Olympics daily thread

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Have to say that was a lot more interesting than a regular soccer shoot-out, so many different strategies as to how to score in 8 seconds. Maybe they could think about doing something similar in soccer, giving a guy say 10-15 seconds to score with a defender and a goalie to beat? I like it anyway.

they used to do something similar in MLS back in the day:

Strazdas wrote: »

We should be looking at what they're doing and see if we can emulate any of it. It's clear though that their government are pumping hundreds of millions of pounds into sport.

But the public also really embrace a variety of sports. They are hosting the World athletics Champs in London next year in August and tickets are already on sale. They will fill the stadium the same way they filled venues in 2012.

Strazdas wrote: »

We should be looking at what they're doing and see if we can emulate any of it. It's clear though that their government are pumping hundreds of millions of pounds into sport.

They have a massive pool to choose from, as well as a deep and rich history in so many events and sports. They also have that innate instinct to be the best and to dominate. Part of what makes them British. They really set high standards.

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Their track and field performance is poor though, only 4 medals.

Yes, indeed.....they've targeted a lot of minority sports and pumped tens of millions of pounds into each of them but athletics is proving to be very elusive.

ahlookit wrote: »

I vaguely remember superstars...mainly the great theme music:D

For those too young, here's a taste from second captains.

THere was also a UK version which featured top footballers of the time. Million pound players fecking around on bikes. How did they get away with it???

Some commentary from BRendan O Reilly featured in that clip too

I didn't remember the music. My main memory is of the guy with the beard - could have been Declan Burns was his name, rings a bell anyway - who was a monster for the pull ups. That was the one that sorted the men from the boys.

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Agree.

I'm actually very confident for future.

We had top tens in 400 metre sprint, Rowing, sailing, Pentathlon, Diving, Walking(not including 2 medals). We had Hockey team showing they deserved to be there.

In sure I'm forgetting some. Plus Conlon was robbed of medal.

Yep, quite a lot to build on. The fact is we'll never have as much funding as we want here, or enough facilities to go around for everybody, but I think we can do a fair job of making the best out of what we have. I'd give anything to be a young elite athlete now, able to live for cheap rent in a house in Abbottstown with top class coaching/physio/facilities at my doorstep. Twenty years ago there was pretty much nothing.

mansize wrote: »

http://www.medalspercapita.com/#medals-per-capita:2016

The best way to view the medals table afaiac.

NZ doing v well.

There are all sorts of ways you can look at it. Everybody saying UK are doing great but the figure I saw for their investment was £275m and it's being worked out that each medal cost them £5.5m and some are asking the obvious question: is it worth it?

No doubt NZ have done well, their target was a record 14 medals and they're going to surpass that. And they qualified 220 athletes too which is some going. But their investment was over 80m euro. I'm not sure what the comparable Irish figure is, but it's way lower than that.

And increasing funding is all very well, but think of the pressure it brings. They've already started the post mortems in Australia because they "only" won 27 medals having splurged over 220m euro on their team. They basically copied the UK model of throwing large wads of cash at it but it has backfired fairly spectacularly on them.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

They've already started the post mortems in Australia because they "only" won 27 medals having splurged over 220m euro on their team. They basically copied the UK model of throwing large wads of cash at it but it has backfired fairly spectacularly on them.

Oz didnt spend enough!

British track team got 30m from UK sport, also had a tie in with Sky, so who knows how much they spent in last 4 years?

Love the use of the word "just" in the quote below:eek:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/16/british-cycling-head-coach-hits-back-rivals

The British Olympic cycling team are thought to be the best funded squad at the Olympics, receiving £30.2m from UK Sport. The bulk of that money is spent on the track, where the variables can be controlled and where most of the medals are on offer. They also partially benefit from membership subscriptions paid by British Cycling’s 123,500 lay members, costing between £21 and £72 a year.

In comparison, the Australian Institute of Sport awarded its cyclists just AUD$34.1m (£18.6m) for the current four-year Olympic cycle.

Ivory Coast and Tajikistan got their first ever golds today, to go with Bahrain, Vietnam, Kosovo, Fiji, Jordan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the IOA team so far this Olympics

walshb wrote: »

If folks analyse and break it down and take their ridiculous OTT 'everyone's a cheat' hat off then yes, kind if unwarranted.

I guess people, including the likes of Sonia O'Sullivan and David Gillick, would be of the opinion that when your coach is caught with a suitcase full of drugs, we have entered the realm of warranted suspicion. But she could "only" finish 3rd last night so everything's ok now.