Brilliant effort from our Olympians (apart from swimming). Was mentioned last night that without the swimming in the Olympics we would have come second. A condition of continued funding for that sport should be the resignation letters of those currently in charge- let's find the voices in that sport who have been disatisfied and give their methods a chance.
Sounds harsh but that is how we are going to push on from what already is a massively overachieving position.
Brilliant effort from our Olympians (apart from swimming). Was mentioned last night that without the swimming in the Olympics we would have come second. A condition of continued funding for that sport should be the resignation letters of those currently in charge- let's find the voices in that sport who have been disatisfied and give their methods a chance.
Sounds harsh but that is how we are going to push on from what already is a massively overachieving position.
That might not be the answer though. The fact is we are not going to be good at every sport, and swimming is arguably the second biggest sport behind Athletics in the Olympics. Many countries take swimming seriously, and America and Australia usually dominate. China made the effort to be good in Beijing and have since pushed on, and now have 3/4 world class swimmers. Our greatest medal hopes didn't perform, so that is not necessarily due to the men in charge. You have a choice with the funding, and it's a difficult one. Do you continue to invest and do as you say, make changes to improve, or cut the funding and not improve. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying you're not definitely right. It's a tough call to make.
A new approach may not be the answer, but always worth trying if the old approach definitely isn't. Rebecca Adlington got 2 bronzes, but she isn't a newbie so when you consider this the ouput has to be disapointing.
Maybe if we know we can't compete with big swimming nations we take all the funding away from the governing body and target money when and if a special talent comes along. The money saved can go to helping other sports who have shown they can take things forwards.
Britain has never been a big swimming nation, many large-ish towns don't have pools and serious sacrifices need to be made if you want to swim. I think it was Hanna Miley who trains in a 25m pool with barely enough room to turn around in and practice the turns. I wonder how many of her competitors were training in something similar? None of the serious ones I would think. Lottery funding and a more professional attitude has paid dividends elsewhere in many Olympic sports I don't know whether the head swimming coach is good or a disaster, but there's only so much he can do if the swimmers in the team don't have access to the right sort of equipment and facilities.
noticed how many european medalists were trained by British coaches in Britain (the Lithuanian girl for example)
maybe the funding needs to be increased to get those coaches training our athletes.
Lots of the current funding goes on the best foreign coaches for our athletes eg a German and Aussie for the rowers, Aussies for the cyclists and supporting Mo Farrah to live and train in the States...
I heard that almost £1 billion of the Olympic budget has gone on royalties for that sodding Vangelis music. That just cant be right can it? ;-)
I can't believe that we had to hear it at every single medal ceremony, couldn't they have given us a bit of variety? I was wondering what people from other countries made of it. Was Chariots of Fire big all over the world or just here in Puttnamland?
Comments
Sounds harsh but that is how we are going to push on from what already is a massively overachieving position.
Maybe if we know we can't compete with big swimming nations we take all the funding away from the governing body and target money when and if a special talent comes along. The money saved can go to helping other sports who have shown they can take things forwards.
It is just because there are so many swim medals that this is an area to focus on.
maybe the funding needs to be increased to get those coaches training our athletes.