Olympic Games Paris 2024 - AH Thread [Thread banned posters listed in first post.]

Yes how dare an orgnisation provide sports for people all over the country.

This nonsense happens every 4 years if we win an Olympic medal, lets forget about GAA and throw everything at winning one more Olympic medal just so a few people who have vert little interest in sport in general can enjoy 2 weeks every 4 years.

It's the real small man syndrome of how we can only feel good about something in this country if it makes us look good in front of a bunch of foreigners.

Most GAA players play GAA because they like doing it, they aren't being forced into it or prevented from participating in Olympic sports.Sport is supposed to exist for fun and enjoyment not for proving how great we are as a country because we happen to win a few medals.

I believe Rhasidat flew straight back to the US after the Games ended. She does tend to do her own thing : she didn't return to Dublin either after the successful European Championships.

I was there and met most of the athletes backstage (kind of, I was talking to them through a fence).

Rhasidat has some competition come up so wasn't there. Paul O'Donovan wasn't there, I presume he's in Cork.

The rest of them are as lovely as you imagine.

Fintan McCarthy passed his medals through the fence to some young fellas to take selfies. They could've easily ran off with them.

The other 400m girls spent a few minutes chatting and talking selfies and are as beautiful in real life.

Rhys seems very sound. Daina is tiny. Kellie was really sound.

Daniel Wiffen was the only one who didn't come over but maybe he was sick.

The rower Phillip Doyle is a big unit but very lean.

I see Finland has failed to get a medal of any description in 2024 for the first time in their history.

This is what happens when a country doesn't put decent support behind the athletes.

You'll find nobody worse than me for wanting to win but you are a winner getting an Olympic gold medal. If you go through the battle to be the sole winner you aren't getting anything extra. All you are doing is potentially stopping somebody else from getting one. As it turned out he ended up not getting one and I'd imagine he was sick he didn't take the deal.

Strange that it wasn’t mentioned after the totally over the top coverage up to now. She’s probably right going straight back to the States and avoiding it all, especially everyone doing everything they can to avoid mentioning her African heritage as though it is something to be ashamed off.

Ffs.

No idea what point you're trying to make.

She flew back to America cos she has a competition coming up.

I have to disagree to some extent about the comments made about the GAA being a problem for athletics. New Zealand won atotal of 20 medals and is a superpower of Rugby Union and also is competirive in Cricket. The population is less than Ireland so the GAA argument needs to be re-visited. I think it is more a case that people may find many of the sports as non-interesting. I will usually watch the European and World athletics championships and the stadiums only srem.to be half full

In fairness to hurling it produced one hell of an advert for the sport during the all ireland final this year....it was an excellent game/spectacle...

A lot more than stick fighting...and very skillful...

And that's from someone who couldn't give much of a shite about GAA most of the time ....

How many sports does the local rugby or soccer pitch cater for ?

I love this auld shte that it's everyone pulling together harmoniously except for the GAA.

Imagine a world without GAA

There's no point complaining about GAA anyway as it's going to be around forever and is actually brilliant for Ireland, particular rural areas where there's literally nothing else.

The key is to expose kids to as many sports as possible and see what they enjoy and are talented in. GAA doesn't impede that. Loads of people in Kerry play multiple sports and that's possibly the most GAA obsessed county.

If you've been following the thread you have seen me say many times that I don't watch RTE unless there's an Irish person in a competition that's not covered elsewhere.

It was either BBC or Eurosport that I was watching, not sure which.

It also has to be asked why do we want extra olympic medals and why should we spend more money to get them? If we won twice as many Olympic medals why would that be so great and would the public really care.

If it's for the health of the population then sharing the extra money between all.sports organisation's would have the same impact.

No. In reality the Olympians inspire a tiny number of children compared to the likes of the GAA, soccer and rugby. It's once in 4 years wheres the GAA and other team sports are ialways on so it would be better to pump extra funding into that if the aim is to 'inspire'.

I think people want greater investment in sports in general. GAA and Rugby are already very well run so it's more about the other sports like soccer and all the Olympic sports.

This has enormous benefits for society.

The great thing about Olympic medals is that it inspires millions of people to take up sport or even just continue playing sport or to train harder, this in turn will bring more Olympic medals, so it's a virtuous cycle.

I can guarantee numbers in boxing gyms and athletics clubs will increase this year as a result of these Olympics.

So it's about building on the success.

I don't think we're in a terrible place now so we don't need to start from scratch.

I think most towns in Ireland have boxing, athletics, swim clubs etc..So although there's huge room for improvement, we still have something to build on.