[Closed] The Olympics

£350 million quid for team GB. Half a district general hospital. Is it good value for money? Money well spent? Is it a lot of money or peanuts? Can't make up my mind.

You could argue that it inspires lots of young people to take up sport for fun and keep fit meaning you won't need that half a district hospital to treat them in in later life! 😀

And £350m - it really is peanuts in world sport. Mercedes yearly F1 budget is around that.

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And £350m - it really is peanuts in world sport. Mercedes yearly F1 budget is around that.

A bit dressing that even the Althetics finals have poor crowds, last night there was pole vault, mens 800m and ladies 400m and still many many empty seats according to BBC

wonder what ticket prices were in relation to local wages...

https://www.rio2016.com/en/tickets

Olympic Tickets
This is your opportunity to see the greatest sporting event in the world up close. About 6.1 million tickets for the Olympic Games were put on sale – starting at R$20 and with more than half of them for R$70 or less.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/wages

Brazil Real Average Monthly Income 2012-2016 | Data | Chart | Calendar
Wages in Brazil decreased to 1972 BRL/Month in June from 1997 BRL/Month in May of 2016. Wages in Brazil averaged 2014.85 BRL/Month from 2012 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 2068 BRL/Month in March of 2014 and a record low of 1949 BRL/Month in March of 2012. Wages in Brazil is reported by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE).

fairly comparable to what you'd expect here tbh, in relation to wages.

how do you get a horse to do that..?

My pal was explaining yesterday - They do it with controlled conflict of instructions. The horse get instructions to move on/stand/left/right at the same time via feet/thighs/reigns and the position they are in. The difference is centimetres.

The horse anticipates the setting off and raises its rear legs. The rider just alternates the commands and so you get the dancing.

Mares are not used so much because they are more inconsistent especially at certain times of the month.

Thats all my horse knowledge used up.

How on earth was that irish boxer beaten on points

No one can watch that and think he lost

Is boxing really corrupt at the olympic level

You could argue that it inspires lots of young people to take up sport for fun and keep fit meaning you won't need that half a district hospital to treat them in in later life!

Well if it was going hand in hand with funding sporting facilities across the nation that would be fine, but in fact due to budget constraints local sporting facilities are closing at an alarming rate. So people may be getting inspired, then they find out they can't follow through because of a lack of facilities.

@seaso you have to be very careful with those IOC statements. They make average ticket prices low by having 100,000's of very cheap tickets for events like football.

Afternoon athletics including 200m semi finals and ladies discus final is deserted. 25% Now independent of ticket prices Rio is not somewhere I would go, there have been numerous robbery's of athletes and coaches already some at gun point. Not for me.

Agreed.

I love the 'Lympics, hope to have saved enough to go in 2024. Who are the potential host cities?

I think the next one in Tokyo would be a great one to go to.

I agree, but if I've saved enough cash to do the Olympics in 4 years time chances are i'll also have spent it again on Disney or something.

@theotherjonv - 2024 early early stage speculation but Paris is seen to be a favourite after missing out on 2012 when they where expected to win.

Back to the sport - judging in the boxing appears to have been shocking. It seems tossing a coin would have been fairer than actually bothering to fight!

MSP yes Tokyo will be amazing and I have half an eye on Rugby WC in 2019 but as a regular business traveller there it will be eye wateringly expensive as everything is so costly, hotels will be insane, food etc. London we got zero tickets despite making 2 applications for 18 events, in the end we got clearence tickets for swimming and last night of athletics but they where very expensive ones (eg athletics where £850 for 2 😯 ). Living locally meant I could see mens and ladies road race, mens TT free. I think in London for good athletics sessions 65% of tickets where press and athletic federations so only 35% for the public

[i]judging in the boxing appears to have been shocking[/i]

Always was in the amateurs - then they tried the scoring by punch, which was terrible, still prone to cheating and ruined amateur boxing as a spectacle, So they've gone back to pro-style judging and the cheating just started all over again. Love pro boxing, but can't watch the amateurs.

