Olympic 2020(1) Thread

And they finish with a decent bronze in the Men's eight. A good performance there.

 

Thanks for posting this.
Very interesting and I love Shropshire.
I must have missed this history from the 2012 London Olympics and couldn’t have given the name of the mascot even if a podium place and £10! was at stake in a pub quiz.

 

Should be more funding for easily accessible urban sports available to more of our youth to get them more involved in sport.
Skateboarding, cycling (non velodrome), trampolining to name but 3.

If it means cutting back on the £millions poured into rowing which has been a disaster these Olympics, so be it.

We need some winner heroes for the youth to look to in these type of sports.
For example we don’t have any men in the trampoline team yet there are trampoline parks everywhere.

 

And bingo, after posting above, Bethany Shriever wins the BMX Gold beating the double gold champion. A new heroine inspiration.

And Kye Whyte from Peckham wins Silver in BMX. A new hero inspiration.

Brilliant.

 

Agree.

 

Every single one of the Fijian women's rugby seven looks like a bloke.

 

The GB women's rugby 7s beat USA nicely to go into the semi finals.

The GB women's football team are leading 2-1 with 13 mins to go v Australia.

 

Atrocious defending means they're not any more. 2-2.

 

I once had a slash next to Henry Kelly in a pub in Hampstead. I can confirm that he was, indeed, 'going for gold'.

 

Mistake after mistake in this game and they're now out, (as good as).

 

It'll probably take a generation to work Phil Neville's coaching out of their game.

 

Piss poor from the woman there, whenever I see them take a penalty they seem to miss.

 

I know nothing about BMX racing but now I do know women’s BMX had funding cut and Bethany Shriever had to take a part time job and resort to crowd funding to compete at Tokyo. This despite her being a junior world champion.

Her Gold Medal at age 22 in her first Olympics will no doubt inspire many girls to take up BMX cycling, great for fitness and all its other benefits - friends, discipline, possible travel, it opens up all sorts of opportunities..

British Rowing meanwhile received £22.2m in funding for their miserable one silver and one bronze.

What a contrast.

 

I'd be very interested in seeing a breakdown of how much every Olympic sport receives in funding.

 

Obviously funding should now be given to BMX too. But there are only two races. It isn't an argument to de-fund rowing, which generally brings us loads of medals, simply on the strength of one bad year.

 

Sure. But how much funding per event/race would be even more informative.

 

Here we go:

https://www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/current-funding-figures

Some shocking figures in there.

 

This covers it at a high-ish level:

https://www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/current-funding-figures

EDIT: Ah, beat me to it.

 

Looking at the detail it appears the funding for Rowing is/has been cut since Rio?

https://www.uksport.gov.uk/sports/olympic/rowing

 

Surely the formula should be one to allow every potential olympic athlete, whatever the sport, to train full time, with the right equipment, with the right coaching and support staff and with day-to-day living expenses covered. That won't exactly work out the same for every athlete (some sports and their equipment are more 'expensive' than others), but it would be a good start.

Cycling already gets £24m. Why can't BMX get a bit of that to avoid living in caravans (not BMX that one admittedly) part time jobs and crowd-funding?

 

But surely it will now medals have been won?

I thought the funding connected directly to performance.

 

It's because it's a finite pot. The government funds UK Sport I believe, with a far small contribution from National Lottery cash. I can't imagine it stretches to funding every potential athlete full time.

 

How much would it cost? Our current Olympic team is a little under 400 strong. To fund 600 potential athletes at £100k per annum each over four years would cost £240m. Not far off what is already being provided according to your table.

That is simply a piece of mental arithmetic on my part. I've no idea really whether turning 600 potentials into 400 actuals would be realistic or whether £100k each p.a. would be enough.

 

I'm really not a fan of this new mixed relay nonsense. And neither are Michael Johnston or Denise Lewis I note.

In one heat all the teams opted for a m/f/f/m sequence (which is the preferred option as I understand it). Except Nigeria who went for m/f/m/f. This meant that the Nigerian bloke charged way ahead on the third leg giving his female team mate a 20m start on the final leg. She was then hunted down remorselessly by all the other seven blokes in the final leg and finished last. Frankly it looked embarrassing for her through absolutely no fault of her own.

For thousands of years we've known that men can run way faster than women. So why feel the need to show that in such a stark way? And exhibit that gender isn't just a social structure at all under a glaring spotlight.

I enjoy watching female athletics just as much as male when each are running only against their gender peers. So this is yet another example of 'wokeness gone daft' i.m.h.o.

 

I had literally never heard anything about this. I didn't know it existed. I'm astonished.

 

Mrs Keighley can both run and walk faster than me.

MInd you, I do weigh 47 stones.

 

Maybe she could transport you in the new wheelbarrow race then?

 

Of course the new mixed relay thing might work if all the teams were required to opt for the m/f/f/m sequence. It only looked ridiculous and unedifying in that last lap. Like a symbolic gang-rape.

But still contrived I think. There are plenty of ways to pursue equality without highlighting an obvious inequality.