BHuyuing medals well that is the only way we can win medals buyinmg medals is just another term for investing in sport.
Also it is nothing to do with the competitive ethos, that maded the privater schools pourude so many sports winners it is because they have more money. People should be allowed to do non competeive or competitive sport if they want. I prefer competitve sport. But people should have a choice. :

We get to hear quite a lot of Syed ’round these parts, but is any of this much of a surprise considering his Blairite activism of the past?

Does he really think that he can complain about elitism being the cause of his own misfortune not to be able to win an Olympic medal?

Perhaps he should look at the barriers to entry in motorsport rather than cycling, particularly since success is more lucrative.

Of course this country has been trying to buy medals in the most cost effective way possible, like all others. It just happens that the mechanism of central funding is more suited to supporting individual excellence and rather than developing a true sporting cultural infrastructure we are a hugely unhealthy nation which can only win medals in the various disciplines of sitting-down sports.

Some rather obvious points:

* If Britain has been “buying medals” it’s far from the first country to do so (East Germany used to specialise in funding sports where the funding was most likely to bring them medals).

* The Olympics has obviously never, ever, been egalitarian.

* It’s probably true for most gold medallists that they wouldn’t have won if everyone in the world had access to top-quality training, funding, etc. So what? They are still the brest in the world at what they do, and can be proud of it.

I’m a cynical bastard, and not a big sports fan, but I’m still proud of our Olympic athletes and how well they have done.

Thomas,

I had quite a lot more ‘sticks’ with which to thwack Mr. Syed, but I’d already gone so far over Sunny’s suggested word limit…

as to:

“It just happens that the mechanism of central funding is more suited to supporting individual excellence and rather than developing a true sporting cultural infrastructure we are a hugely unhealthy nation which can only win medals in the various disciplines of sitting-down sports.”

Firstly, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop repeating this “sitting-down sports” categorisation, which (even if unintentionally) belittles the nature of these events – can you tell I used to be a rower? We did win medals in “hitting people”, “jogging & hopping”, “bouncing around on things” & “failing to drown”, you know… ) Although clearly the closure of rural post offices took its toll on our ability to deliver a small, cylindrical package around the track without mishap

AS to central funding & the ‘sporting culture’, I highly recommend following the link to the SportEngland Annual Report – there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there…and *you* don’t have to chod your way through the accounts

I’ve got the stats on seperate categories of sport-related consumer spending, 1995-2005 (adjusted for inflation), if anyone’s having issues with insomnia?

p.s. Track Cycling is probably the ideal sport for Manchester’s climate, so it makes perfect sense to invest in it…

Ok Andy, I admit I was elaborating on a point.

I’m a big fan of hockey (well, it’s all relative) and I’m dismayed at how such a beautiful and absorbing spectacle can be so easily overlooked. But providing aditional funding for the national set-up and hoping extra conditioning will compensate for a lack of technical expertise simply won’t cut it when the team approaches the highest level. In the end 6th place was as much as we could have hoped for.

I’m sorry if it belittles track cycling or rowing in your eyes to suggest they compete more on physicality than technical or tactical ability (not exclusively, obviously) compared to team sports where fluidity of movement and spatial awareness add additional layers of complexity to the challenge, because I prefer to think it is the idiosyncracies of each sport which validates them in their own right.

However, to be successful at the highest level in team sports it is necessary to have full and competitive infrastructure in place. Yet it is simply far more expensive to support 16 club teams each with 20 full-time professionals from central funds while there is the possibility of only one medal up for grabs in their category, when one Chris Hoy or Rebecca Adlington can provide a massive return on a relatively small monetary investment by bribing them with rewards of promotional work while tying them down to be an ambassador for the struggle imposed on them (it strikes me that Rebecca Adlington is already appearing far more cynical about the way the media manipulates the way images are projected – how quickly the innocence is stripped away!).

If our current medal tally remains dependant on poverty-level handouts from central government into the future then what high-level legacy will persist beyond once 2012 is behind us? There will just be a bunch of expensive faciliities which few people could afford to use even if they hadn’t been superceded in the meantime (Beijings water cube is expected to be technologically obsolete and incapable of setting new records within 2 years).

£70,000 was too much to find to support Amir Khan up to Beijing, yet that is less than the amount UK Athletics provides in appearance fees for the Grand Prix in the men’s sprint alone!

Frankly the report you link to shows how everything gets sucked into a nihilistic econometric matrix concieved and devised by the Treasury – it’s all about how many jobs are supported and how much merchandise can be shifted. But they fail to measure or acknowledge any of the intangible benefits created by participation in the spread of the inspiring ethos which sport provides. In this way the Treasury is responsible for our decline into pure materialism.

