Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
That last is a crucial point. The Graun has been running stdories on that theme
EU countries win all three medals in men’s handball. In Dickson’s brave new world would that be the EU A, B, and C teams or can we just have done with this nonsense of aggregating medals amongst groups of countries?
Yet you are happy to do it for GB, more faces than the town clock.
Hold on. There's been a new development. It is Scotland leading the way.
The Scots have indeed done incredibly well. Its something to be genuinely vicariously proud of, even as we sit on our sofas and do nothing but watch.
You could at least buy a lottery ticket on your way to court tomorrow – that should pay for one of the ice cubes they stick on the boxers' necks between rounds. But yes, Scots, Brits, the boys (and girls) done good.
So Starmer is ready to abandon the Scottish oil industry, Sturgeon is moving towards doing so too and only Boris is ready to give the oil field the go ahead
Vote Blue, Go Green may be laudable but as Cameron discovered in 2010 it doesn't deliver a Tory majority.
The RedWall and indeed much of Scotland like Aberdeen and Shetland is much keener on coal and oil, so a balance has to be struck
So alright to destroy the planet as long as we get a Tory majority?
You can still transition gradually to renewables and nuclear without abandoning those who work in the oil industry
You don't have to exactly abandon them, although that is a bit rich coming from the party who closed pits (not saying it was wrong, but it wasn't exactly done smoothly or compassionately).
But this transitioning gradually? You mean like we have been doing, with every country making excuses for why something doesn't apply to them while the planet boils.
Nero and Rome spring to mind.
43% of UK energy already comes from renewables compared to 38% from fossil fuels, well above the global average of 28% of energy from renewables
The tories are somewhere between stages 3 and 4 on the Climate Change Denial process.
There's no climate change
There's climate change but humans aren't causing it.
There's climate change, humans are causing it but we can fix it with 𝙏𝙀𝘾𝙃𝙉𝙊𝙇𝙊𝙂𝙔
We're all fucked.
So Starmer is ready to abandon the Scottish oil industry, Sturgeon is moving towards doing so too and only Boris is ready to give the oil field the go ahead
Its not just the Scottish oil industry. Grangemouth is going to run out of feedstock for its production unless new sources are developed. We have a significant number of jobs downstream from the oil production itself and they are at risk.
Do you think we can just go on using oil forever?
We cannot just stop producing oil and it will need a long period of adjustment
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
I agree with that BigG... but 'not commissioning a new oilfield' is not the same as 'stopping all oil production now'.
The production will take place in the middle east instead while 1,000 plus Scots jobs are lost
Also Sturgeon is hiding in a closet to 'frit' to respond as it may upset her deal with the greens, and anyway it is only 1,000 plus Scottish jobs
The thing is BigG, if all nations take the same stance that you are suggesting we take, the world will end up extracting and burning every last ounce of oil and you grandchildren, great-grandchildren and their children will face a climiate catastrophe.
Some nation or nations need to take the lead on this...
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
That last is a crucial point. The Graun has been running stdories on that theme
Hate to break it to you Malc, but they really aren't. You, TUD and Stuart have gone galumphing past them.
I'm puzzled as to why, but the three of you - and not all nationalist posters suffer from it - seem to be becoming more strident and hysterical in recent weeks. TUD always had an edge, and got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made or accused people of being drunks. Stuart, of course, always accused everyone of not knowing Scotland, as befits our poster from Sweden. And you of course always insulted everyone with invention and flair.
But just recently, TUD has entirely given up engaging with facts or providing reasoned arguments, Stuart has started to resemble the Russian bots who got the boot and you've started condoning racism against posters you don't like.
Which seems - well, odd.
I was wondering why. Is it frustration that the SNP are incapable of given you what you want? Embarrassment at the way Salmond and Sturgeon have been knocking lumps out of each other (not very successfully in Salmond's case)? Or just a desire to make the English hate you so much that they will kick Scotland out of the union just to shut you all up?
It's especially odd as it doesn't seem to have affected Carnyx or Alistair, who are still people you can have a perfectly reasonable conversation with.
Can you point me to the occasion or occasions when I got defensive about people being accused of being drunks? I'd hate to think that you'd gone off on one of your pompous pronouncements based on a misapprehension (not for the first time).
That's the implication of your 'Scotch expert' tag.
It may not be deliberate, of course.
Edit - btw, there should be a comma there. 'got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made, or accused people of being drunks.'
I blame autocorrect...
Lol, one your weakest comebacks, and you've had some pretty anemic ones.
I note, as usual, you are unable to engage with the actual substance.
When you're able to, people will take you seriously.
Until then, you're just a Scottish version of Dominic Cummings.
I don't know why you've gone so far downhill, and it's a bit sad to watch actually. But you have.
'and got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made or accused people of being drunks.'
'Can you point me to the occasion or occasions when I got defensive about people being accused of being drunks?'
'That's the implication of your 'Scotch expert' tag.'
What's that about substance?
For the avoidance of doubt, being taken seriously on here is not high on my agenda. The prevalence of pompous twerps who take themselves very seriously indeed is an eternal admonition on that front.
Well, that is the substance of it. You accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being a 'Scotch expert,' i.e. a drunk.
Now that may not be what you intend, but it's what you say. And while it started out being mildly amusing, it's becoming more and more aggressive, as you are becoming.
So, is there a reason for it? I was just wondering. If you can't explain your own changing behaviour, that's fair enough, you don't have to. Just don't be surprised if you come in for criticism over it.
Ultimately we all know the reason. Independence is dead, they all know it too. 2014 was their chance and they bottled it. A rerun will see Scotland cling to the union again. Their bitterness comes from this.
I'm not sure I agree with your last sentence, although at the moment I've no insight into who would win a referendum. Certainly it would be close. Scotland looks to be a bitterly divided country, emphasis on the 'bitterly' as we're seeing on here.
I wonder though whether it might simply be that it's not going to be possible to run a similar Leave campaign to last time? The Brexit campaign and its aftermath has effectively demolished all the claims that were made for it. Is anyone going to buy the currency union, customs union, shared sovereignty, no costs line after Brexit? Hard to believe.
It will be funny to see the Tories campaigning that Brexit has imposed costs and complexity on the economy.
I think that the Nats will win the next Sindyref. Scottish politics is logjammed until independence happens.
Hate to break it to you Malc, but they really aren't. You, TUD and Stuart have gone galumphing past them.
I'm puzzled as to why, but the three of you - and not all nationalist posters suffer from it - seem to be becoming more strident and hysterical in recent weeks. TUD always had an edge, and got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made or accused people of being drunks. Stuart, of course, always accused everyone of not knowing Scotland, as befits our poster from Sweden. And you of course always insulted everyone with invention and flair.
But just recently, TUD has entirely given up engaging with facts or providing reasoned arguments, Stuart has started to resemble the Russian bots who got the boot and you've started condoning racism against posters you don't like.
Which seems - well, odd.
I was wondering why. Is it frustration that the SNP are incapable of given you what you want? Embarrassment at the way Salmond and Sturgeon have been knocking lumps out of each other (not very successfully in Salmond's case)? Or just a desire to make the English hate you so much that they will kick Scotland out of the union just to shut you all up?
It's especially odd as it doesn't seem to have affected Carnyx or Alistair, who are still people you can have a perfectly reasonable conversation with.
Can you point me to the occasion or occasions when I got defensive about people being accused of being drunks? I'd hate to think that you'd gone off on one of your pompous pronouncements based on a misapprehension (not for the first time).
That's the implication of your 'Scotch expert' tag.
It may not be deliberate, of course.
Edit - btw, there should be a comma there. 'got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made, or accused people of being drunks.'
I blame autocorrect...
