ItsOKImAPilot
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I love Valegro. Such a beautiful horse......GOLD for Valegro the GB dancing horse, certainly performed better than the ones I backed on Saturday. Gorgeous horse.
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I love Valegro. Such a beautiful horse......GOLD for Valegro the GB dancing horse, certainly performed better than the ones I backed on Saturday. Gorgeous horse.
How on earth did GB get so prolific at the Olympics?
It's unnerving. This Games and the last, duking it out with super powers in the medals table. And what's happened to the Germans - their Teutonic efficiency used to carry all before them, now they're getting sand kicked in their face by Brian Britain.
Surely Lottery cash doesn't cover all this as an explanation?
The cash, the humiliation in Atlanta, and proper talent trawls over 20 years appear to be paying off.
The lottery funding alone dwarfs anything any other country, (US and China aside), lob at their sports bodies.
The rowing organisation are at every freshers meeting at Universities for just one example. Looking for likely candidates to join the programme.
When we were kids mate GB were lucky to come back from any games with 4 golds and a bar of rock.
Olympics I can remember and gold tally for GB:That is so true. It was a genuine world class one off, (Coe, Cram, Thompson, etc), and a few bits and bobs.
Now, it is a well oiled, targeted, and ruthless process. Love it myself.
Olympics I can remember and gold tally for GB:
Montreal 3
Moscow 5
LA 5
Seoul 5
Barcelona 5
Atlanta 1
*lottery funding comes in
Sydney 11
Athens 9
Beijing 19
London 29
Rio 15 atm
Olympics I can remember and gold tally for GB:
Montreal 3
Moscow 5
LA 5
Seoul 5
Barcelona 5
Atlanta 1
*lottery funding comes in
Sydney 11
Athens 9
Beijing 19
London 29
Rio 15 atm
Now, it is a well oiled, targeted, and ruthless process.
I didn't realise that Athens was relatively poor.
Athens was the nadir that prompted, iirc, John Major to turn the lottery cash on. Or start the lottery even. Either way, it does show what planning, detail, and targeted funding can add to actual talent.
I think you mean Atlanta. Athens was 2004
There has been a fundamental change in psyche and tolerance of "failure" from the British public that has driven the athletes to perform better. Even at collegiate level, the States would never had tolerated our "thanks for coming, you've done us proud" rot that our swimmers produced four years ago. Adlington's "swimming is the hardest sport out there" tosh was ripped apart and it caused a hell of a lot of reviews and improvements.
British cycling "rode along" on the wave of the golden generation we really started to see in Beijing and now has a programme that is utterly unrivalled. Some pretty unsavoury stories have since emerged in the run up to the Games but that's the atmosphere now - win at all costs and if you're not thick skinned enough (though the line has been well passed) get out of the way.
Johnson- Thompson's treatment from the old guard on the weekend was savage - if Inverdale had said it rather than Denise Lewis he'd have been rightly on the the first flight home. But that's it now - underperform and there's no hiding place.
I'm pleased with this attitude. If we're going to give them so much money, they better darn well deliver.