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Is Redgrave right?

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-sports/43248240

I think he has a point, up to a point, but I suspect Dave Ryding might be a bit miffed.
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I thought the funding was to try and increase our medal success, and how much depended on historical and likely future success.

Not much rowing done at schools round here; but most have ski trips.
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Hmm, give more money to the sport that we gave a lot of money to and failed at, and stop giving money to the ones that brought home medals?

He's possibly got a bit of a point, but curling isn't something that many of us can do easily either. My nearest dryslope is 10 minutes away, my nearest rink is the best part of 3 hours.
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He might, but I don't fully agree with him.

Like @Mosha Marc, I thought the idea was to increase our medal chances and fund future talent coming up through the sports/disciplines.

The problem is that this time around the expectation was too high and those who were thought to deliver didn't, so funding in general has the spot light on it.

Look at the embarrassing situation regarding the women bobsleigh, they had there funding stopped, crowd funded and obtained better results than the all the men teams!

In curling we can only have the one team, so funding that more won't necessarily result in more medals, possibly more athletes to choose from for the team, but I'm under the impression we have enough of these.

Similar with speed skating/short track. Currently a group of young athletes who hopefully over the next two Olympics will bring back some medals, of which I don't think Christie will be one of?

There are a good few athletes who are on word circuits in their disciplines who go very much unnoticed until such time as the Olympics, unless you follow winters sports, who I'm sure would very much disagree with him.
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We could avoid the sports that are effectively a game of chance: skier and boarder cross
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Maybe invest in an organized drugs programme ?
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He has a point. The Netherlands example is a bit pointless though. Long distance speed skating is a bit of a national sport although the dykes don’t freeze up as much any more!
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I don't really see the connexion between "participant" sports and professional competitive sport such as Olympics. It's not like you dick around playing football at your local sports centre and suddenly find yourself winning the football world cup: that's not how it works.

I suppose he's arguing for funding competitive sport in an inefficient way. I can't see how that would benefit anyone. If you want to participate, then you don't need funding to help. If you want to spectate, you need funding if you're remotely partisan, and they all are.

I seem to recall that our largest participant sport is fishing. Lottery losers could fund that I guess...?.

--
A good point about rowing, which isn't a sport I came across being council-funded in the dark satanic hills,. We did have a council ski slope however.
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Would have thought that he would appreciate the idea of having a dream. We've been brilliant at skeleton from this .

You only need an ice rink to do figure skating, dancing and speed skating.

I don't think his comments makes sense.


Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Fri 2-03-18 10:29; edited 1 time in total
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For a lot of athletes, irregardless of their sport, the funding is less about directly providing large infrastructure like luge tracks or velodromes, and more about providing the framework which allows them to train and compete to elite standards through management, fitness, physio and recovery etc. Thats not to say there aren't the occasional 'big toys' like the airbag that GB park'n'pipe got for training, but thats again leading into allowing the athletes to train while reducing the physical risk of learning and landing new tricks.
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Redgrave is hugely out of touch.

All of our skiers and boarders started or honed their skills on their local dry slopes, or they were gymnasts and migrated their skills. Our skeleton athletes are the best in the world, would he cut their funding because they can't practice in the UK?

Curling I don't really get. It feels about as much an Olympic sport as darts, but I guess he would fund that.

He needs to take a look at why we fund sport at all. It's to give people the chance to develop natural talent and whether they do that in Berkshire or in Tignes, isn't really relevant.
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I'm struggling to believe curling is a sport....

It's bowls on ice.....a game best played by octogenarians.
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I am not clear why any Olympic sport merits public funding. Not saying that it clearly doesn’t either. But I don’t see the logic.
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 You know it makes sense.
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As a former rower I have the up most respect for Redgraves achievements in his chosen sport, Steve as a sportsman and athlete should in my opinion be an ambassador and supporter for every sports person that has given their all to their chosen sport
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Funnily enough I keep bumping into Redgrave. At a clay pigeon shoot a few months back and the we walked through security at LHR together on Sunday. I think he’s stalking me.