Lol, one your weakest comebacks, and you've had some pretty anemic ones.
I note, as usual, you are unable to engage with the actual substance.
When you're able to, people will take you seriously.
Until then, you're just a Scottish version of Dominic Cummings.
I don't know why you've gone so far downhill, and it's a bit sad to watch actually. But you have.
'and got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made or accused people of being drunks.'
'Can you point me to the occasion or occasions when I got defensive about people being accused of being drunks?'
'That's the implication of your 'Scotch expert' tag.'
What's that about substance?
For the avoidance of doubt, being taken seriously on here is not high on my agenda. The prevalence of pompous twerps who take themselves very seriously indeed is an eternal admonition on that front.
Well, that is the substance of it. You accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being a 'Scotch expert,' i.e. a drunk.
Now that may not be what you intend, but it's what you say. And while it started out being mildly amusing, it's becoming more and more aggressive, as you are becoming.
So, is there a reason for it? I was just wondering. If you can't explain your own changing behaviour, that's fair enough, you don't have to. Just don't be surprised if you come in for criticism over it.
Ultimately we all know the reason. Independence is dead, they all know it too. 2014 was their chance and they bottled it. A rerun will see Scotland cling to the union again. Their bitterness comes from this.
I'm not sure I agree with your last sentence, although at the moment I've no insight into who would win a referendum. Certainly it would be close. Scotland looks to be a bitterly divided country, emphasis on the 'bitterly' as we're seeing on here.
I wonder though whether it might simply be that it's not going to be possible to run a similar Leave campaign to last time? The Brexit campaign and its aftermath has effectively demolished all the claims that were made for it. Is anyone going to buy the currency union, customs union, shared sovereignty, no costs line after Brexit? Hard to believe.
It will be funny to see the Tories campaigning that Brexit has imposed costs and complexity on the economy.
I think that the Nats will win the next Sindyref. Scottish politics is logjammed until independence happens.
I admire your implicit optimism that independence would unlock the logjam. That's not been quite the feel I get with Brexit...
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
There is surfing for fun and then there is elite surfing...you need the weather, the right type of waves, the mass participation. That's why its sport dominated by the likes of USA, South America, South Africa, Australia, and some Japanese.
You don't get the really big rollers in Cornwall year round like they do in the places I mentioned.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Hate to break it to you Malc, but they really aren't. You, TUD and Stuart have gone galumphing past them.
I'm puzzled as to why, but the three of you - and not all nationalist posters suffer from it - seem to be becoming more strident and hysterical in recent weeks. TUD always had an edge, and got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made or accused people of being drunks. Stuart, of course, always accused everyone of not knowing Scotland, as befits our poster from Sweden. And you of course always insulted everyone with invention and flair.
But just recently, TUD has entirely given up engaging with facts or providing reasoned arguments, Stuart has started to resemble the Russian bots who got the boot and you've started condoning racism against posters you don't like.
Which seems - well, odd.
I was wondering why. Is it frustration that the SNP are incapable of given you what you want? Embarrassment at the way Salmond and Sturgeon have been knocking lumps out of each other (not very successfully in Salmond's case)? Or just a desire to make the English hate you so much that they will kick Scotland out of the union just to shut you all up?
It's especially odd as it doesn't seem to have affected Carnyx or Alistair, who are still people you can have a perfectly reasonable conversation with.
Can you point me to the occasion or occasions when I got defensive about people being accused of being drunks? I'd hate to think that you'd gone off on one of your pompous pronouncements based on a misapprehension (not for the first time).
That's the implication of your 'Scotch expert' tag.
It may not be deliberate, of course.
Edit - btw, there should be a comma there. 'got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made, or accused people of being drunks.'
I blame autocorrect...
Lol, one your weakest comebacks, and you've had some pretty anemic ones.
I note, as usual, you are unable to engage with the actual substance.
When you're able to, people will take you seriously.
Until then, you're just a Scottish version of Dominic Cummings.
I don't know why you've gone so far downhill, and it's a bit sad to watch actually. But you have.
'and got very defensive when anyone pointed out 'mistakes' the SNP had made or accused people of being drunks.'
'Can you point me to the occasion or occasions when I got defensive about people being accused of being drunks?'
'That's the implication of your 'Scotch expert' tag.'
What's that about substance?
For the avoidance of doubt, being taken seriously on here is not high on my agenda. The prevalence of pompous twerps who take themselves very seriously indeed is an eternal admonition on that front.
Well, that is the substance of it. You accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being a 'Scotch expert,' i.e. a drunk.
Now that may not be what you intend, but it's what you say. And while it started out being mildly amusing, it's becoming more and more aggressive, as you are becoming.
So, is there a reason for it? I was just wondering. If you can't explain your own changing behaviour, that's fair enough, you don't have to. Just don't be surprised if you come in for criticism over it.
I've never interpreted Scotch expert as meaning drunk, I think it's just a joke about the solecism of not saying Scottish.
There was a poster IIRC on this site who would deliberately use it to try and wind us Scots up - I think he was a Unionist Irishman. But he got turfed off eventually, for a particularly unfortunate crack.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
That last is a crucial point. The Graun has been running stdories on that theme
School playing fields are still being sold off as well. Part of the problem there is girly swots like Michael Gove who ace their exams and end up running the country's education system.
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
EU countries win all three medals in men’s handball. In Dickson’s brave new world would that be the EU A, B, and C teams or can we just have done with this nonsense of aggregating medals amongst groups of countries?
Yet you are happy to do it for GB, more faces than the town clock.
Hold on. There's been a new development. It is Scotland leading the way.
The Scots have indeed done incredibly well. Its something to be genuinely vicariously proud of, even as we sit on our sofas and do nothing but watch.
You could at least buy a lottery ticket on your way to court tomorrow – that should pay for one of the ice cubes they stick on the boxers' necks between rounds. But yes, Scots, Brits, the boys (and girls) done good.
My wife invests in the lottery every week. We call it pension planning.
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
That last is a crucial point. The Graun has been running stdories on that theme
School playing fields are still being sold off as well. Part of the problem there is girly swots like Michael Gove who ace their exams and end up running the country's education system.
Wasn't it under Margaret Thatcher that school playing fields started to be sold off?
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
China. Marvelous place. Hosts the Winter Olympics in six months time. No calls for boycotts.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
But you won't see it, as they won't qualify. Team GB is not going to qualify for basketball,.volleyball, handball, baseball, softball etc.
The Olympics is now so competitive, you have to be elite to even qualify (or get a special invite fron IOC) e.g. there were a whole load of athletics events Team GB didn't even qualify to get to the Olympics, let alone get out of the heats.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
That last is a crucial point. The Graun has been running stdories on that theme
School playing fields are still being sold off as well. Part of the problem there is girly swots like Michael Gove who ace their exams and end up running the country's education system.
Wasn't it under Margaret Thatcher that school playing fields started to be sold off?
Locally, there's crowdfunding for a skate park.
Another factor might be, what school do the decision-makers' children attend?
Wow, it's a bit hot on here atm, so I'll just try to change the subject.
I couldn't believe the rudeness I received on joining. Not a word of gracious or gentlemanly welcome (since almost everyone seems to be a white man of a certain age).
I hope I will stick around but if I do it will be with great caution. There's far too much anger and argument online at the moment.
I hope you stick around too. There are unfortunately some posters who can be rather obnoxious at times - we've all been on the receiving end at one time or another.
There is, though, a wide range of topics debated and the chance to engage with the other point of view, often skillfully and convincingly argued.
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
So Starmer is ready to abandon the Scottish oil industry, Sturgeon is moving towards doing so too and only Boris is ready to give the oil field the go ahead
Vote Blue, Go Green may be laudable but as Cameron discovered in 2010 it doesn't deliver a Tory majority.
