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magomagi

Listed below are comments made by magomagi between Thursday, 6th November 2008 and Saturday, 29th August 2009.

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Teenage star tackles Eau Rouge on a skateboard 5:03pm on 29 Aug 2009 Concerning the mix of adults and children, isn't motorsports just big kids playing with big toys. :-)
I mean this lad skates professionally - no mean feat. Now I'd like to see Jenson Button do something impressive with and F1 car and a half-pipe...
Reality bites for British athletics 10:28pm on 07 Nov 2008 Matt, you raise some valid points but I would offer food for thought:

The open doping culture in Cycling partially stems from being professional from day one, big money encourages cheating, as other sports are discovering.

The former Eastern-bloc robots weren't allowed to ride against professionals - what races they would have been! Cycling has little history of gentlemen athletes and Olympian spirit, just poor blokes trying to make money. Olden-day pro track-and-field was an also-ran compared to the amateur game and Olympic Cycling has only recently been taken seriously because it excluded pros.

Not many countries are competitive in track Cycling, on the road a lot more. Can you Imagine trying to fit 200 nations in to a tiny velodrome track centre? ;-) There are only a few track races and only four road events in the Olympics because some have been lost to IOC pressure or never allowed [eg. the Omnium, Cycling's Pentathlon - there is no event for bike throwing/jumping though], something Athletics doesn't seem to have faced.

The same accessibility v cost divide even exists within Athletics - look at the split between low-overhead running and the technical/strength events, developing countries rock at running but shot-putt or pole-vaulting...? Comparing Athletics to biking in this way is like pitting Gymnastics, Weightlifting and Cycling together as a "whatever-sport" against track running - how many running events are there? Running is a relevant comparison to Cycling not discus or long-jump.

The 6.75 m versus 1.57 figure doesn't really show how terribly UK Athletics did because of the sheer potential medals available to a team of how many? They blew it! British Cyclist were considered a joke 10 years ago but could have won another possible 4 golds in Beijing but the events were dropped and there is a lack of sex equality in track racing. The constraints of costs, number and type of races count against cycling but do not explain why the UK does so badly when the potential pool of medals that could be won in Athletics is so large.

It takes talent, dedication and rewards [in ALL sports], something UK Cycling promoted by cutting back, dumping all the old-school riders and trainers, focusing and starting from scratch with driven athletes with quantifiable talent and coaches. They had a plan, backed it up with results and look where they are now.

Athletics doesn't have a deity-given right to support, it can be just as mind-blowingly boring as cycling can be at times. Popularity is linked to results...
Reality bites for British athletics 10:57am on 06 Nov 2008 PS. Cycling CUT the number of supported riders but maintained the level of funding.

And they cleaned up in Beijing. Perhaps it isnt so nuts...
Reality bites for British athletics 10:54am on 06 Nov 2008 You are right you can't compare sports but saying "medals in the main stadium are harder to come by than medals in the velodrome" is a bit daft, I'd say the complete opposite is true.

Traditionally the UK wasn't too bad at athletics but was terrible at the professional and therefore much more cut-throat Cycling.

The £6.75m versus £1.57m per medal quoted takes no account of sky-high Cycling equipment costs, which are minimal in track-and-field . How much wind tunnel testing does a 1500m runner do? £5k for a bike anyone? Oh yeah- and each rider needs three or four plus helmets, skinsuits, tools, turbo trainer, power meter, etc...

Bike tracks are like hens teeth relative to Athletics stadiums. Schools have simple running tracks with a massive potential development base compared to the [as viewed by parents] dangerous sport of Cycling.

Athletics was always fairly well supported because it was a relatively cheap and easy way to get medals. Cycling now does well because of forward thinking by some very clever people and a good management team that is meticulous and ruthless.

Sadly UK athletics has not adapted well to the era of professional athletics, a few visionaries in Cycling saw the opportunity offered by lottery funding, grabbed it and ran!

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