medal

Iain, apologies if i've missed this but is that figure based on the budget for the whole of British Cycling in that time (including grassroots etc) or is that just the budget for the elite track cycling team. I would assume the latter but not 100% sure.

iainf72

Based on this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/de ... g-olympics

avoidingmyphd

iainf72 wrote:

Based on this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/de ... g-olympics

Handball, wrestling and volleyball eh? Can we see a medals graph of how that went v. cycling Iain?

inkyfingers

Thanks Iain, very interesting.

I wonder whether anybody has done any wider research about the benfits of sport funding....for example I wonder if success in elite cycling is better "value" as it is more likely to result in greater uptake of cycling as an activity (and all the health/environmental benefits that delivers) due to the relatively low barriers to entry as compared to a sport like rowing.

KieranHardman

Rowing is a pretty easy sport to get into and actually costs less than getting into cycling. Membership for an average local club is usually only £150 or so for the year and is cheaper than going to the gym with no extra money needed to be spent on kit. Typically noone buys a boat unless they are considering going for the national squad.

As for the costs per medal, I think its an interesting statistic but when you add it up over 3-4 years it misses out on other medals or acheivements such as world championships or world cups. If the Olympics is truly the be all and end all of those sports then thats one argument. Though if, like swimming, you have one bad championships it makes it look as if the money is not well spent and would suggest the funding is better spent elsewhere. Even if that funding got you multiple World Champions in previous years.

inkyfingers

KieranHardman wrote:

Rowing is a pretty easy sport to get into and actually costs less than getting into cycling. Membership for an average local club is usually only £150 or so for the year and is cheaper than going to the gym with no extra money needed to be spent on kit. Typically noone buys a boat unless they are considering going for the national squad.

I wasn't just talking about the financial barriers to entry, but practical ones as well. Many people already own a bike, they probably just don't use it. Also, you can use a bike for recreation and racing, but you can also use it to travel to work or to go and get your shopping. Unless you are very lucky you'll also need to drive to your nearest rowing lake/river whereas with a bike you can do it straight from your front door. It is also something you can do independently and you don't need to join a club or anything to get going.

Should add that i'm not knocking rowing here, just saying that it's much simpler to convert somebody into a bicylcle user.

As for gym membership, anyone with a brain knows that unless you have very specific training needs then a gym is just about the worst value sport out there. An average unfit person would benefit far more by going for a brisk walk every morning than by paying £40 or so to Duncan Bannatyne every month to run on a treadmill a couple of times a month.

knedlicky

inkyfingers wrote:

I wonder if success in elite cycling is better "value" as it is more likely to result in greater uptake of cycling as an activity

Going by what one sees in other European countries, it would be hard to correlate success in elite cycling with uptake of cycling as an activity.
Spain has a lower cycling rate (km/day/person) than in the UK, and the rate in France is only about the same as in the UK. And in both those countries, it’s mainly keen enthusiasts (of the type this forum probably represents) who cycle; there are few commuters/shoppers and few family/touring cyclists.

Having said that though, Brits seem to go in for ‘fashions’ quicker and easier than their continental counterparts, even if sometimes the ‘fashions’ are then shortlived. Perhaps it’s possible the success will bring a few more people to cycling as a sport, but I’d guess the success will have no longterm influence on cycling activity generally, unless changes in social attitudes, facilities, and promotion policies occur concurrently with any ‘fashion’ for cycling.

PuttyKnees

Interesting stuff. Must suck to be BC looking ahead, as they have no way of arguing for funding increases - they've swept the board already. Still, not as bad as being swimming - if UKsport are true to their word then there's going to be tough times there. I wonder if they'll be forced to take a more centralised model of coaching like cycling for the next cycle. Ditto Badminton. Figures here: http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/histori ... s-olympic/

avoidingmyphd

PuttyKnees wrote:

Interesting stuff. Must suck to be BC looking ahead, as they have no way of arguing for funding increases - they've swept the board already. Still, not as bad as being swimming - if UKsport are true to their word then there's going to be tough times there. I wonder if they'll be forced to take a more centralised model of coaching like cycling for the next cycle. Ditto Badminton. Figures here: http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/histori ... s-olympic/

don't forget that (in an uncharacteristic fit of competence) the UCI are asking the IOC for more medals in Rio.

iainf72

What's quite interesting is to look at how many events there are, and factor that into the numbers. Something like athletics with a vast number of events (47 I think) has similar overall funding to cycling, but a bigger pool of athletes. So in theory, you could get more bang for your buck with fewer medals.

rick_chasey

iainf72 wrote:

What's quite interesting is to look at how many events there are, and factor that into the numbers. Something like athletics with a vast number of events (47 I think) has similar overall funding to cycling, but a bigger pool of athletes. So in theory, you could get more bang for your buck with fewer medals.

Cycling's a lot less competitive than athletics in the olympics. Track cycling certainly.

Brailsford even says as much. "We targetted track since it was easier to get results" to paraphrase.

I'd also say there are less variables where pure cash can add value in athletics than cycling.

After all, cycling has equipment that you can vary.