The RedWall and indeed much of Scotland like Aberdeen and Shetland is much keener on coal and oil, so a balance has to be struck
So alright to destroy the planet as long as we get a Tory majority?
You can still transition gradually to renewables and nuclear without abandoning those who work in the oil industry
You don't have to exactly abandon them, although that is a bit rich coming from the party who closed pits (not saying it was wrong, but it wasn't exactly done smoothly or compassionately).
But this transitioning gradually? You mean like we have been doing, with every country making excuses for why something doesn't apply to them while the planet boils.
Nero and Rome spring to mind.
43% of UK energy already comes from renewables compared to 38% from fossil fuels, well above the global average of 28% of energy from renewables
There you go again. We are doing ok so that is ok then. It isn't.
I don't know what the answer is HYUFD, but complacency it is not.
There does seem to be a strong overlap between the following two groups:
1. Those who think the Cambo oilfield should go ahead because it won't make much difference to the environment as we'd have to import the oil anyway. So Starmer is wrong to oppose it. 2. Those who think Thatcher was quite right to close the coal mines, although we ended up importing coal anyway.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
There is surfing for fun and then there is elite surfing...you need the weather, the right type of waves, the mass participation. That's why its sport dominated by the likes of USA, South America, South Africa, Australia, and some Japanese.
You don't get the really big rollers in Cornwall year round like they do in the places I mentioned.
Yes, the surfing competition for Paris will take place in Tahiti, not the French Riviera for this reason.
Wow, it's a bit hot on here atm, so I'll just try to change the subject.
I couldn't believe the rudeness I received on joining. Not a word of gracious or gentlemanly welcome (since almost everyone seems to be a white man of a certain age).
I hope I will stick around but if I do it will be with great caution. There's far too much anger and argument online at the moment.
Sorry to read that. Most new posters get a word or two of welcome at first. Don't know why it didn't happen with you, although sometimes the posts come thick and fast and an individual comment gets lost a page or so back. And we're by no means all middle-aged and white. I, for example, am old and pinkish round the edges!
But you're right; it is a bit warm today, metaphorically.
Morning ladies, gents, bots and whatever you prefer [edit]. I come in from a morning thinning out the bookcases for the charity shops and here we are. Anyway, dipping a toe in to see if it is safe to come in after the bizarre discussion yesterday which at one point posited assistance with prescription charges as a necessarily alternative option to obtaining OLympic medals (which I thought was funded from the Lottery anyway?) - and which, on the PBTories' own arguments, was an excellent and logical reason for joining the EU and merging into a single state.
To help JJ change the topic: here's a nice story for @RochdalePioneers to enjoy (a Glaswegian accent is crucial to the story):
That's a great story. Back in the eighties, my parents nearly bought a derelict house in South Derbyshire, located in a place called, of all things, 'Boggy Bottom'. It's not marked on the map as such; it's what local villagers refer to it as. I think the name alone caused my mum to not want to buy it ...
Anyway, they ended up building a house in a nearby village instead. But the people who did buy it had a pleasant surprise. It had been owned by an elderly man wo had let it go to wrack and ruin. It turned out his life savings - thousands of pounds - were stuffed into the chimney. One version of the story had the new owners trying to light a fire (*), and wondering why the chimney was blocked.
I can imagine the legalities and tax situation of that find might have been somewhat complex.
(*) Never a good idea in an old house that has been unoccupied for a long time.
Very true although my wife volunteers at an inner-city riding school down in Brixton so you do have them!
Good for her!
And yes by all means let's spread the access to sports facilities as widely as possible. It does cost money of course! The Lottery has been a good source but more money, probably means more taxes (which I support btw).
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
China. Marvelous place. Hosts the Winter Olympics in six months time. No calls for boycotts.
So Starmer is ready to abandon the Scottish oil industry, Sturgeon is moving towards doing so too and only Boris is ready to give the oil field the go ahead
Vote Blue, Go Green may be laudable but as Cameron discovered in 2010 it doesn't deliver a Tory majority.
The RedWall and indeed much of Scotland like Aberdeen and Shetland is much keener on coal and oil, so a balance has to be struck
So alright to destroy the planet as long as we get a Tory majority?
You can still transition gradually to renewables and nuclear without abandoning those who work in the oil industry
You don't have to exactly abandon them, although that is a bit rich coming from the party who closed pits (not saying it was wrong, but it wasn't exactly done smoothly or compassionately).
But this transitioning gradually? You mean like we have been doing, with every country making excuses for why something doesn't apply to them while the planet boils.
Nero and Rome spring to mind.
True, it needs to be done as quickly as possible. But realistically, the only way that happens is a massive push on zero carbon energy sources which renders coal & oil largely uneconomic. It's hard but doable.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall.
That is true re the bikes. I just think the risks of what someone like Australia do is too high. Yes, it worked this time but have a bad campaign and / or others up their game in your sports), and you can take a hammering.
But it has been successfully for 20 years now.....and yet they are now changing it, with a stated aim of increased diversity....even if at the expense of medals.
Yes others have upper their game in cycling and rowing. But events that marry skill / technique with physical attributes are Team GB best chances versus sports with low barrier to entry / highly genetically dependent or ones that have little to no pedigree in the UK.
The level of basketball in the UK is so far behind, it is just a waste of time. We aren't going to produce 10-15 world class players anytime soon and even then, the USA put out a team lacking all the best players and still win easily.
The British Basketball Ball League is basically watched by one man and his dog.
I'd agree on the Basketball league - if they are going to spend millions on it, get a commercial partner in like Sky who, if it takes off, will be able to pay for the rights in a few years time.
I get your point on the Marathon. Having said that, Callum Hawkins was actually tipped as a potential medal winner and, at one stage, looked in a decent position. Anyway, Matthew Syed has been through the genetic point before - if you look at Kenya, the marathon runners come from a specific area where they are literally running 20-30 miles a day to school and back in an high-altitude area.
I think on the diversity angle, @Stuartinromford mentioned about Charlotte Worthington having to self-fund herself. Beth Shriever had to do the same:
"Shriever had to fund her own qualification campaign after UK Sport cut its support for her event following Rio 2016, and two years ago she said she needed to raise a "worrying" £50,000 through crowdfunding."
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
There is surfing for fun and then there is elite surfing...you need the weather, the right type of waves, the mass participation. That's why its sport dominated by the likes of USA, South America, South Africa, Australia, and some Japanese.
You don't get the really big rollers in Cornwall year round like they do in the places I mentioned.
Yes, the surfing competition for Paris will take place in Tahiti, not the French Riviera for this reason.
Please can I be sponsored to be Pb's correspondent for the surfing in 2024! Must say I was impressed by the waves when we visited Hawaii.
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
China. Marvelous place. Hosts the Winter Olympics in six months time. No calls for boycotts.
USA 39 golds China 38 golds
China will win the Paralympics easily. Which is interesting as it doesn't entriely chime with the view of China suppressing diversity and inclusion.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
Again the funding isn't for encouraging mass participation and you won't see Team GB at the Olympics in many sports...you have to qualify and that isn't going to happen (unless you want to use all the money to pay for NBA ringers). So its a nonsensical argument. fund elite Basketball so you won't see a team at the Olympics.
There is different pots of money for widening participation in sports.
Very true although my wife volunteers at an inner-city riding school down in Brixton so you do have them!
Good for her!
And yes by all means let's spread the access to sports facilities as widely as possible. It does cost money of course! The Lottery has been a good source but more money, probably means more taxes (which I support btw).
