Olympics 2024
Comments
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Shouldn’t they just sail as fast as possible?
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The funding is related to the likelihood of British medals.
Brits tend to do very well in sailing and so get the according funding.
Lots of divers credit Daley with his success to then further diving success because his medals guaranteed funding for the sport.
In general, Brits do well in sports that require lots of investment so that investment breeds investment etc.
The funding is nothing to do with the expensiveness or otherwise of the sport. It’s simple medal ROI.
The funding does not distinguish between the moral superiority or otherwise of sports.
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That's you describing how things are. I understand that (even if sailing didn't deliver).
I was giving an opinion on whether sailing is worth throwing money at. The Olympics medal table shouldn't be everything.
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My workings.
Most people in the world have, at some point, run 100m. Many have run a 5k. The competitors in athletics are most likely the fastest people in the world and there is a relatively low barrier to entry. A gold medal in the 100m is therefore pretty special - the fastest person on the planet.
I've never sailed. Very few people I know have sailed. The fact that Paris sailing was held in Marseille shows that it is not that accessible to the masses. Even if there is a lake in Paris where they can learn the basics, they need to go further afield to really compete. Furthermore, if accessibility is poor in the western world, it is even worse in poorer countries.
Therefore a gold in sailing is much less competitive and less impressive.
And from a spectator point of view, it is hard to follow.
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I think there's two arguments here:
i) As top level success is heavily dependent on funding, a "pathfinder" e.g. Tom Daley is extremely useful in establishing a programme in which talented youngsters can reach the top. Hopefully uncontentious.
ii) Does elite level success promote sustained greater participation at junior / grassroots level? Jury's out, I think. Based on my experience as a parent (which obviously includes talking to other parents) I seriously doubt there are many parents who actually target "going to the Olympics" at a young age. Parents generally send / take their kids to numerous clubs / activities when they're small, as part of promoting a healthy lifestyle (assuming there are places) and the kids stick at it for as long as they enjoy it. For the tiny number who have the talent to get to the top, having an elite structure on top of everything is great, but essentially irrelevant to the masses.
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Judging by the number of people we hear about practising in the channel, Team GB could be very good at boat related sports in the near future.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Respectfully, take it somewhere else.
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I don’t think there is much of a relationship between elite sport and participation.
It’s a bit of a red herring.
a really good example is elite football. Football is played all over the world - it’s really popular in the US, even. But the US rarely produces good elite players, despite very high participation.
The elite players disproportionately come from countries with excellent systems for elite play.
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That's a good way of looking at things. Whilst you need a strong junior / grass roots set up to feed an elite system, you have to have an elite system if you want to perform at the elite level. I guess the cynics here (myself included) are not convinced we need to perform at the elite level.
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I said pretty much the exact same thing about 5 pages ago.
I then questioned whether funding for elite "amateur" sport was nonetheless worthwhile in of itself. The cost is about £100M a year.
I am on the fence, but on balance I think it is, compared for example to arts funding.
That's not to say the metric is correct, and couldn't be weighted more towards participation and away from sports like tennis and football which doesn't need it at all.
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Why isn't there an intelligence Olympics? Chess, programming, maths, language skills, problem solving, design, knowledge, point scoring...
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That's a good idea Focuszing, it would be cheap too.
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Mmm, quite a lot of people in the world live near the coast so the accessibility argument is a bit crap. Accessibility and participation levels probably are better than many other sports. Such as white water events, any alpine event, rowing, road cycling (in a global context), equestrian sports or shooting.
It's just unfortunate for sailing as a sport that boaties are universally hated offensively dressed loud people, who you have to shout to be heard over whenever you go to a pub close to a harbour. Gives the sport a bad name.
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It doesn't transfer well to TV viewing though (see my previous comments for support of it against the cliches though).
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I think sailing footage needs heavily editing, but the olympic format kills it for me, because it seems to last for days and the winner always seems to cross the line in the middle of the pack.
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Non-elite funding is provided through the national bodies rather than UK sport and they will allocate it dependent on other factors with a focus on participation e.g. https://www.sportengland.org/funding-and-campaigns/our-funding
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And their boat rarely ever leaves harbour (other than the occasional trip using the motor to do some posing off a beach). It's the sole purpose that Salcombe exists sadly.
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Fun fact about Salcombe. Population in summer, 25,000. Population in winter, 1800.
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I'll narrow it down further then if it helps. Elite funding shouldn't be purely dependent on likely numbers of olympic medals.
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I disagree, I think they don’t take the time to explain what you’re seeing on bbc coverage.
yours is a bit like wondering what’s interesting about the men’s road race with old boring boardman talking about kit and not the tactical intricacies of one day racing with tiny teams. It’s only cos you know road cycling
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Respectfully, lighten up...
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Nah, it's a spatial thing - it's really hard to judge who is where in the water with the boat that seems to be furthest forward not always actually leading. It also doesn't help that it is quite often a very pedestrian pace with the effort of the crew being disproportionate to how fast they are moving. By comparison the America's Cup races are a far better spectacle.
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It's interesting hearing / reading how pundits factor in the different "ease" with which medals can be won when assessing who is GB's "Greatest Olympian".
Much as I'm a big fan of the rowers and cyclists bagging lots of metalwork, it's hard to look past Mo Farah and his double double in the distance events on the track. Past the sprints (where a lot of technical coaching is required) the track events are the most "accessible" Olympic events and the range and depth of competition is the greatest. To do the double twice is simply mid-boggling.
Kelly Holmes doesn't really get the credit she deserves either. The range of nationalities she beat to do her 800/1500 double in Athens is impressive indeed, whereas in track cycling, generally if you beat the Aussies, Dutch, French and Kiwis, you're pretty much there.
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If a sport needs TV animation to be able to follow, suggests it's not a great TV sport.
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Imagine watching a tour with no graphics
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono1 -
The TV graphics used at the Olympics for showing where the boats are was like watching the race on VAR. It's not comparable with having a few numbers at the top left of the screen.
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If you can be bothered to address such a stupid post as Pangolins, this would be the way to do it.
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I've watched the UK Nationals - I don't need to imagine!
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For all the discussion around what should be funded/included/celebrated and so on, isn't the point that we all watch elite sports to watch extremely talented people do the extraordinary, things that we could never hope to achieve ourselves, but we take enjoyment from the fact that someone can? It is all about a desire to see what human beings are capable of, and the emotion and joy that goes with it.
The fact we are all discussing it shows that we each have some level of interest and emotional investment in it, otherwise we wouldn't be bothered. You could argue that any field, be it sport, arts, science etc. has a core philosophical question as to why people spend years pushing at boundaries; improving world records, discovering new scientific breakthroughs, creating new art forms. It is all about discovering and re-discovering the limits of humanity. If we didn't bother with any of these things or invest in them, life would be pretty dull.
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