There are simply far too many amateur politicians administering sports authorities in this country, and too many frustrated sportsmen filling professional political posts at the highest level of government.

Thomas,

“I’m sorry if it belittles track cycling or rowing in your eyes to suggest they compete more on physicality than technical or tactical ability (not exclusively, obviously)”

That’s not what you said in your first comment, and not what I criticised. You (lazily?) used an expression the Australians originally promoted in an attempt to devalue the successes of GB athletes. [Wonder how the Aussies competing in these "sitting down sports" felt about that jibe? ]

I agree with you and appreciate the different needs/difficulties faced by what might be best termed “creative” sports (especially team games) compared with “discipline” sports – I’ve competed (i.e. taken seriously!) rugby, basketball, football, rowing, athletics and ‘olympic’ weightlifting, although my best performance there was a distant 2nd place in the 77kg class, Scottish Eastern Districts Championship 2002

I don’t understand why you seem so horrendously gloomy about the current state of hockey, to be honest – that view’s not supported by the info/stats to be found on GB Hockey or English hockey’s websites, [http://www.englandhockey.co.uk/page.asp?section=70&sectionTitle=Clubs] and download the “What did England Hockey do for clubs?” PDF or indeed participation/demographic data from SportEngland..except for one thing. There’s a drop-off of c. 11,000 players a year between the ages of 16-18, roughly 11% of *all* hockey players, and almost twice as great as that of rugby (6,000), which has a much larger overall player base – (and yet can still only support less than 600 professional players in the 12-team premiership and about half of division 1.)

Now, hockey will be suffering from the sale of playing fields, [but this is being combated by partnership programmes between clubs & schools - one small example being in the SportEngland Annual Report that we both read] – yet still remains a fixture in a very large number of schools (33,000 junior members of English hockey isn’t exactly bad). It’s one of SportEngland’s 10 priority sports (this is for sport development/community funding, to be clear), and additionally received just over £34k per annum for 2005-09 for each of 68 elite players from UKsport. That’s not “poverty” level funding, now is it? And they, at least, got a reasonable wad of “not Freeview/Cable option 17″ coverage from the Beeb…

[Chris Hoy - multiple world champion, olympic champion, holder of world & olympic records - personally gets £24,199 (which is subject to means testing) from UkSport, just in case anyone was interested]

>”bribing them with rewards of promotional work while tying them down to be an ambassador for the struggle imposed on them”

I’m sorry, but what? Have you read/seen any interviews with Chris Hoy lately? He’s a walking refutation of the TPA’s “lottery funding leads to welfarism, which is always BAD” argument. I’ve been lucky enough to share a lifting platform with the guy (hell, he went to the same school as me, and I still remember the first day he turned up at the rowing club as a gangly 14-or-so-year old) – and in addition to being a complete beast in the gym, he’s the most professional, dedicated, embodiment of ‘sporting ethos’ guy you could ever want to meet, and understood perfectly his responsibilities…

How 2012 will survive PFI is anybody’s guess. As long as the buildings are fit for purpose afterwards, why should we be bothered that they aren’t going to produce world records galore? A medal’s still a medal…

“£70,000 was too much to find to support Amir Khan up to Beijing”
hmmm…in every report I could find surrounding the ABA/UK sport ‘amateur’offer, Khan’s pulling-out of the ABA champs (because they couldn’t/wouldn’t transfer to a bigger venue to accommodate his fans, allegedly), and his signing-up with Frank Warren, there was no mention of the money being “too much”…?

“Frankly the report you link to shows how everything gets sucked into a nihilistic econometric matrix concieved and devised by the Treasury – it’s all about how many jobs are supported and how much merchandise can be shifted. But they fail to measure or acknowledge any of the intangible benefits created by participation in the spread of the inspiring ethos which sport provides. In this way the Treasury is responsible for our decline into pure materialism.”

We clearly didn’t read the same report – although I did have the benefit of also having to go through most of the rest of the “resources” links on the SportEngland website. I heartily recommend them.

And your laying of all blame at the door of “The Treasury”…? To use Matthew Syed’s own sport as an example: the English Table Tennis Association’s Annual Report 07-08, makes it abundantly clear that 86% of their entire income came from SportEngland, UkSport & other government grants – without those, structured table tennis in England would, frankly, collapse, and all the game’s benefits, “intangible and ethos-inspiring” or otherwise would be lost.

Cheers,

Andy

When the euphoria of the jingoistic self-congratulation has died down many of today’s heroes will be left with the dawning realisation that their victory was fleeting and pretty hollow.