UK Sport does have a direct subsidy element as well as lottery funding. The direct subsidy is directed towards grassroots sports, local clubs and getting kids into sports. It's literally what you're asking for. I guess the difference is that UK Sport are trying (and succeeding) to join that up with the elite sports programme.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
I see the state broadcaster is again producing breathless communiques about ar brave lads scrambling to meet the threat of the Russian bear (literally in the case of the Tu-95). Is the other side of the coin reported in Putinania, eg our brave ladskis have given John Bull a good probing?
My own school was on the other side of the valley.
You were at Denstone?
Edit - I don't think Abbotsholme has long to go, btw. It was rescued from bankruptcy by a Chinese company called Achieve Education. They also own a school in Cannock. If I told you all I know about the inner workings of that group, you would not believe me.
But what's killing them is that in a very short time they will have had no pupils from China for two years, which account for around 70% of their revenue.
We lost Abbots Bromley, another school with a stables, not that long ago. But that was a bit different.
So Starmer is ready to abandon the Scottish oil industry, Sturgeon is moving towards doing so too and only Boris is ready to give the oil field the go ahead
Vote Blue, Go Green may be laudable but as Cameron discovered in 2010 it doesn't deliver a Tory majority.
The RedWall and indeed much of Scotland like Aberdeen and Shetland is much keener on coal and oil, so a balance has to be struck
So alright to destroy the planet as long as we get a Tory majority?
You can still transition gradually to renewables and nuclear without abandoning those who work in the oil industry
You don't have to exactly abandon them, although that is a bit rich coming from the party who closed pits (not saying it was wrong, but it wasn't exactly done smoothly or compassionately).
But this transitioning gradually? You mean like we have been doing, with every country making excuses for why something doesn't apply to them while the planet boils.
Nero and Rome spring to mind.
43% of UK energy already comes from renewables compared to 38% from fossil fuels, well above the global average of 28% of energy from renewables
There you go again. We are doing ok so that is ok then. It isn't.
I don't know what the answer is HYUFD, but complacency it is not.
There does seem to be a strong overlap between the following two groups:
1. Those who think the Cambo oilfield should go ahead because it won't make much difference to the environment as we'd have to import the oil anyway. So Starmer is wrong to oppose it. 2. Those who think Thatcher was quite right to close the coal mines, although we ended up importing coal anyway.
Are such people suggesting that taxpayers money should subsidise the new oilfield ?
Anyone think that archery is a sport where the potential of Olympic medals for money invested might be high ?
And it does have a British historical aspect.
You'd have to make all the archers eat half a kilo of laxative chocolate and march 100 miles in pouring rain to get the true historical resonance. But maybe it could be part of the mediaeval military pentathlon. Though as the Welsh invented it perhaps they should have their own team.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
I see the state broadcaster is again producing breathless communiques about ar brave lads scrambling to meet the threat of the Russian bear (literally in the case of the Tu-95). Is the other side of the coin reported in Putinania, eg our brave ladskis have given John Bull a good probing?
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
China. Marvelous place. Hosts the Winter Olympics in six months time. No calls for boycotts.
USA 39 golds China 38 golds
That is great. Although it would have been funny to see the Chinese claim they were first in the Olympics on the basis of Golds, having claimed they were second in Rio because they won more medals than Team GB
Very true although my wife volunteers at an inner-city riding school down in Brixton so you do have them!
Good for her!
And yes by all means let's spread the access to sports facilities as widely as possible. It does cost money of course! The Lottery has been a good source but more money, probably means more taxes (which I support btw).
She loves it!
Yes, I think there is a lot more we could be doing. Maybe put a little bit on the taxes
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
I see the state broadcaster is again producing breathless communiques about ar brave lads scrambling to meet the threat of the Russian bear (literally in the case of the Tu-95). Is the other side of the coin reported in Putinania, eg our brave ladskis have given John Bull a good probing?
We do the same with our submariners on "sneakies" into the White Sea and Russian Arctic. Both militaries like to test how secure their systems are.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
I see the state broadcaster is again producing breathless communiques about ar brave lads scrambling to meet the threat of the Russian bear (literally in the case of the Tu-95). Is the other side of the coin reported in Putinania, eg our brave ladskis have given John Bull a good probing?
They were more concerned with "fascists" in Ukraine and Russian army exercises on the Tajik/Uzbek/Afghan border when I watched Russia 24 (Putin's BBC News) last week.
So Starmer is ready to abandon the Scottish oil industry, Sturgeon is moving towards doing so too and only Boris is ready to give the oil field the go ahead
Vote Blue, Go Green may be laudable but as Cameron discovered in 2010 it doesn't deliver a Tory majority.
The RedWall and indeed much of Scotland like Aberdeen and Shetland is much keener on coal and oil, so a balance has to be struck
So alright to destroy the planet as long as we get a Tory majority?
You can still transition gradually to renewables and nuclear without abandoning those who work in the oil industry
You don't have to exactly abandon them, although that is a bit rich coming from the party who closed pits (not saying it was wrong, but it wasn't exactly done smoothly or compassionately).
But this transitioning gradually? You mean like we have been doing, with every country making excuses for why something doesn't apply to them while the planet boils.
Nero and Rome spring to mind.
43% of UK energy already comes from renewables compared to 38% from fossil fuels, well above the global average of 28% of energy from renewables
There you go again. We are doing ok so that is ok then. It isn't.
I don't know what the answer is HYUFD, but complacency it is not.
There does seem to be a strong overlap between the following two groups:
1. Those who think the Cambo oilfield should go ahead because it won't make much difference to the environment as we'd have to import the oil anyway. So Starmer is wrong to oppose it. 2. Those who think Thatcher was quite right to close the coal mines, although we ended up importing coal anyway.
Are such people suggesting that taxpayers money should subsidise the new oilfield ?
No, though the current government is not averse to splashing huge wads of taxpayers' money on a wide variety of 'essential' industries, so I'm not sure that's a winning argument at the moment.
Anyone think that archery is a sport where the potential of Olympic medals for money invested might be high ?
And it does have a British historical aspect.
Likelihood to medal is probably not great given that Archery is the national sport of South Korea and a very big money sport there.
And its getting a load of extra money next time around....but swimming getting cut.
Cutting swimming just seems completely mad, we've just had the best ever swimming result and for 2024 we can drive that home and beat the Australians in the pool for the first time ever. I can understand cutting rowing, if the commitment from them isn't there then let's enter fewer races and cut the size of the team until we get a new winning formula.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall.
That is true re the bikes. I just think the risks of what someone like Australia do is too high. Yes, it worked this time but have a bad campaign and / or others up their game in your sports), and you can take a hammering.
But it has been successfully for 20 years now.....and yet they are now changing it, with a stated aim of increased diversity....even if at the expense of medals.
Yes others have upper their game in cycling and rowing. But events that marry skill / technique with physical attributes are Team GB best chances versus sports with low barrier to entry / highly genetically dependent or ones that have little to no pedigree in the UK.
The level of basketball in the UK is so far behind, it is just a waste of time. We aren't going to produce 10-15 world class players anytime soon and even then, the USA put out a team lacking all the best players and still win easily.
The British Basketball Ball League is basically watched by one man and his dog.
I'd agree on the Basketball league - if they are going to spend millions on it, get a commercial partner in like Sky who, if it takes off, will be able to pay for the rights in a few years time.
I get your point on the Marathon. Having said that, Callum Hawkins was actually tipped as a potential medal winner and, at one stage, looked in a decent position. Anyway, Matthew Syed has been through the genetic point before - if you look at Kenya, the marathon runners come from a specific area where they are literally running 20-30 miles a day to school and back in an high-altitude area.
I think on the diversity angle, @Stuartinromford mentioned about Charlotte Worthington having to self-fund herself. Beth Shriever had to do the same:
"Shriever had to fund her own qualification campaign after UK Sport cut its support for her event following Rio 2016, and two years ago she said she needed to raise a "worrying" £50,000 through crowdfunding."
