Olympics 2024

I know it's not a perfect analogy, but it'll do for the question of whether the morality of what I would call an inhumane sport changes because of societal outcomes. I'd argue that other sports that don't involve brain damage could provide equally positive outcomes as boxing without the inherent risk. It's just that boxing has occupied that space. It could equally be some sort of martial art, if some sort of outlet for physical domination is deemed a good motivator, (though that might be a rather condescending way of looking at what motivates boys from tough neighbourhoods & families).

This is a funny, if logical, debate. Nobody partakes in these sports thinking they won't get hurt.

In some cases it is part of the thrill. Make it safe and kill it. Some will say "good", but the participants?

The harmful effects of smoking were known for years, and cigarettes had big health warnings printed on them, but I think we'd probably agree that banning children from smoking was a good move, as people, especially children, can't perceive of these terrible things happening to themselves.

If I wanted to extend the smoking analogy to brain damage, which can be cumulative in a similar way, it wouldn't be too difficult. Having said that, cigarettes can't inflict traumatic damage from a single incident, unless you stick the burning end in your eye by accident.

I think the argument re the riskiness of sport is best considered at a "cohort level". i.e. if you take x sporty types (where x is a large number) and monitor their health over time and do the same for x couch potatoes then overall, the sporty types enjoy better health collectively and are thus less of a burden to the health service. (Though they may live longer and therefore be more of a burden to the pension system.)

Thankfully, really serious injuries (life-changing rather than just forcing a change from contact or non-contact activity etc.) are very rare, and not that expensive in the grand scheme of things (and often covered by insurance anyway). The "Weekend Warrior" ranks are full of middle aged folk who've b*ggered various parts of their body in other sports (e.g. ruptured disc for me from rowing) but who can still cycle without too much bother (albeit without much speed either in my case!)

Head injuries in rugby may be a "game changer" in this assessment as they seem to be alarmingly prevalent.

Boxing (and similar) is a bit of an exception given that it is part of the game to damage your opponent physically, whereas in other sports, physical damage is a side-effect.

Of no relevance, but in the interests of blatant celebrity name-dropping, we were on hols in Yosemite a few years ago, and whilst waiting for one of the early morning shuttle buses, I was standing next to a wiry, tanned guy weighted down by ropes and other climbing hardware. He was minding his own business, so we didn't engage in small talk. ("What have you got planned today?" "Climbing" felt a little un-necessary anyway.) Shortly after we arrived, a large group of excited people - mainly kids - arrived at pace, and immediately started asking "Alex" for his autograph / selfies.

We had no idea who he was, but concluded he must be reasonably well known given the excitement his mere presence generated, so when back online later in the day, I googled "Alex climbing yosemite" and found out I'd been standing next to a climbing legend. (He wasn't quite so high profile back then, but was still a Big Deal.) Hopefully he was impressed by how cool we'd played it, though I doubt he remembers the incident as clearly as we do!

Anyone else looking forward to the Paralympics in 2 weeks time? We went to both the main Olympics and Paralympics in London back in 2012 and if anything the Paras were an even better experience.

Yeah, sure. Personally, I felt quite uncomfortable cycling/walking (different occasions) across the Severn bridge.

To be fair, no-one really remembers the rowing gold medallists, bar Steve Redgrave and his crewmates, let alone silver medallists! In fact there are numerous double and triple gold medallist rowers who could walk unrecognised round any supermarket in the country.

But joking aside, the OGs is a great ego trip for the politicians and undoubtedly great for the competitors who are successful, but the "bang for your buck" for society as a whole doesn't feel particularly high. And of course, the unsuccessful competitors have a lot with which to come to terms.

I think it's a great idea to give people a goal and something to aspire to. Sometimes with the main Olympics all the ego BS gets a bit OTT. Seeing people thrilled to be there and just compete.

I agree with your last point that the Paras would be better as a 'warm up' to the main event.

I'm looking at from point of view of a live spectator. When we went the atmosphere at the Paras was fantastic, the support for the athletes was top notch (level of noise and stuff like the hand clap in the build up to the long jump etc) and the crowd less bothered about which country the athletes are from.

There are many vested interests in keeping up appearances that the Olympics are an unallayed "Good Thing" be broadcasters (lots of nice freebies to the Games) or Directors of Performance (job security).

The amount of Lottery dosh directed to produce a handful of swimming medallists is mind-boggling, however good it was to see the GB lads dish it out to the Yanks and the Aussies in the 4*2 relay. The same cash could do so much more to provide more opportunities for kids to learn to swim and compete, simply by being directed towards accredited learn to swim programmes and pools that are shutting down due to financial issues.

Meh, compared to COVID costings blighty around £400,000,000,000 it's money down the back of the sofa.

Nope, looks like they are all getting married! Chances are she might not get selected in future as she apparently lied about her injury to team staff the day before. I can understand it as you may never get another chance but it won't have been well received.

I don't think anyone else had run the qualifying time (may be wrong on that) and it would probably have been too late to get anyone out. I suspect it was more a duty of care thing for UKA if she was aware of having and injury but either not notifying them or actually lying when asked. As far as I'm aware the finishing times don't have any impact, you can send up to 3 athletes if they have hit the qualifying requirements within the relevant period.

Sure, but the other comparitor is how excited everyone gets at £30m donations from Children in Need.

Either way, I wanted to debunk the "lasting legacy" stuff.