Anyway, up in the night and caught the women's volleyball - Brazil v China - amazing, catch the highlights if you can.. can't believe how tense i was 😆

Tokyo, everything is so costly, hotels will be insane, food etc.

Don't know where you've been doing but I travel a lot to Jan and lived there and that's just Not true at all, hotels (premier inn equivalents) around £30 a night and food is cheaper than here!

^^ interesting - happy to know how as I'm keen to go for RWC 2019

So the Irish fella that's been arrested for allegedly touting his tickets. Quite apart from how stupid it is to try and sell them off given the potential for getting caught (it's happened at previous games from memory) has he not noticed that all the stadia are empty and the organisers can't seem to give tickets away?

Men's Tri on now

mrhoppy its absolutely "standard practice" for officials to make coin on the side selling tickets they have been allocated (even free to them I think ?). Maybe he went over the top on scale but at most events its the easiest way to get finals tickets, especially prevelent in swimming and athletics IME. The 2012 last night athletic tickets I got through official resale where from an IOC member organisation who I bet failed to sell them on the balck market having never intended to use them (£850 a pair)

Note the organisers have already given the tickets away, the people they have given them too haven't turned up or more likley have failed to sell them on as they have wished. As I posted before I think 60% plus of 2012 althetics tickets are given away to press / ioc / coaches etc

that was good brownlees take gold and silver.

Awesome bruvs! 8)

Great triathlon race that, and the first event that I wanted to see and was on at a time I could watch.

ps I find it kind off annoying that the BBC don't have some commentary more than a min or 2 before and after the race, it is kind of weird that the commentary is cut so abruptly.

If Nicola Adams wins gold, her coach had better hope she hasn't seen this 😯

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/36690936

Just read shocking news about the dreadful state of finances for the Paralympics. They will go ahead but with significantly reduced budgets for venues, transport etc. Travel assistance payments are only just being released and some 10 countries are at risk of being unable to attend. Ticket sales have been dire, just 12% The Brazilians have got some extra mkney together after a change in the law allowing state aid but its a terrible state of affairs

[url= http://www.bbc.com/sport/disability-sport/37135083 ]BBC[/url]

I think it was amazing the way the British public supported the paralympics, unfortunately I think that well could be the outlier, I don't see many if any other countries doing the same, including the US and rest of Europe.

It should perhaps be that the IOC/host country have to underwrite the event in future, and that sponsors of the Olympics include the paralympics as part of the package.

I don't see that happening though and just think that future paralympics games will be seriously scaled back from the offset, London will have been the peak.

Some of these Women hockey players are exceedingly fit....might actually watch some of it! 🙂

Man Utd 1-0 Soton. 😈

I never realised how pleasant hockey could be to watch 🙂

Aside from being exceedingly easy on the eye I didn't realise how bloody entertaining hockey was.

Its like football, but without all the prancing and faking injuries. Just proper injuries.

Arse.

Is there always so much dribbling. It's like a team of Raheem Sterlings, all running into the massed defensive ranks.

There hasn't been so much in the last couple of matches I've watched, these two are much more closely matched.

Credit where credit is due - Nick Skelton does it again

Second gold medal at 58 years old, having come back from a broken neck and replacement hip

1-1. Dutch are very very good. If we can weather this there is a chance they'll blow themselves out he says optimistically

2-1 Arse
2-2 yay!

This is like the basket ball 😆

2 observations from today, tae kwoon do is a terrible sport, and why don't the bmxers just grow up a use proper bikes?

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😆

What a performance, under the kosh and finish 3-3

Penalty shoot out 😐

Teppee and wigwam at the moment

Yes

blinkin heck 😀

Wow!

I did think we had to be favourites as soon as it went to penalties, but decided posting that thought might be a jinx

Those shoot outs are tough

GET IN 😀 😀 😀

brilliant

much more interesting than football penalty shootouts