They have tried pushing basketball...it is supposedly widely played informally, but when it actually comes to organized teams and any sort of crowds its nonexistent...and they basically can't even give away the tv rights to the NBA in the UK. Sky regularly show it free on YouTube and it has no viewership...its GB News level views on YouTube.
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
China. Marvelous place. Hosts the Winter Olympics in six months time. No calls for boycotts.
USA 39 golds China 38 golds
That is great. Although it would have been funny to see the Chinese claim they were first in the Olympics on the basis of Golds, having claimed they were second in Rio because they won more medals than Team GB
Yep. Five years as a day pupil. It was a good school, but perhaps not the best fit for me as I had health issues. It was, at the time, a very sporty school. I once tried to do a cross-country run on crutches.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
I'm not sure I've ever seen a basketball court actually being used for basketball.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
You're right, but maybe there's a social dimension as well. Basketball is, from my experience, very popular with young, black urban kids in particular - apologies for the stereotype. It would surely be good to provide resources for such kids to play basketball (and other sports) rather than have nothing to do but hang around in gangs.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
Yep. Five years as a day pupil. It was a good school, but perhaps not the best fit for me as I had health issues. It was, at the time, a very sporty school. I once tried to do a cross-country run on crutches.
Still is quite a sporty school.
I've been there a few times for musical reasons (I was helping out with the choir) and I remember before I could get to the music block I had to dodge first a line of cadets, then the hockey team, and finally the cross country runners.
I wouldn't have minded, but I was in the car and it wasn't that nimble...
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
I see the state broadcaster is again producing breathless communiques about ar brave lads scrambling to meet the threat of the Russian bear (literally in the case of the Tu-95). Is the other side of the coin reported in Putinania, eg our brave ladskis have given John Bull a good probing?
They were more concerned with "fascists" in Ukraine and Russian army exercises on the Tajik/Uzbek/Afghan border when I watched Russia 24 (Putin's BBC News) last week.
Yep, I'd assumed if it existed it would be a very tiny string to the bow of their state propaganda apparatus. Of course after the mighty Gammon Britain medal haul beating that of the not Russians, the Eye of Sauron may feel the need to focus more on the UK.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
You're right, but maybe there's a social dimension as well. Basketball is, from my experience, very popular with young, black urban kids in particular - apologies for the stereotype. It would surely be good to provide resources for such kids to play basketball (and other sports) rather than have nothing to do but hang around in gangs.
Is it though? Participation in athletics is way higher than basketball among young urban youths, especially girls. I don't think you can run a national grassroots sporting strategy to appeal to such a narrow demographic because we don't have unlimited money. Funding something like basketball will necessarily (and has) mean cuts to other sports.
It just seems like a waste of everyone's time because basketball in particular seems like it should be able to do it by itself but has had so many failed attempts.
Anyway, speaking as someone who was an urban youth, basketball was way behind football. Way, way behind football. Also behind rugby in my experience and we had a really good boxing gym near us which picked up a lot of the people you're talking about who were in danger of falling into gang life.
Wow, it's a bit hot on here atm, so I'll just try to change the subject.
I couldn't believe the rudeness I received on joining. Not a word of gracious or gentlemanly welcome (since almost everyone seems to be a white man of a certain age).
I hope I will stick around but if I do it will be with great caution. There's far too much anger and argument online at the moment.
As I recall the accusations of trolling were due to a claim you made that the government was preparing for a further lockdown in October. Which you were not able to further elaborate.
DougSeal in particular was unpleasantly rude, without cause.
I mentioned that I'd heard from someone on the inside (DWP) that they had been told to prepare for lockdown this October.
Yesterday as it happens this was widely reported in media outlets (see below) so it obviously wasn't just me trolling for no reason.
Maybe next time be a little less quick to jump on some newcomer simply because you don't like what they post. A welcome would have been nice.
Thank you to everyone else who today has more than made up for it. I feel pleasantly warm now
Blimey, I despair of the England batting line up sometimes, but I don't expect this level of biting sarcasm from a BBC piece
The pressure of the Covid-induced bubble environment. Rest and rotation. Ollie Robinson's tweets. The doubt over arrangements for the upcoming Ashes. Stokes' indefinite break from the game. Jofra Archer's elbow.
All this while being the only class act in a batting line-up that shows all the solidity of a well-dunked biscuit.
In Greek mythology, Atlas' punishment for siding with the Titans in the war against the Olympians was to hold the heavens on his shoulders for eternity.
Root must wonder which cricketing God he was wronged to have been asked to the carry an England team looking to the future with all the optimism of a turkey that has just received its first Christmas card.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
We have surfing at Compton Bay, but not up to Hawaiian standards. Bet it’s popular down there today!
Just back from walking the dog and there were a few brave holidaymakers trying to make a go of the beach despite the strong winds, crashing waves and passing showers. And a lot more people forlornly wandering about in their rain gear.
Aside from a couple of weeks in July (and a week in May) it’s been a disappointing summer for British staycationers.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
If you want to get more people healthy, drop this blooming obsession with competitive sport. Running, jogging, walking, hiking, swimming etc are all brilliant, and can be really sociable activities. But at times it feels like they're virtually ignored in favour of the competitive sports.
I'll never be good at competitive sports. But I've done at least one run every day this year, and am at 1,600 miles for the year. The only person I'm competing against is myself.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
I see the state broadcaster is again producing breathless communiques about ar brave lads scrambling to meet the threat of the Russian bear (literally in the case of the Tu-95). Is the other side of the coin reported in Putinania, eg our brave ladskis have given John Bull a good probing?
They were more concerned with "fascists" in Ukraine and Russian army exercises on the Tajik/Uzbek/Afghan border when I watched Russia 24 (Putin's BBC News) last week.
Yep, I'd assumed if it existed it would be a very tiny string to the bow of their state propaganda apparatus. Of course after the mighty Gammon Britain medal haul beating that of the not Russians, the Eye of Sauron may feel the need to focus more on the UK.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
If you want to get more people healthy, drop this blooming obsession with competitive sport. Running, jogging, walking, hiking, swimming etc are all brilliant, and can be really sociable activities. But at times it feels like they're virtually ignored in favour of the competitive sports.
I'll never be good at competitive sports. But I've done at least one run every day this year, and am at 1,600 miles for the year. The only person I'm competing against is myself.
I find the opposite - a team kickabout or something I'm far more likely to participate in than something done by myself. I'd need the push of a team competitive activity I think - got a badminton net last year and was much more compelled to duke it out with people with that than jog.
Wow, it's a bit hot on here atm, so I'll just try to change the subject.
I couldn't believe the rudeness I received on joining. Not a word of gracious or gentlemanly welcome (since almost everyone seems to be a white man of a certain age).
I hope I will stick around but if I do it will be with great caution. There's far too much anger and argument online at the moment.
As I recall the accusations of trolling were due to a claim you made that the government was preparing for a further lockdown in October. Which you were not able to further elaborate.
DougSeal in particular was unpleasantly rude, without cause.
I mentioned that I'd heard from someone on the inside (DWP) that they had been told to prepare for lockdown this October.
Yesterday as it happens this was widely reported in media outlets (see below) so it obviously wasn't just me trolling for no reason.
Maybe next time be a little less quick to jump on some newcomer simply because you don't like what they post. A welcome would have been nice.
Thank you to everyone else who today has more than made up for it. I feel pleasantly warm now
Yes, I think the ending of covid funding for the NHS shortly, will have the NHS keeling over again. It is pretty grim with the bed situation. I was speaking to one of our bowel surgeons about it the other day. List after list is being cancelled because no beds on HDU etc
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
We have surfing at Compton Bay, but not up to Hawaiian standards. Bet it’s popular down there today!
