The Olympics

Has their been any mention of US tennis gold medalist Jack Sock, which I assume is the American name for a **** sock?

Gold medal for the Scottish British tennis player

Thank god for that, I can finally get to bed. Awesome mach though from both players.

That was a helluva game, well done Andy.

I’m hoping he found it a bit less stressful than it was watching it. How many breaks of serve was that? I think del Potro held his serve twice in the final set.

blimey, from lane 8 😯

^ and he made it look easy

Oh dear

Murray coming over to a little band of “English” supporters??????

love this photo 😀

Looks like Alan Patridge John Inverdale is being a drop kick as usual.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/15/andy-murray-john-inverdale-olympic-tennis-bbc-williams

Although, the more I watch it maybe I’m being too harsh. And it was just a genuine slip.

Why is it that The Grauniad feels no compunction in using the C word? 😯

Our horses are dancing well too.

Why is it that The Grauniad feels no compunction in using the C word?

Because it is just a word in the English language.

Maybe a stupid question…. But any if you lot know what the red frame is for on the inside Lane of the track cycling? Only one bike seems to have it… The rest are manually held up. Why only one “starting” frame thingy. Is it something to do with timing?

Ta!

Because it is just a word in the English language.

Is that the best you can come up with?

Doncorleoni- it’s effectively a start gate for the inside rider, the other riders can’t over take until the first lap is finished

Ah OK cheers! Cheers 😀

Dick move from Cav. What a surprise.

bloody hell Cav !

Laura Trott…… Awesome !

£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.

It’s not like the money would have been spent on half a hospital instead.

I could of course also come up with all sorts of other things more public money has been wasted on (not that the cost of team GB is public money in the normal sense, and nor is it wasted IMHO) 😉

Aye – its hard to get your head around. Look at it one way its a huge sum of money to have a few folk run and cycle fast and jump around a bit or throw things. Look at it another its a very small % of the nations GDP
1/3 of the cost of Edinburghs pretty useless tram line

If spending £350m encourages more folk to get out and get active then the cumulative effect on the NHS will be to reduce cost by a lot more than £350m. The question is; does Olympic success in what are quite costly/technical disciplines encourage participation in the wider public? There’s some evidence that it has in cycling. I’m not convinced that the number of shooters, yachters or horsists has increased much, possibly because the startup costs are too high.

Good point. Also if it makes folk happy they get less ill even if they don’t actually do any sport.

Anecdotally when in the 80s GB hockey won stuff my local club I played for went from struggling to raise 4 teams to easily raising 6. so that deffo was an olympic effect.

Pool has been noticeably busier every morning this week – all that talk about the greatest Olympian of all time 😉 . Good job MTB is a minority sport as the trails have been very quiet in contrast.

If we gave the Olympics up, we could afford EU membership – time for another vote….

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

So you didn’t even need me to provide examples!

Without any evidence at all (and I’m not going on a google search to find out) I’d think that our success must increase participation in sports. I’m sure it doesn’t in some sports (though I note that of those Colin mentions, the only one I really know anything about is sailing, and I’ve participated quite a bit in that without spending significant amounts of money – certainly it’s possible for aspiring talented junior to do it for similar costs to competing in cycling), but that doesn’t really matter as it increases interest in sports in general.

Hmm – doesn’t EU membership cost us every week what team GB spent in 4 years according to TJ’s figures?

Mens heavyweight final (91kg) result truly stinks! Cant believe the judges gave it to the Russian chap he got beat up for three rounds. Crowd booing after fight and during medal ceremony.

da silva taking gold in the high jump was superb! 🙂 good night all in at the athletics tonight.

Personally I’d ban the Olympics, we don’t need to put any money into anything that helps people to aspire to doing great things in their sport. It’s better to have a drab boring world where the closest thing to a sport is football.

Now it may just be me but I find all the IOC stuff is as craps as today’s politics but it never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there giving 100% for their sports. Like it or lump it, the Olympics is the best event we have to show case these people. Though the cost of putting on the event is getting a bit mad The Olympics does prove we can get a lot of people and countries from around the world together without the need to kill each other. For that alone it’s great.

As for the cost of the British Olympic team, given the people involved, the hard work at every level. It’s a great example of what can be done and we should be proud for them all, I am. Remember we got 1 gold medal at Atlanta (I think). Perhaps some people are more comforted by our sports people be the valiant losers, it probably means there is less of a challenge for them to get off their collective bottoms and do something.

carefully now or this could develop into a mild rant.

Now it may just be me but I find all the IOC stuff is as craps as today’s politics but it never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there giving 100% for their sports. Like it or lump it, the Olympics is the best event we have to show case these people.

Interesting. I love watching the Olympics and am inspired by the performances. And yes, it is a great showcase. But at the same time, I recognise the gross hypocrisy in it all – the cheating, the corruption, the regressive tax system that we use to fund it, the environmental damage, the cost etc – and wonder if it really is all worth it. Not as bad as the world cup though. I attended a lot of the the SA world cup. I found the finals utterly distasteful particularly the gross excesses and corrupt elite gathering a few miles from Soweto. I had to stand in a cold shower afterwards to “cleanse” myself of the distaste. It’s an odd world…

Still what’s on today?!?

Well they can always follow the England football team.

As pointed out the money would not go to hospital building. The lottery was set up as a means to fund art and sport because that funding was not going to come from central government. If people don’t want to fund those they don’t have to buy a ticket.

I spend less on lottery tickets than I do on the licence fee to watch the sports.

I see in the news that it costs £xM per medal. Rubbish. The funding is about more than Olympic medals, there are many more competitions than just the Olympics.

But the Olympics itself definitely needs a shake up.

The Oympics has its faults (many serious) but as above its the most wonderful showcase of talent from around the world, big uns, small uns, fast uns, slow uns 🙂

As for funding its brilliant lottery money supports Sports as well as all the other charitable endeavours. I believe the £360m is over 4 years and that supports a lot of people paying wages (and of course taxes on those).

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

£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.

Add in wages and you could get 2 paul pogbas! 😆

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.