I appreciate there's a lot of different factors influencing different sports, but there's a few in there needing a good look that's for sure.
Don't they base funding on the last Olympics so successful ones get more funding and less successful ones a decrease? Which seems an odd way of going about it?
A better way might to spend more on the events we are not so good at to improve the standards. The traditional track and field events have money spent on them but there 8s not a great return. You get the feeling that the dishing out of the money is jobs for the boys, and girls, drawn from the usual small circle of interconnected people.
Crossed my mind the other day how a sports popularity (going by medal winning) can often be regional or cultural. Weightlifting from the middle east and the stans, water polo from the ex yugoslavia, distance running from east africa, gymnastics used to be east europe (not sure about this olympics) Jamaica seems to produce more than it's fair share of sprinters.
Yanks way out in front, but had a poor Olympics overall in their mainstay sports....A large fat zero in the boxing ring....poor in the pool....and nothing special on the track....unheard of...Even lost the baseball. But they won the Ladies beach volleyball so we'll gloss over the dross.
Viktor Barna, probably the most successful British table tennis player ever, 5 time world champion. I even used to have one of his bats as my uncle was mates with him back in the day. **** knows what happened to the bat, it was solid with a sort of hard textured leather like surface, no advanced rubber and sponge in those days. Modern day, how about Will Bayley, number 1 world ranked Paralympic player. I love table tennis, great sport, played a lot in my youth.
A wonderful performance by our Olympic team, 4th place with only China, USA and the home nations above us is an outstanding achievement. Many outstanding moments, but for me Kenny's win in the Keirin was outstanding and to have won now 7 Gold medals is astonishing.
Let's not forget the current thinking of fairness developed by the IOC. Women with high testosterone levels must not be allowed compete in women's events but you know, swimmers like Michael Phelps (double-knee joints, genetic predisposition to not producing the fatigue-inducing lactic acid, genetically inherited extremely broad wing span) are absolutely Olympic material as was that Finnish Cross Country skier many years ago who just happened to have a genetic condition that allows twice the normal haemoglobin uptake of oxygen. Just because you have female genitalia (strip please, we need proof) does not allow you to have any competitive advantage over the average real woman...that would be unfair.
Did you see the French marathon runner who knocked over all the water bottles at a drinks station so the other runners couldn't pick up a bottle?
I did. But, as I said, the fact that Chester Barnes is still the first name that springs to mind is an age giveaway.