Just back from walking the dog and there were a few brave holidaymakers trying to make a go of the beach despite the strong winds, crashing waves and passing showers. And a lot more people forlornly wandering about in their rain gear.
Aside from a couple of weeks in July (and a week in May) it’s been a disappointing summer for British staycationers.
Same down here on the South coast. Brighton is heaving with holiday makers and unofficial Pride-goers (Pride was cancelled but people have come anyway). But the weather is atrocious and the seafront is pretty deserted. The dog was only walked round the block today.... So nothing better to do than post trivia on here.
Wow, it's a bit hot on here atm, so I'll just try to change the subject.
I couldn't believe the rudeness I received on joining. Not a word of gracious or gentlemanly welcome (since almost everyone seems to be a white man of a certain age).
I hope I will stick around but if I do it will be with great caution. There's far too much anger and argument online at the moment.
As I recall the accusations of trolling were due to a claim you made that the government was preparing for a further lockdown in October. Which you were not able to further elaborate.
DougSeal in particular was unpleasantly rude, without cause.
I mentioned that I'd heard from someone on the inside (DWP) that they had been told to prepare for lockdown this October.
Yesterday as it happens this was widely reported in media outlets (see below) so it obviously wasn't just me trolling for no reason.
Maybe next time be a little less quick to jump on some newcomer simply because you don't like what they post. A welcome would have been nice.
Thank you to everyone else who today has more than made up for it. I feel pleasantly warm now
The reason I think that people jumped to the wrong conclusion is that you didn't say what they're saying. You said the government had told civil servants to 'prepare for lockdown in October. Anecdotally, this fits with what I'm hearing.'
Whereas the articles are talking about drawing up contingency plans *in case* a high level of respiratory infections means we need a lockdown in October, adding that at the moment it isn't what is expected.
Contingency planning is what a responsible government does. It is not what this government has done (school exams being a particularly disastrous example) but I'm glad they've learned sense even if they've only learned it two years too late.
Preparing for, expecting, another lockdown in light of a successful vaccine rollout is anything but responsible, because it would spread panic.
So - maybe a bit more caution in picking your words? From somebody who has never of course used hyperbole or made so much as a typing error *innocent face*
Anyway, I'm glad you are not a troll, and I hope you stick around. Belatedly, welcome.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
How do you inspire the next generation without the former. Listen to Lutalo Muhammad this morning from the BBC, he literally said that it's the Olympics which has changed the game for UK Tae Kwon Do participation. Kids watch UK sports stars like him, Jade Jones or Nicola Adams in the Boxing, Jason Kenny on the track and think "I can do that".
Sports participation is highly dependent on watching it. I took up cycling in 2008 after Beijing and started cycling to work and still go out cycling, though probably not as much as Dura-Ace or TOPPING. Kids took up gymnastics after watching Beth Tweddle and Louis Smith at the Olympics. My little 3 year old niece is obsessed with Tom Daley's diving right now.
Yep. Five years as a day pupil. It was a good school, but perhaps not the best fit for me as I had health issues. It was, at the time, a very sporty school. I once tried to do a cross-country run on crutches.
Still is quite a sporty school.
I've been there a few times for musical reasons (I was helping out with the choir) and I remember before I could get to the music block I had to dodge first a line of cadets, then the hockey team, and finally the cross country runners.
I wouldn't have minded, but I was in the car and it wasn't that nimble...
I know they've reorganised things a little: I wonder if the music block is still where it was, and the library is continuing its slow collapse?
I had lots of fun: since we had to do sports every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, and I couldn't play sports, I either went to the computer room to play games, to the library to read and work, or to the range to do some shooting.
Before that I went to Oldfields Hall in Uttoxeter. In some ways that was a better school for me, and much, much cheaper ...
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
If you want to get more people healthy, drop this blooming obsession with competitive sport. Running, jogging, walking, hiking, swimming etc are all brilliant, and can be really sociable activities. But at times it feels like they're virtually ignored in favour of the competitive sports.
I'll never be good at competitive sports. But I've done at least one run every day this year, and am at 1,600 miles for the year. The only person I'm competing against is myself.
I find the opposite - a team kickabout or something I'm far more likely to participate in than something done by myself. I'd need the push of a team competitive activity I think - got a badminton net last year and was much more compelled to duke it out with people with that than jog.
Yes, but JJ is right. Many are not interested in competitive sport, but quite keen on running, swimming, walking etc.
Furthermore, even if we stopped all oil production now others in the world will continue to produce it and we are then at a self imposed disadvantage, while offers gain and climate change continues
This has to be agreed on a world wide scale
That's never going to happen. We'll all be dead waiting for that.
And that is the huge problem
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
It is all down to China. If China doesn't want to do it, it doesn't get done.
Also India and Brazil
Brazil has loads of hydro power and runs its cars on ethanol.
If it wasn't for the wholesale destruction of the rainforest they'd have admirable green credentials.
Yep. Five years as a day pupil. It was a good school, but perhaps not the best fit for me as I had health issues. It was, at the time, a very sporty school. I once tried to do a cross-country run on crutches.
Still is quite a sporty school.
I've been there a few times for musical reasons (I was helping out with the choir) and I remember before I could get to the music block I had to dodge first a line of cadets, then the hockey team, and finally the cross country runners.
I wouldn't have minded, but I was in the car and it wasn't that nimble...
I know they've reorganised things a little: I wonder if the music block is still where it was, and the library is continuing its slow collapse?
I had lots of fun: since we had to do sports every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, and I couldn't play sports, I either went to the computer room to play games, to the library to read and work, or to the range to do some shooting.
Before that I went to Oldfields Hall in Uttoxeter. In some ways that was a better school for me, and much, much cheaper ...
Music block is now down the road from the main school (that is, go up the drive to the main gate and turn left towards the staff houses) and is new. It's very nice as well.
Just following on from a topic raised last night, I don't often disagree with @FrancisUrquhart and @MaxPB but I'd question the view that taking money from the high-medal scoring sports and putting it in other areas is necessarily a bad thing. for several reasons:
1. The obvious point - money does not always guarantee success (rowing);
2. The heavily invested sports may be benefiting from a "slingshot" effect where enough success has been generated to keep them going at a strong level. The (poor) analogy I would use is building a factory: high capex at the start but, once done, spend becomes about maintenance, repairs and upgrades. There is no need for huge investments;
3. Looking ahead. It is a long process from investment to training to medal winners. I suspect Team GB is looking ahead. Yes, the likes of rowing produce many medals now but what about in 2-3 Olympics' time? I suspect BMX, for example, will have more medal categories added, as will some of the other events. The Games evolve;
4. Public interest. Again, you need to somewhat keep people aligned with what you do if you are asking them for lottery money. Some of the events may seem "esoteric" but they might be very popular with underprivileged areas of society, where there could be medal hopes.
That wasn't quite my argument....I actually said I can see the argument about the feedback loop, that can negatively effect some sports.
My point was more along the lines of Team GB has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years by carefully targetting sports that can return medals, in particular sports that we can leverage things like technological advantage over (Jason Kenny et al. had special bikes again, far more advanced than anybody else).
But the next funding round we are taking money away from sports that do regularly produce many many medals and putting them into sports that never in my lifetime will ( or highly unlikely to). Basketball is a huge waste of money, as it will just go on paying the insurance premiums for NBA ringers. Surfing, we aren't winning in that, and there is 2 medals for it total. Volleyball, again UK has no pedigree in it.
And this money isn't for widening participation. There are separate pots of money for that. This is for funding elite athletes to focus solely on being the best in the world and winning Olympic / World Championship medals.
