Olympic gloating. Not very British

morstar

Loved the Olympics, pretty embarrassed by the press response though.
Two days of 'we beat the Chinese, how rubbish are they?' now there's an article on the beeb stating how rubbish the French are compared to Britain.
Celebrate the success, that is what sport is about, rubbing the oppositions now in it when you win is pretty poor.
All IMHO opinion of course but the press is turning an amazing success story into a vulgar thing. How far up our own ares are we?

orraloon

One can rely on one's elected representative for balance and respect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-de ... e-37163416

Once a Leaver, always a (non gender specific) k-nob.

surrey_commuter

It does feel a bit like East Germany in the 1980s but replacing drugs with money.

Pross

I suspect China throw even more money at it!

One thing everyone is overlooking in celebrating this unprecedented success (and it really is a success story when you look back 20 years - it's one thing being well funded but another to use the money wisely) is that many medals that Russia would have traditionally won have been redistributed and there has to be a chance GB gained some medals as a result. That said, if the success trickles down to low level participation and generally improved fitness then it is worth shouting about.

verylonglegs

Surrey Commuter wrote:

It does feel a bit like East Germany in the 1980s but replacing drugs with money.

You are equating a systematic doping program that drastically alters someones body ( sometimes permanently too) with another setup where giving them an income means they just don't have to worry about working 8hrs a day? Yes, definitely the same.

cougie

To be fair it's not really very British to win.

I'm not gloating over our Olympics - I'm just happy for our athletes.

verylonglegs

orraloon wrote:

One can rely on one's elected representative for balance and respect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-de ... e-37163416

Once a Leaver, always a (non gender specific) k-nob.

She's not the only one. Aaron Banks was also tweeting that Olympic success showed what GB was capable of outside of the EU. He must be smart enough to know better (I can only hope) but he was obviously playing on the dumb fuck3rs who don't realise a vote 6 weeks before the event isn't enough to influence the results of athletes who have been training for 4yrs or more.

Stevo_666

morstar wrote:

Loved the Olympics, pretty embarrassed by the press response though.
Two days of 'we beat the Chinese, how rubbish are they?' now there's an article on the beeb stating how rubbish the French are compared to Britain.
Celebrate the success, that is what sport is about, rubbing the oppositions now in it when you win is pretty poor.
All IMHO opinion of course but the press is turning an amazing success story into a vulgar thing. How far up our own ares are we?

No doubt if we had a poor Olympics there would be a thread on here started by one of the 'doing the UK down' brigade moaning about how bad we are compared to other countries and complaining about our lack of investment in sport :roll:

We are in the better of the two scenarios

slowmart

The press have been exhibiting and underpinning the same behaviours of morons for years. The real sad part is what it says about our society as the papers are only feeding the masses the garbage they like to consume.

Ive really enjoyed having my day start with elite athletes achieving their goals and the genuine enthusiam, humbleness and energy conyveyed in the interviews.

tangled_metal

What have the Chinese been saying? Oh, guess what, they've.been saying how it's been another very successful Olympics and they've come second in the medal table. How is that any different? Isn't it human nature to celebrate when your lot do very well indeed.

DeVlaeminck

morstar wrote:

Loved the Olympics, pretty embarrassed by the press response though.
Two days of 'we beat the Chinese, how rubbish are they?' now there's an article on the beeb stating how rubbish the French are compared to Britain.
Celebrate the success, that is what sport is about, rubbing the oppositions now in it when you win is pretty poor.
All IMHO opinion of course but the press is turning an amazing success story into a vulgar thing. How far up our own ares are we?

Haven't caught any of that but yes it's disappointing if that's what the media have been making of it.

morstar

Tangled Metal wrote:

What have the Chinese been saying? Oh, guess what, they've.been saying how it's been another very successful Olympics and they've come second in the medal table. How is that any different? Isn't it human nature to celebrate when your lot do very well indeed.

Agree completely we should celebrate the success. I tried to convey that in my first post that the Olympics and British success was hugely enjoyable.

However, the first couple of days coverage post olympics were not 'we came second' so much as 'we beat the Chinese'.
It's like the glass half full / half empty type thing. The same outcome but a very different connotation. The other thing I found interesting was before the swimmer won our first gold, the medals table wasn't on the front of the beeb olympic pages. As soon as we had a gold and we appeared near the top, it appeared.

Now this...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37168870

I simply find the tone very condescending.

I entered Ironman last year and joined a Facebook group during the months preceding the event. Great group as everybody shared their journey through training and prep. Within two weeks of the event being over, I left the group as all anybody went on about was how superior they were to everybody else who hasn't done an Ironman.

There's a subtle but significant difference in being proud of what you've achieved, which our athletes should be and having a superiority complex like our press have adopted.

rolf_f

To me there is something a little unseemly about us coming second in the tables. It suggests that really we are over-investing in sport and that maybe some of the money might be better invested elsewhere (which, of course, does not mean that had some of that money not been invested in sport that the alternative uses it was put to would actually be better!). But on the other hand, pissing China off has to be a good thing!

fenix

I didn't find the tone condescending in that piece.

ballysmate

Fenix wrote:

I didn't find the tone condescending in that piece.

