Jack Wilshere in contention for Olympics

Here's a way of bringing it onto the same level ... if someone comes up to you here and says "I was part of the team that won the Superbowl, here's my medal" ... people generally won't give a damn outside a general "Oo, that's nice, well done". You can tell them how the Superbowl is watched by more people across the world than yada yada, and how big it is ... but the response will still be the same.

But you go to anybody and say you've got an Olympic gold medal, and the level of respect is automatically higher. Among people who love football, they'll see your other footballing achievements as bigger ... but we're not talking about those people. We're talking about society at large, non-football and non-sports fans included. The Olympic gold medal has universal respect and recognition across the entire world. Doesn't matter what the sport is (which is the beauty of it).

That's really all there is to say on the topic. People will try and misinterpret it to only take into account a certain type of person or a certain group of people, or even only "our country's society" to try and change the point in their favour ... but there's really no arguing with the Olympics being the biggest sporting event on Earth and having universal recognition across the planet. Onto other threads before this goes round in more circles.

 

Apart from the athletics events and possibly a few smaller sports like Hockey and shooting, I would be far more impressed by them winning their World cups than a gold olympics medal

In fact boxing at any weight is a very good example, especially as I don't particularly like boxing.

George Foreman won Olympic gold and so did Joe Frazier. BUT they are remembered for being Heavyweight champions of the World and I'm pretty sure that they value that more than their Olympic Golds. Same with Lennox Lewis and various other boxers.

Certainly if I met any of those 3, I'm sure they would be bragging about being champion of the World, rather than having won an olymics gold medal.

The same is certainly true of Football and quite a few other things in the olympics.

 

i get what your trying to say, except i feel there is a different between an olympic gold medal in football to something like athletics. i mean, everybody (i know, a generalisation) knows that Usain Bolt won the 100m at the last olympics, but could you tell me who won the football? or even a player on the team that on it? i certainly couldn't, and i follow football a lot more than running, you can be sure of that.

the olympics, in general, is the biggest sporting event in the world, but going back to the original topic of should jack play, and then would he prefer a PL or an olympic medal, you have to look at football as an event in the olympics. it is not big, i'm sure you will agree with me, and so if i were a footballer, i would much rather take another medal (world cup, CL, even europa league) over the olympics, because once you mention that it was football in the olympics, people think that you were an amateur, because football in the olympics used to be for amateurs only.

 

You are confusing the olympics as a whole with olympic events. Some olympic events are well known by people all over the world and are held up as fantastic achievments to win a gold medal - e.g the 100m for men. Football is not one of them. As has been pointed out before a football World Cup winners medal is worth far far more to to the general public - football fan or not - than an olympic gold for football. In fact the World Cup final is bigger than any single Olympic sporting event - and is watched by more people.

To put it in persective:

Ok-Hee Yun won a womens gold in Archery in 2008
Xavi won a World Cup winners medal in 2010

Which one do you think would be held in highest esteem worldwide?

 

This is it in a nutshell. Sports like Football and Boxing (you could include Tennis and Golf) are already established in their own fields as having the most prestigious awards.

Olympic glory is reserved primarily for Athletes of Track and Field, the Pool and the Floor where their respective sports do not have events on the same professional level that offer the same rewards for Football and the other sports mentioned.

 

The biggest football tournament in the world is almost upon us...

The race for olympic football gold.

Men's draw:
Group A: Great Britain (A1), Senegal (A2), United Arab Emirates (A3), Uruguay (A4)
Group B: Mexico (B1), South Korea (B2), Gabon (B3), Switzerland (B4)
Group C: Brazil (C1), Egypt (C2), Belarus (C3), New Zealand (C4)
Group D: Spain (D1), Japan (D2), Honduras (D3), Morocco (D4)

16 of the best right there... If we can get past Gabon we've got a real chance of glory

Women's draw:
Group E: Great Britain (E1), New Zealand (E2), Cameroon (E3), Brazil (E4)
Group F: Japan (F1), Canada (F2), Sweden (F3), South Africa (F4)
Group G: USA (G1), France (G2), Colombia (G3), Korea DPR (G4)


Forget the Euro's, this is where its at!

 

Or ... Brazil and Spain, maybe?

 

Or ... Brazil and Spain, maybe?

Those tables have been known for months, what's with the necrothread ...?

 

Thought I would just revive the discussion on the biggest football tournament in the world - bigger than the World Cup

 

The World cup is the biggest event on Earth not he Olympics. Ignoring skewed figures for both events (Olympics and World Cup), the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony - not the actual sporting events I hasten to add - had the largest ever viewing audience worldwide - but that was because the Chinese tuned in !! The World Cup continually posts higher viewing figures than any other event. More people tune in to watch the World Cup than the Olympics "normally".

 

Biggest sporting event in the world. Not the biggest football event.

Sounds like your reason for resurrecting the thread is that you're not getting your fill of whinging and pissing off people on purpose during the off-season, so you're actively looking for a fight now, mm? Missing your spats with PISKIE or something?

 

.. no, as the olympics was getting closer I just remembered it. It was funny.

 

... you realise that's not true, right? I mean, statistically, factually, it's not true. Did you try using Google? The Olympics as a whole has quite significantly more viewers and is broadcast in more countries than the World Cup tournament as a whole.

 

Whatever mate, just sayin' ... if you can't afford the price of a prossy, kinda weird tryna get your human contact from here.

 

The olympic football final will get a fraction of the viewers of the world cup final . You did say that an olympic football gold medal was better than having the winners medal of the World Cup.

 

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O_0

 

Nope I looked at viewing figures, not cumulatives either. The opening ceremony is watched by more people than watch other days but only the Beijing Olympics got more viewers than the World Cup final and that was only because China tuned in to watch that !

I didn't say more nations watched or took part, I am talking about viewing figures

 

Sorry but I have never thought of the Olympic gold medal as being highly prized in football. Not as highly as the WC or Euros/whatever federation you play for.
It's obviously an honour to have but I don't think you would find many who would swap their PL/CL/WC medals for an Olympic gold.

 

That sounds about right. Don't worry it is inevitable that Jayram will come out with some such bollocks soon enough and we'll be off on one at each other again