Re the technical advantages, and on Track Cycling specifically, the Bikes that the Track Cycling teams use have had to be available for general sale to the public since the start of the year so that technological advantage is mainly wiped out because your competitors can see what you are doing.
On a wider point, I think Team GB's performance at the Olympics this time round actually shows the success of widening the pool of sports in which we complete. Consider this:
when Gracenote did their medals prediction, the main driver they said for their 52 initial target was a much weaker performance in Rowing, Track Cycling and Gymnastics. They pointed out 1/3 of our medals had come from those sports in Rio - 22 - and it could be as lower as 5 podium places from the three combined in 2021.
Obviously we did better than that, mainly due to Track Cycling but Gracenote also would not have used a worst case scenario - my guess is the 12 combined (correct me if I'm wrong) was close to what they factored in to their estimates.
So Team GB did much better than their estimates, and even that underestimates our performance - given our bad luck on injuries and mishaps, it is easy to see that our final total should have been above 70. We have won medals in sports, such as weightlifting, that nobody would have thought were possible a few years back.
What you seem to be advocating - and apologies if I'm wrong - is an Australia-Max style policy i.e. ruthlessly focus on specific sports to harvest the most medals. That is great if it works, and Australia obviously had a big rebound in this Olympics from swimming but the downside is you are putting your eggs in one or two baskets. And if you look at the Australian medal haul by each day, they hardly won anything in the last few days.
Its true about the bikes being commercially available, but nobody else had them at this Olympics....those rules have been used in other sports and there are ways to ensure you get a head start.
Yes ruthless focus on specific sports, but far from eggs in one basket. What I am saying if we shouldn't be wasting funding on sports or events where no chance at all, if that means taking money away from sports that can realistically produce medals. Basketball, surfing, volleyball (in the past), is passing money up the wall. I am also not really sure any point in funding certain athletic events e.g. marathon runners unless have track pedigree. The barrier to entry to running is incredibly low and highly genetically determined. Funding 3 white guys to run the marathon is pointless.
None of my family will ever be qualified for basketball; 5' 8" is about the best we can manage but there's no reason why we can produce competitive surfers or volleyball players. And I wouldn't like to think that some sports 'just didn't get' funding.
Errhhh volleyball is also incredibly height dependent and there is no real level of participation or pedigree. Its like saying we could be good at baseball....
Surfing, well for starters we don't have the conditions...long winters and the waves we get aren't really what you need to be good.
And again..... this funding is for elite athletes to focus on their sport, its not about funding sport for people to have a go and get interested. That's a different pot of money.
I thought Cornwall and possibly SW Wales were suitable surfing sites.
But otherwise, always prepared to stand corrected.
We have surfing at Compton Bay, but not up to Hawaiian standards. Bet it’s popular down there today!
Just back from walking the dog and there were a few brave holidaymakers trying to make a go of the beach despite the strong winds, crashing waves and passing showers. And a lot more people forlornly wandering about in their rain gear.
Aside from a couple of weeks in July (and a week in May) it’s been a disappointing summer for British staycationers.
That's the British summer for you! Though supposed to be better at the end of the month.
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
How do you inspire the next generation without the former. Listen to Lutalo Muhammad this morning from the BBC, he literally said that it's the Olympics which has changed the game for UK Tae Kwon Do participation. Kids watch UK sports stars like him, Jade Jones or Nicola Adams in the Boxing, Jason Kenny on the track and think "I can do that".
Sports participation is highly dependent on watching it. I took up cycling in 2008 after Beijing and started cycling to work and still go out cycling, though probably not as much as Dura-Ace or TOPPING. Kids took up gymnastics after watching Beth Tweddle and Louis Smith at the Olympics. My little 3 year old niece is obsessed with Tom Daley's diving right now.
You only have to look at cricket to see what happens when a sport isn't on TV. Unfortunately it's taken the ECB over a decade to see what happens. Now they're desperately trying to make up for it with the nonsense that is The Hundred.
Wow, it's a bit hot on here atm, so I'll just try to change the subject.
I couldn't believe the rudeness I received on joining. Not a word of gracious or gentlemanly welcome (since almost everyone seems to be a white man of a certain age).
I hope I will stick around but if I do it will be with great caution. There's far too much anger and argument online at the moment.
As I recall the accusations of trolling were due to a claim you made that the government was preparing for a further lockdown in October. Which you were not able to further elaborate.
DougSeal in particular was unpleasantly rude, without cause.
I mentioned that I'd heard from someone on the inside (DWP) that they had been told to prepare for lockdown this October.
Yesterday as it happens this was widely reported in media outlets (see below) so it obviously wasn't just me trolling for no reason.
Maybe next time be a little less quick to jump on some newcomer simply because you don't like what they post. A welcome would have been nice.
Thank you to everyone else who today has more than made up for it. I feel pleasantly warm now
Yes, I think the ending of covid funding for the NHS shortly, will have the NHS keeling over again. It is pretty grim with the bed situation. I was speaking to one of our bowel surgeons about it the other day. List after list is being cancelled because no beds on HDU etc
Just writing an article about some of the financial impacts on schools (you can tell I'm really working very hard on it).
Sitrep - 'it's a total fucking disaster and there will be bankruptcies.'
Except, schools can't go bankrupt. So instead there will be redundancies, loss of subjects, larger class sizes, loss of extra activities...
But personally, it feels more fun to watch British people doing well across a wider field. And unless position on the medal table gives you the horn, fun is what it's all about- isn't it?
It has to be about the medals as the UK is sliding into a Russian style brittle and insecure hypernationalism that requires it.
Yes, suddenly there is enthusiasm for events that no one watches outside the Olympics. Is it really a better investment to have a transient flush of national pride, or to have serious sports programmes for young people in games that they want to play, like basketball?
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
That's a really lazy assumption, if young people really enjoyed basketball why has it never taken off here? We've had multiple attempts in the UK to get a domestic league going, the BBC had viewing rights and put it on TV at one point and no one watched it and no one went to games. I went to a London Towers match and my dad and I were about two out of the 30 people in the audience.
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
Leicester Riders get a decent crowd, and play in a 3000 seat indoor arena. Basketball is a popular street sport too, as can be played in quite constricted spaces.
So get Sky to pick it up and televise it.
No, my point is do we want sport to be participatory, or for television audiences?
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
If you want to get more people healthy, drop this blooming obsession with competitive sport. Running, jogging, walking, hiking, swimming etc are all brilliant, and can be really sociable activities. But at times it feels like they're virtually ignored in favour of the competitive sports.
I'll never be good at competitive sports. But I've done at least one run every day this year, and am at 1,600 miles for the year. The only person I'm competing against is myself.
I find the opposite - a team kickabout or something I'm far more likely to participate in than something done by myself. I'd need the push of a team competitive activity I think - got a badminton net last year and was much more compelled to duke it out with people with that than jog.
Fair enough: each to their own. It's just that I find many people have quite the opposite view: competitive sports are a real turn-off. I'll never be a fast runner, but I'm enjoying my current challenges.
(I'm considering a real challenge next year, but it depends on support so it'll have to be post-pandemic.)
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/08/tories-squandering-olympic-legacy-as-school-pe-declines
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/08/dreams-set-to-crash-as-young-olympians-skatepark-closes
I don't know what the answer is HYUFD, but complacency it is not.
Some nation or nations need to take the lead on this...
If not us, who? If not now, when?
https://www.visitscotland.com/see-do/active/watersports/surfing/
I think that the Nats will win the next Sindyref. Scottish politics is logjammed until independence happens.
