Not ripping into them but for that type of investment I'd expect to see some results a lot of our swimmers didn't even get anywhere near their personal best. We're not like USA or Australia who put tons of emphasis on their swimming programmes and we don't hothouse children in pools like the Chinese do, still for the 25 million invested I'd like to see a lot of the swimmers beat their personal best or at least get near it. Yes it's more competitive but boxers train for months to get their weight down and let's face being punched even with head gear isn't fun.
Agreed. I feel not enough emphasis was put on athletics at either of my schools. We only really did a couple of weeks on athletics a year. Too much time is put into cross country or cricket when the football season is over. I think in my entire time at school I had one or two lessons at discus and shot put and that's about it in terms of those two sports.
Agree with that completely, I only finished school in 2010. We used to do a bit of running around the track but we had discuses, long jump, high jump, most of it really and they only made an appearance at the annual sportsday where it was very much the more talented footballers, rugby players, cricketers getting selected anyway because they were never part of PE. Felt sorry for a few of the people who didn't take part as they could have found a talent they have yet to discover, or even a sport they may really enjoy. Instead they were told to support their class from the sidelines. Even myself I got put in for long distance running because I played rightback in the school team, so automatically I had better stamina than other people? I am not sure if all schools are like that but that was mine. INcidently, I didn't have the best stamina in the end, think I came third last.
I always remember it being based on the seasons autumn/winter would always be Football, Rugby, Cross Country then Summer was usually Cricket, Athletics, Swimming, Water Polo (which is top if you can swim give it a go). Discuss and Shot put were horrible events back then I was better at jumping and running, but since then I go to the gym loads now so I'd like to have a go again, Javelin was quite intimidating at times there used to be an accident emergency services re-inactment show called 999 with Michael Burke in one episode some guy was impaled by a Javelin one of my work colleagues told us at his school for Health & Safety they watched that episode before attempting to Javelin!
People who use their hands and brains to build things have my greatest respect, it's what I do and I'm proud that I do it, and love doing it! Perhaps they should have "shed building" in the next Olympics, could be a medal in it! ILD OTBC
One thing that has not been mentioned is our climate. It is an obstacle in the way of not performing but training. When I lived in New Zealand there was nothing better than getting out for a run around the bays because the weather made it so. Training for a spring marathon in this country means pounding away in Jan/Feb/March gales and snow. Set the alarm for 5am and get up and pound a few miles out. Its only a small percentage of people who are going to do it. Eventually the top ones of those get rewarded by moving to California to train. Thats just running. How do you train for the javelin in winter? Open water swimming? Over the years our guys and gals have been talented but have had no facilities. Now with professionalism they have and the medal table grows. However, I hope you are right that is going to be an even larger generation inspired to tackle the **** end of sport that you have to go through to get to the apparent glamour. It isn't the XFactor where you can be **** but succeed.