A couple of new Olympic ambassadors may mask the fact that most of our medal winners will be forgotten, however that certainly doesn’t justify the politics which inform the organisation and funding of sports in this country.

I’m surprised that we allow ourselves to be drawn into the sentimental sensationalising associated with top-down paternalism – it is an attitude summed up by the post victory interview with Nicole Cooke: when asked whether the satisfaction made up for the disappointment of finishing fifth last time round she looked shocked, responding that fifth isn’t a bad result in your debut games – I guess spectators only care about reflected glory!

Sure, central funding is a step forward from the aristocratic amateurism which existed previously, but it is a definite hinderance to serious professionalism.

Compare the results procured from our relatively wealthy funding mechanism with those attained by the Jamaicans or Kenyans in the spotlight events of athletics – genetics and weather don’t make any difference, whatever anyone says, and anyway Linford Christie has Jamaican heritage and training can be undertaken anywhere (see Mara Yamauchi).

Jamaica (as well as other caribbean islands) are highly successful in the sprints and Kenyans (as well as many african nations) in distance running because there is a true cultural affinity which is cultivated in those places. In both there is a highly developed competitive infrastructure which identifies and develops talent and places a high value on success in these areas because it is seen as an end in itself and also a means to a greater end at both individual and social levels.

In both places it was catholic missionaries who founded and promotde athletics clubs as a way to give kids a discipline which would train them for life building on good natural habits. The example set across generations has demonstrated how lives can be transformed, keeping them out of gangs and crime and teaching them a solid grounding in values like honesty and hard work. This has transferred into providing an avenue for self-improvement enabling many to win athletic scholarships to college in the USA, providing travel opportunities and for the best of them a lucrative (if short-lived) career on the prize-money circuit. Sport is a real way out of deprivation.

Chris Hoy, by frank comparison, is an oddity in our cycling team because he doesn’t see it as a way into a road-racing career. A better example would be Mark Cavendish, who finished ninth in the Madison, despite winning four stages of the Tour de France and two of the Giro d’Italia (and is widely considered the dominant sprinter in the world) – he is following a path pioneered by Chris Boardman. The Australians Cadel Evans, Baden Cooke and Stuart O’Grady all share a grounding in Olympic competition, as do many Dutch who have an elite programme specifically aimed in this direction.

So to use the exceptional Chris Hoy as a model case for central funding when he is the exception is to falsify the evidence.

And do you think that providing a national median wage is any incentive to attempt to step up to that level for any number of kids? The Jamaicans and Kenyans know that to achieve sporting excellence they will see real benefits which will raise the living standards of them, their families and in some cases large numbers of their home communities too.

Even in Australia sporting excellence raises the status of the individual inordinately – so much than many leading politicians originate from the sports field, bringing with them the ethos which brought them success.

In Britain, however, the carrot which is dangled is an obligatory civic receptionand a potential invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace, where they might get to meet the Queen or other minor royal!

A medal might be great but (as Bobby Moore discovered) you can’t pay your mortgage with it.

Excellence is devalued as an end in itself because it is treated as a means of qualification for higher society from where everyone must start anew from the bottom. It is THIS which disincentivises participation for the wider masses, doing so both directly and indirectly.

Our current funding system simply reinforces the establishment status quo.

If we want to get people fit by getting them to participate in sports we must provide a tangible reward structure, so that society recieves the intangible benefits in areas as diverse as health and law & order.

Suggesting that removal of central funding would see participation in minority sports collapse is pure bunkum.

The LTA, for example, has had a mission to develop future Wimbledon champions for decades and yet the greatest British success stories (Henman, Rusedski and Murray) all graduated outside of it. The golden age of British tennis was purely a result of a highly organised social scene from which developed a series of successful tournaments where the best and most committed players honed themselves and learnt from their colleagues. Similarly table tennis was hugely successful in the UK until the early sixties without central intervention because local leagues were highly organised and even lead to the introduction of the first proper table tennis world championships at Wembley (I recommend a visit to the museum to find out more).

Syed is biased by his political motivations (that’s what drove him onwards, so he admits himself, despite his tactical deficiencies – though he ignores any financial advantages he benefitted from) and doesn’t know what’s good for him. If table tennis were to regress to amateur status for a period it might actually do the administration some good by liberating them from state dependency culture and force them to organise themselves properly, or at least listen to the wisdom of the emergent stars who dedicate themselves to the pursuit of excellence and do what is necessary rather than the indulging in suffocating feather-bedding of their vested interests.

A true corinthian wouldn’t make any excuses.

OK, rant over.