NO Olympic Medals - why not?

[Polyanthus2]

It seems weird we are doing so badly in the winter olympics - is it because of Covid and athletes couldn't get to the best places to train?

Any other suggestions?

Australia won 4 this year

There are plenty of ski resorts in Australia.

There isn’t much to encourage kids to take part at the moment. It was the same with the summer games. Discovery plus bought the rights so they have all of the coverage. The BBC have to buy in what is available so the content is restricted on the BBC unlike previous games where the BBC were the main broadcaster. To get more coverage at the moment, you need to sign up to discovery plus. People won’t do that.

Obviously, that doesn’t answer why we aren’t getting the results these winter games but I do agree that we don’t have the facilities to enable kids to try winter sports. I am in Scotland. We have a curling rink fairly close by but that’s it.

Winter sports aren’t taught at school in the same way running, athletics etc are.

Well done to the curlers! Fab result & so pleased for them all. I love Eve Muirhead - she seems so calm and level headed & also like she takes no shit from anyone!

Eve, as I said in my previous post, is an absolute fucking LEGEND!!!!!! Absolutely delighted for the women's team. So well deserved, they played exceptionally well.

@mathanxiety

I think we should withdraw the funding for winter sports. The money would be spent better elsewhere. We've just wasted millions on plain average skiiers and snowboarders - we will never have another Torvill and Dean (don't think they were bestowed with taxpayers money)

The fact that Team GB four man bobsled had to crowdfund to get to the Olympics was mentioned on American coverage.

Nobody else had to do that. The UK should be cringing that you are officially the strange curiosities of winter sport as far as American audiences are concerned. The image of the plucky no-hopers competing on a shoestring budget isn't impressive.

Either fund winter sport sufficiently to get results or don't fund it at all. Or if your athletes need to crowdfund, don't advertise that. It makes the UK look broke and sort of pathetic.

I'm cringing that you think anyone should give a fuck what Americans think of us 🤣🤣

We used to have army competitors in the sleds etc

Great Scottish teams in curling

Some individual competitors in other sports.

We aren't a winter sports country.

That doesn't stop the Games being fascinating.

@merrymouse

In what parallel universe does the UK do better than most European countries in sport?

The parallel universe of the Summer Olympics medal table ever since targeted lottery funding was introduced.

British sports funding follows success - previous medal winning record in that sport - and at a grass routes level, potential for participation.

Sports like sailing and rowing are expensive, but in the U.K. it’s easier to get a Steve Redgrave into a boat than skiing down a mountain.

Yes, we won more medals than any other European country in the last three Olympic Games I believe.

[quote BasiliskStare]@nettie434 - I do believe funding follows medals ( know someone who was a paralympian but in their sport they did not qualify )[/quote]
Yes. Until Tokyo it had been a largely successful policy but it does become controversial if a particular sport does not reach the expected medals target. It's not perfect but it's a huge change from my childhood when there was often only one British gold medallist at the summer Olympics.

Merrymouse was right to point out that equipment is a barrier to participation as well as our lack of snow. That's why athletics, football, skateboarding and BMX cycling always have wider participation rates than sports like skiing, sailing etc. However, I was really interested to see a documentary in which Helen Glover explained she was good at sport but had never rowed. She went to an open event targeted at non rowers who had the physique and athletic potential to become a rower. She was then given the training and equipment she needed to fulfil her potential. That was a good day's work by whoever thought she could become a good rower.

Why aren't football and rugby in the Winter games? They are winter sports, not summer sports.

Winter sports generally have an element of ice or snow

@nettie434, many of the American bobsledders are university or professional American football players. Some of the speedskaters started in inline skating or were just good all rounders. I live within driving distance of a major speed skating rink (US) and remember several Olympics ago flyers being distributed in local schools encouraging people looking for a sport to try speed skating. One kid who answered the call has represented the US in a few Olympics now.

I'm cringing that you think anyone should give a fuck what Americans think of us

Traditionally, presenting a prosperous and forward looking face to the world via sports funding and the results that follow have been a part of a broader display of soft power.

Apparently that isn't the case for the UK any more.

I know our speed skaters (not the short track ones) sell coffee to fund being able to participate in competitions. When they're having to self fund, it's enough of an achievement to just get to the Olympics (summer or winter).

@mathanxiety Thanks. I didn't know that about speed skating or the bobsledders. Flyers/other publicity seem a sensible way of attracting people who might not have known about a particular sport or not had the resources to try it.

Definitely agree that all countries use sport to show their soft power. In some cases, motives are more sinister, like Hitler's Berlin Olympics. Increasingly we see sports washing in football, Formula 1, and golf. Governments, governing sports bodies, and companies selling TV rights definitely bother about their image, even if some individual citizens don't.

Traditionally, presenting a prosperous and forward looking face to the world via sports funding and the results that follow have been a part of a broader display of soft power.

Apparently that isn't the case for the UK any more.

You can argue about whether or not/how long this has ever been a U.K. priority, but nobody has ever expected the U.K. to excel at the Winter Olympics for the obvious reasons already stated on this thread.

It’s difficult for many people to access rowing and sailing, but sailing and rowing clubs get funding if they encourage participation, and if talent is spotted there are rowing lakes, reservoirs, rivers and coast in the U.K. if you live in the right place access to rowing and sailing clubs is relatively easy.

We just don’t have suitable snow conditions for winter sports.

The curling seems to have been interminable this year, were there always so many rounds and various ways to compete? It feels like it’s been on for six months.

@merrymouse

Traditionally, presenting a prosperous and forward looking face to the world via sports funding and the results that follow have been a part of a broader display of soft power.

Apparently that isn't the case for the UK any more.

You can argue about whether or not/how long this has ever been a U.K. priority, but nobody has ever expected the U.K. to excel at the Winter Olympics for the obvious reasons already stated on this thread.

mathanxiety abandons logic when there’s an opportunity to Brit-bash. It’s a pattern across the board.

@nettie434 you say it was a god days work by whoever spotted helen glovers potential…it was nothing to do with spotting individual potential and everything to do with maximizing number of medals per pound invested. Same as the reason we won womens skeleton a few years back with someone who had never done it until 4 years earlier.

There are sports such as rowing, cycling, bobsled where if you take someone with the correct physique and attitude and train them efficiently you can go from beginner to medalist in an few years. Because they are basically about strength.

What you can’t do is take a mid 20s beginner and make a skater/gymnast out of them. Not only are Those sports won by teenagers (in the womens category anyway) but they rely on decades of training which cannot be done elsewhere. There’s no skating equivalent of an exercise bike or rowing machine (which may not be identical to the real thing but will train all the right muscles)

Thanks DorotheaDiamond. So that's why Helen Glover could be so 'old' when she started rowing and why Kamila Valieva was an Olympic finalist aged 15? I heard an interview with Claudia Fragapane last week talking about Kamila Valieva finishing fourth. It reminded me of how Claudia was only about 18 when she competed on Strictly, much younger than the other contestants, and yet she already had an established career as a gymnast.