I think Redgrave has a point, but it all depends what you think the purpose of the funding is. As @achilles, says, it’s hard to understand the logic of funding elite sport unless you believe the purpose is to buy a few medals just to create an illusion of national pride. Funding a sport like bobsleigh or speed skating, neither of which we really do as a nation seems particularly daft. I’d rather we put the money into funding sport generally and if we happen to win a few medals at the end of it, the whoop de doo. If we don’t, then so what? The £28m we spent on the Winter Olympics athletes would have built quite a few tennis courts around the country or astros, or whatever.
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@philwig,
Quote:

I don't really see the connexion between "participant" sports and professional competitive sport such as Olympics. It's not like you dick around playing football at your local sports centre and suddenly find yourself winning the football world cup: that's not how it works.

Two points:

1.i think that’s exactly how it works. The stronger your grass roots sport, the more likely it is that you will produce champions.

2. I understood the underlying justification for funding competitive sport and especially the 2012 olympics was to increase public participation. Setting aside the fact that it didn’t really work, there isn’t much point in inspiring half the population to be bobsleigh champions when we don’t have any tracks.
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foxtrotzulu wrote:
The £28m we spent on the Winter Olympics athletes would have built quite a few tennis courts around the country or astros, or whatever.

A recent complaint is that basketball doesn't get any funding even though there are a lot of players.
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@foxtrotzulu, speed skating I can sort of get as if we built loads of Ice Rinks and had proper training schools etc. we could probably do okay (look at the Dutch, albeit of course they have a far greater skating heritage), its one of the few Winter Olympic sports we could actually prepare athletes for in the UK (also of course the facilities could be used by the figure skaters and Ice Hockey teams so multi-purpose venues would work).

For the sliding sports, Bobsleigh in particular I know McLaren have been involved, but surely some smooth talking corporate types could get more sponsorship from the F1 teams in return for a few logo's splashed around here and there.

Then all we need is the world's biggest snowdome to train our skiiers....
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achilles wrote:
I am not clear why any Olympic sport merits public funding. Not saying that it clearly doesn’t either. But I don’t see the logic.

I am not clear why any "professional" sport merits public funding - Olympic or otherwise. And by "professional" I would include any where UK Sport puts sufficient money in that participants effectively become full-time athletes and don't have to earn any money (from work / sponsorship / whatever) elsewhere. No issue with funding facilities, medical support etc

Money should go to the grass roots, for both Olympic and non-Olympic sports. The latter are now almost completely ignored, even if we have world-class players!
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He does have a point but glazes over the almost £300m spent on the Rio games (I understand there are many more athletes and disciplines) - but that still equates to an additional £200k per athlete compared to the winter Olympians.. so we’re actually spending more on home grown sports already.
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Doesn’t Sport England money mainly come from the National Lottery funding? Quite happy to be corrected on this point.

National Lottery/Sport England also funds Inspired Facilities where clubs involved with delivering sports at grass roots level can lay their hands on cash, other funding is available.

There is no getting away from the fact that we are best at sports involving sitting on or in the case of the skeleton lying down; if our mission is medals sports involving technology is what we do best ... sailing, cycling, rowing and skeleton have delivered the bulk of UK medals in recent years, but these require considerable investment. I don’t know the maths, but I suspect that supporting Lizzie Yarnold is less than running a Basketball squad for a four year cycle, and I suspect she offers a much better chance of meddling.

I believe that this approach does inspire participation and uplifts the National mood.

IMO the problem with team sports and athletics is that the place that sport holds at schools is diminishing, not helped by selling off playing fields.
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If your goal is to produce a lot of Olympic champions then you need to fund both grassroots and a fully professional set up for elite level. There are only relatively few Olympic sports which generate sufficient revenue that the athletes can earn a decent living. And only a tiny minority of athletes become superstars and get rich

The real question is whether we in fact want to produce a lot of Olympic champions and whether it is worth the money spent.

