posted Nov 17, 2008

I thought the mix of commas and dashes was a bit risqué, personally, but it worked. As for the space - does it really matter?

My thoughts on the funding... I don't really know enough about it, but maybe give proportional funding? It seems fair but it's probably not plausible (nothing that simple ever is).

What about the use of brackets, Realist?

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posted Nov 17, 2008

Shooting will always suffer if our team has to train abroad due to the knee-jerk and populist restrictions imposed by the Government. Are they going to change the law so that we can actually practice in the UK before the Olympics - or shall we tell the foreign athletes now that they will be holding the competition in France in 2012?

As for football, why should it get funding in the first place? The Premier league isn't exactly short of a penny or two (or five hundred million, for that matter), so why divert funding from sports that have had their funding stripped to give to a sport that is rolling in the stuff?

</rant>

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posted Nov 17, 2008

Martin, I think your headline and content is a little misleading. Yes, the £600m total may be slightly reduced due to a lower level of private sponsorship but the resulting £520m will still be more than the £250m that was available for the 4 year run up to Beijing. Consequently, funding will be higher and theoretically the medal tally will be higher!!

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posted Nov 17, 2008

Martin: Sponsorship is not the only way to fund the athletes. If you give the project chance, you will see that there will be a significant opportunity for EVERY business and indivdual in the land to contribute without SPENDING ANY ADDITIONAL MONEY. People will in fact save money, and, at the same time help stimulate economic activity.

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posted Nov 17, 2008

I think the space is after the 33 to keep it seperate from the hyperlink. I also think that his usage of dashes is correct. The first one perhaps could be replaced by commas; but no the 2nd one.

I think UK Athletics was right to reduce the number of funded athletes. Some of them had no hope of international sucess and were just avoiding having to go and look for a real job like the rest of us.

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posted Nov 17, 2008

"It is a sad fact of life that money is the driving force for most things (it's been drilled into our society for the last 25 years)"

Hate to break it to you mate, but it's been a driving force in our society (and all others) for much longer than that!

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posted Nov 19, 2008

I think funding based on results is a step in the right direction. I felt in previous years, funding has been given to athletes who are uncompetitive on the world stage. I have feared that this approach hasn't bought out the best in them because it has given them a false sense of accomplishment. Provided they were britains best, and not the worlds best, the money & support would always be there. In short, they would get complacent & loose the hunger to win.

Hopefully with this new system the pressure will always be on the athletes to perform on the world stage, which is what we want, and being best of British wont be good enough anymore. It sounds a little bit like the American philosophy and their athletics team is pretty good.

Thats my theory annyway. Any conflicting arguments anyone?

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posted Nov 22, 2008

I think its about time there was a review of how athletes who have been funded pay back the system. Pro sports such as Golf have to self-finance their structure. Players on the European Tour for example pay a proportion of their winninbgs into the fund to provide the support services.

Publicly funded athletes should do the same - I wonder how much Chris Hoy will be worth in the future with all his endorsement deals etc! Whilst I have every admiration for his success - we the tax payers have funded it - and I think those athletes that become big earners on the back of tax payers investments in their careeers, should pay a small proportion of their earnings back into the pot for future athletes instead of expecting the tax payer to foot the bill all the time

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posted Nov 27, 2008

true values,
while your point about what hoy et al will be worth, they do have to pay tax on what they earn, whether it be council tax, income tax capital gains tax (from sponsorship etc). the athletes themselves don't get paid as such, they get training expenses, food allowances, recreational allowances and a free pad for as long as they are on the squad, anything else they want comes out of their after tax earnings

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posted Dec 2, 2008

How come an article written by a BBC member of staff is awarded 'managers pick'. Nepotism or what?

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