Me neither.
Most of the article is from a French perspective highlighting the difference in approach to sport by our 2 countries

tangled_metal

Didn't the Chinese media come out with the coming second comment first? If so British media banging on about beating the Chinese to second could be considered a response.

But so what? It's a big achievement for a small nation like ours to beat a large nation like China that undoubtedly has had a highly targeted approach to finding and producing sporting excellence from probably before they joined in the Olympic party back in 1984 IIRC.

By rights the UK shouldn't be as high up the table. It's probably almost as impressive as Australia's record based on their population size to draw their elites from. Adjusted on a per capita basis we're 18th. New Zealand did well on this basis.

Stevo_666

Ballysmate wrote:

Fenix wrote:

I didn't find the tone condescending in that piece.

Me neither.
Most of the article is from a French perspective highlighting the difference in approach to sport by our 2 countries

On that note, a bit of gloating over thrashing the French probably wouldn't go amiss

tangled_metal

Interesting that Brits call it gloating but I'm fairly sure other nations just call it celebrating in success. Do Brits have a problem celebrating success? Just curious as not sure either way.

veronese68

Stevo 666 wrote:

On that note, a bit of gloating over thrashing the French probably wouldn't go amiss

Well, it is traditional.

tangled_metal

Where were the French in the medal table anyway? I remember when we were close but I guess those days are gone. Our new.competitors are China and well just China. If Russia cleans up they might be close. USA is always just going to be too far ahead.

Is that gloating?

Bill B

morstar wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

What have the Chinese been saying? Oh, guess what, they've.been saying how it's been another very successful Olympics and they've come second in the medal table. How is that any different? Isn't it human nature to celebrate when your lot do very well indeed.

Agree completely we should celebrate the success. I tried to convey that in my first post that the Olympics and British success was hugely enjoyable.

However, the first couple of days coverage post olympics were not 'we came second' so much as 'we beat the Chinese'.
It's like the glass half full / half empty type thing. The same outcome but a very different connotation. The other thing I found interesting was before the swimmer won our first gold, the medals table wasn't on the front of the beeb olympic pages. As soon as we had a gold and we appeared near the top, it appeared.

Now this...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37168870

I simply find the tone very condescending.

I entered Ironman last year and joined a Facebook group during the months preceding the event. Great group as everybody shared their journey through training and prep. Within two weeks of the event being over, I left the group as all anybody went on about was how superior they were to everybody else who hasn't done an Ironman.

There's a subtle but significant difference in being proud of what you've achieved, which our athletes should be and having a superiority complex like our press have adopted.

You have personal sportsmanship issues and have projected them onto an entire countries media and an old Facebook group. First a great Facebook group than later a group of bad people btw?
What's the point here?
Competitive athletes and news agencies are not exceedingly chivalrous?
Who did not know that already?
I guess everyone that wins or reports a contest should just fall all over themselves praising the losers.
The lessons we learned when we were five years old don't always stick.

morstar

Bill B wrote:

morstar wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

What have the Chinese been saying? Oh, guess what, they've.been saying how it's been another very successful Olympics and they've come second in the medal table. How is that any different? Isn't it human nature to celebrate when your lot do very well indeed.

Agree completely we should celebrate the success. I tried to convey that in my first post that the Olympics and British success was hugely enjoyable.

However, the first couple of days coverage post olympics were not 'we came second' so much as 'we beat the Chinese'.
It's like the glass half full / half empty type thing. The same outcome but a very different connotation. The other thing I found interesting was before the swimmer won our first gold, the medals table wasn't on the front of the beeb olympic pages. As soon as we had a gold and we appeared near the top, it appeared.

Now this...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37168870

I simply find the tone very condescending.

I entered Ironman last year and joined a Facebook group during the months preceding the event. Great group as everybody shared their journey through training and prep. Within two weeks of the event being over, I left the group as all anybody went on about was how superior they were to everybody else who hasn't done an Ironman.

There's a subtle but significant difference in being proud of what you've achieved, which our athletes should be and having a superiority complex like our press have adopted.

You have personal sportsmanship issues and have projected them onto an entire countries media and an old Facebook group. First a great Facebook group than later a group of bad people btw?
What's the point here?
Competitive athletes and news agencies are not exceedingly chivalrous?
Who did not know that already?
I guess everyone that wins or reports a contest should just fall all over themselves praising the losers.
The lessons we learned when we were five years old don't always stick.

Evidently my views are not widely shared, I'll take that on the chin that maybe I'm reading too much into the rhetoric. Although 9 years as an ice hockey referee means I tend to be less partisan than most. To me, the tone feels like our press are looking down from on high and gleefully reporting the failures of other nations. Clearly most/many disagree. The French article is stating that we're better and the French are oh so disappointed. It goes without saying that losing sucks but that's for the losers to navel gaze about, not the winners to draw attention to. Another consideration is that maybe they get less medals for their Euros but maybe the money goes further at grass roots. I'll leave the argument I was trying to make at that.

However, you seem to be reading a bit too much into my post. Never said the fb posts made bad people, it was just tedious and a clear switch in content post event. If you successfully take part in any event that takes lots of effort to achieve, all power to you. If you then go around slagging off lots of other events and participants as being nowhere near as amazing as yourself...

It makes you an arse.