You don't get the really big rollers in Cornwall year round like they do in the places I mentioned.
https://www.millfieldschool.com/news-events/blog/blog-details/~board/millfield-blog/post/life-as-a-horse-rider-at-millfield-prep-school
Either the world comes together or climate change will continue to everyone's detriment
I am sadly not hopeful COP26 will be anything other than a talking shop and then everyone goes away and little happens to deal with climate change
Locally, there's crowdfunding for a skate park.
The Olympics is now so competitive, you have to be elite to even qualify (or get a special invite fron IOC) e.g. there were a whole load of athletics events Team GB didn't even qualify to get to the Olympics, let alone get out of the heats.
1. Those who think the Cambo oilfield should go ahead because it won't make much difference to the environment as we'd have to import the oil anyway. So Starmer is wrong to oppose it.
2. Those who think Thatcher was quite right to close the coal mines, although we ended up importing coal anyway.
https://www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2021/07/02/queen-ethelburgas-school-owner-brian-martin-jailed-for-non-recent-child-abuse-offences/
Anyway, they ended up building a house in a nearby village instead. But the people who did buy it had a pleasant surprise. It had been owned by an elderly man wo had let it go to wrack and ruin. It turned out his life savings - thousands of pounds - were stuffed into the chimney. One version of the story had the new owners trying to light a fire (*), and wondering why the chimney was blocked.
I can imagine the legalities and tax situation of that find might have been somewhat complex.
(*) Never a good idea in an old house that has been unoccupied for a long time.
And yes by all means let's spread the access to sports facilities as widely as possible. It does cost money of course! The Lottery has been a good source but more money, probably means more taxes (which I support btw).
Is the purpose of sport to give us something to watch from our sofas, or to give us a reason to get off them?
China 38 golds
But realistically, the only way that happens is a massive push on zero carbon energy sources which renders coal & oil largely uneconomic.
It's hard but doable.
I get your point on the Marathon. Having said that, Callum Hawkins was actually tipped as a potential medal winner and, at one stage, looked in a decent position. Anyway, Matthew Syed has been through the genetic point before - if you look at Kenya, the marathon runners come from a specific area where they are literally running 20-30 miles a day to school and back in an high-altitude area.
I think on the diversity angle, @Stuartinromford mentioned about Charlotte Worthington having to self-fund herself. Beth Shriever had to do the same:
"Shriever had to fund her own qualification campaign after UK Sport cut its support for her event following Rio 2016, and two years ago she said she needed to raise a "worrying" £50,000 through crowdfunding."
And it does have a British historical aspect.
And bye for now; lunch and chat with wife calls.
https://www.abbotsholme.co.uk/school-community/equestrian
My own school was on the other side of the valley.
There is different pots of money for widening participation in sports.
Except for bottled water… that seems to be a common theme in the photos shared by doom merchants who’ve given up hoping for 100,000 Covid cases a day
Edit - I don't think Abbotsholme has long to go, btw. It was rescued from bankruptcy by a Chinese company called Achieve Education. They also own a school in Cannock. If I told you all I know about the inner workings of that group, you would not believe me.
But what's killing them is that in a very short time they will have had no pupils from China for two years, which account for around 70% of their revenue.
We lost Abbots Bromley, another school with a stables, not that long ago. But that was a bit different.
Yes, I think there is a lot more we could be doing. Maybe put a little bit on the taxes
The most popular youth sports are still staples like football, various types of cycling, swimming, rugby, cricket etc...
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/aug/08/lionel-messi-tearful-barcelona-transfer
NFL is the big followed US sport in the UK.
113 USA
88 China
And there are plenty of them around now.
Perhaps its different in the inner cities.
I've been there a few times for musical reasons (I was helping out with the choir) and I remember before I could get to the music block I had to dodge first a line of cadets, then the hockey team, and finally the cross country runners.
I wouldn't have minded, but I was in the car and it wasn't that nimble...
Or not.
https://twitter.com/lulinspector/status/1424050111617904649
Got to have been very scary for the families with young children trying to just spend some time in the park
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/07/prof-francois-balloux-the-pandemic-has-created-a-market-for-gloom-and-doom
Seeing sport and activity as TV entertainment rather than exercise and health is part of our obesity problem.
It just seems like a waste of everyone's time because basketball in particular seems like it should be able to do it by itself but has had so many failed attempts.
Anyway, speaking as someone who was an urban youth, basketball was way behind football. Way, way behind football. Also behind rugby in my experience and we had a really good boxing gym near us which picked up a lot of the people you're talking about who were in danger of falling into gang life.
I mentioned that I'd heard from someone on the inside (DWP) that they had been told to prepare for lockdown this October.
Yesterday as it happens this was widely reported in media outlets (see below) so it obviously wasn't just me trolling for no reason.
Maybe next time be a little less quick to jump on some newcomer simply because you don't like what they post. A welcome would have been nice.
Thank you to everyone else who today has more than made up for it. I feel pleasantly warm now
https://metro.co.uk/2021/08/07/plans-drawn-up-for-firebreak-lockdowns-in-winter-to-stop-nhs-being-overwhelmed-15052809/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15801447/firebreak-covid-lockdowns-autumn/
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/covid-government-draws-up-contingency-plans-firebreak-lockdowns-over-winter-1140135
The pressure of the Covid-induced bubble environment. Rest and rotation. Ollie Robinson's tweets. The doubt over arrangements for the upcoming Ashes. Stokes' indefinite break from the game. Jofra Archer's elbow.
All this while being the only class act in a batting line-up that shows all the solidity of a well-dunked biscuit.
In Greek mythology, Atlas' punishment for siding with the Titans in the war against the Olympians was to hold the heavens on his shoulders for eternity.
Root must wonder which cricketing God he was wronged to have been asked to the carry an England team looking to the future with all the optimism of a turkey that has just received its first Christmas card.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/58131890
Just back from walking the dog and there were a few brave holidaymakers trying to make a go of the beach despite the strong winds, crashing waves and passing showers. And a lot more people forlornly wandering about in their rain gear.
Aside from a couple of weeks in July (and a week in May) it’s been a disappointing summer for British staycationers.
I'll never be good at competitive sports. But I've done at least one run every day this year, and am at 1,600 miles for the year. The only person I'm competing against is myself.
Whereas the articles are talking about drawing up contingency plans *in case* a high level of respiratory infections means we need a lockdown in October, adding that at the moment it isn't what is expected.
Contingency planning is what a responsible government does. It is not what this government has done (school exams being a particularly disastrous example) but I'm glad they've learned sense even if they've only learned it two years too late.
Preparing for, expecting, another lockdown in light of a successful vaccine rollout is anything but responsible, because it would spread panic.
So - maybe a bit more caution in picking your words? From somebody who has never of course used hyperbole or made so much as a typing error *innocent face*
Anyway, I'm glad you are not a troll, and I hope you stick around. Belatedly, welcome.
Sports participation is highly dependent on watching it. I took up cycling in 2008 after Beijing and started cycling to work and still go out cycling, though probably not as much as Dura-Ace or TOPPING. Kids took up gymnastics after watching Beth Tweddle and Louis Smith at the Olympics. My little 3 year old niece is obsessed with Tom Daley's diving right now.
I had lots of fun: since we had to do sports every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, and I couldn't play sports, I either went to the computer room to play games, to the library to read and work, or to the range to do some shooting.
Before that I went to Oldfields Hall in Uttoxeter. In some ways that was a better school for me, and much, much cheaper ...
If it wasn't for the wholesale destruction of the rainforest they'd have admirable green credentials.
Mind you if it was 2% there'd be a bit of breathless excitement in the air on here..
Sitrep - 'it's a total fucking disaster and there will be bankruptcies.'
Except, schools can't go bankrupt. So instead there will be redundancies, loss of subjects, larger class sizes, loss of extra activities...
(I'm considering a real challenge next year, but it depends on support so it'll have to be post-pandemic.)