One argument is that success in the Olympics encourages grassroots participation and therefore improves the health of the population. Evidence from London 2012 doesn't seem to point to a large increase in participation though.

Another argument is national prestige. Certainly it seems as though some countries see Olympic success as a cornerstone of nationhood.

A third argument is a general feeling that people who have achieved outstanding excellence in their field should be supporte, with a hope that a pay-back will come later. Olympic champions often go on to be successful entrepreneurs in business. Maybe supporting them in their early years gives a pay-back?

Another issue which needs to be thought about is that the budget some countries spend is effectively financial doping. The Norwegians in 2018 had a bigger budget for the support team for their cross country skiers than the entire buget for a lot of medium sized delegations from whole countries. The bobsleighs used by the top teams are a marvel of materials and aerodynamics but are way beyond the resources of many poorer countries. The UK was using special top-secret suits in the skeleton to reduce drag. And so on. That hardly creates a fair playing field and means that poorer countries will not win much in many events. It's like Formula One - everybody knows that only the top few teams with enormous bugets have a chance of winning a race.
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foxtrotzulu wrote:
I’d rather we put the money into funding sport generally and if we happen to win a few medals at the end of it, the whoop de doo. If we don’t, then so what? The £28m we spent on the Winter Olympics athletes would have built quite a few tennis courts around the country or astros, or whatever.


In principle I agree, but...My daughter swims competitively and trains regularly alongside an olympian in her club. She'll never be anywhere near that good, but no doubt it inspires her and motivates her to carry on. Years ago, she was in an athletics club that trained at EIS in Sheffield. We saw Jess Ennis regularly - same effect. So having elite-level athletes around definitely has a positive effect on the grassroots participants. A slightly nicer pool, or extra investment in the club, would likely not have the same effect.
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mgrolf wrote:
foxtrotzulu wrote:
I’d rather we put the money into funding sport generally and if we happen to win a few medals at the end of it, the whoop de doo. If we don’t, then so what? The £28m we spent on the Winter Olympics athletes would have built quite a few tennis courts around the country or astros, or whatever.


In principle I agree, but...My daughter swims competitively and trains regularly alongside an olympian in her club. She'll never be anywhere near that good, but no doubt it inspires her and motivates her to carry on. Years ago, she was in an athletics club that trained at EIS in Sheffield. We saw Jess Ennis regularly - same effect. So having elite-level athletes around definitely has a positive effect on the grassroots participants. A slightly nicer pool, or extra investment in the club, would likely not have the same effect.


That’s a valid point but it also confirms what Steve Redgrave was saying. I.e. don’t fund sports where people won’t be inspired to participate. Having Olympians around may be inspiring to others,p but I’m not convinced that, for instance, we got £28m of inspiration from our winter sports athletes.
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@hyperkub,

“A third argument is a general feeling that people who have achieved outstanding excellence in their field should be supporte, with a hope that a pay-back will come later. Olympic champions often go on to be successful entrepreneurs in business. Maybe supporting them in their early years gives a pay-back? ”

Is there any evidence that more than the average proportion go on to entrepreneurial success? I’m struggling to think of many. What’s the pay-back? Increased taxes at some stage?
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vjmehra wrote:
@foxtrotzulu, speed skating I can sort of get as if we built loads of Ice Rinks and had proper training schools etc. we could probably do okay (look at the Dutch, albeit of course they have a far greater skating heritage), its one of the few Winter Olympic sports we could actually prepare athletes for in the UK (also of course the facilities could be used by the figure skaters and Ice Hockey teams so multi-purpose venues would work).

For the sliding sports, Bobsleigh in particular I know McLaren have been involved, but surely some smooth talking corporate types could get more sponsorship from the F1 teams in return for a few logo's splashed around here and there.

Then all we need is the world's biggest snowdome to train our skiiers....


You may be right about skating. I’d imagined there were about 6 rinks in the whole country. Seems as though there are a few more than that.

Sponsorship - they already have quite a few sponsors but it’s probably hard as they get so little publicity. How often do you see British bobsleighers on TV? Once every four years.
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