Olympic Success

[rufuskins]

How very surprising that there does not appear to be any thread seriously addressing the nation's successes at the 30th Olympiad!

Whilst our overall total may not match that of China or USA, I do believe that we would head a table based on success per head of population.

Personally I am pleased that my contribution via taxes and the lottery means that we can portray this nation as successful.

It would appear that there is the potential for further sucess, and I say well done to all those Brits who won medals as well as those who tried.

Alec

[jbilton]

Hi Alec

Well if you can measure a countries success via sporting events then I would agree with you.
I can well imagine there are plenty of people happy with the amount of money they are making, and going to make, out of the Olympics.
The real long term success of the games is how much more sport is taken up across the whole of the country.
Especially by the younger generations, who will have to be fitter and healthy for much longer .... to keep paying for the games...
I don't think its currently possible to find the 'real' cost of hosting the games, and it might never be possible.
Technically it could turn a profit for the Treasury, but this is before taking into account the security costings etc.

Cheers
Jon

[rufuskins]

Jon

In the long term you are probably correct, but for two weeks we can forget the current hardships and enjoy a brief period of "feeling good".

Alec

[gswindale]

I have to say it's not that surprising that there is no topic on the Olympics here.

This forum, has, to some extent, been a place that people can get away from it.

Has anybody else noticed how much "news" has disappeared during the last couple of weeks? We seem to get about 5 minutes of "other news" on BBC Breakfast these days with the remainder of the hour clogged up with Olympics.

It would be nice if they could consider their viewers a little more and give us a more varied news output - I assume Syria is still going down, but no idea due to the Olympic mania that is sweeping the Beeb.

[rufuskins]

At my time of life you would think that I would know better, "C'est la Vie"!

Alec

[jbilton]

Hi Alec
I'm afraid I do find it extremely difficult.... I'm at Council tonight ... looking to save a further £350,000 thats been cut from Lincoln's budget.
I have to walk on broken footpaths, past closed Care homes , run down schools, poor hospitals, hear complaints of bus services being cut after 6pm.... I could go on.

A table we certainly would be head of, and by a long way, would be the size of the team, per head of population, cost per tax payer.
The original idea of the Olympics was brilliant, but somewhere along the way it has totally lost its ideals for me, its all too big business for me.

I would offer congratulations to individual sports people on their personal achievements, but not to team GB as a whole.

One success is we (38 Degrees) have managed to get agreement from the top the top nine official sponsors , not to take advantage of the huge tax benefits they were offered.

http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2012/07/26 ... what-next/

Cheers
Jon

[rufuskins]

This will be my final comment on this thread, and it wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't get well and truly moderated.

But just for once couldn't people enjoy something rather than go off on a rant about this, that or the other! Some people just can't resist being negative about certain subjects!

I shall say once again that I have enjoyed the Olympics, I have enjoyed our success, and I trust that this will encourage people to participate in all the various sports and activities.

Alec

[gswindale]

I shall say once again that I have enjoyed the Olympics, I have enjoyed our success

Which is fully understandable & I despite not having watched much, agree.

However I still don't see why it should be forced down everybody's throat at every possible opportunity. I ended up watching FOX News at the weekend just to get some non-Olympic news.

There was hardly any mention of the Test Cricket on this morning's breakfast news that I noticed.

It was always my belief that our national broadcaster was supposed to be impartial etc, but their coverage of the Olympics at the expense of everything else suggests that this is not the case.

[davejc64]

Maybe some people would prefer it if the UK did not take part in or hold any major event be it sporting or otherwise.

[jbilton]

Hi

Its being 'Forced down our throats' exactly for the reasons of Alex's original post.
Political doctrine, of the most sinister type.
Smoke and mirrors ... its all smoke and mirrors.

Cheers
Jon

[paulz6]

I'm rather pleased someone has tried to start a happy Olympic success thread. The success of our athletes so far is truly outstanding. I think we should congratulate all athletes who have taken part, whether they have won a medal or not.
The happy news makes a change to consistently hearing the depressing news about how the financial system is eating itself up. Perhaps we should not be so obsessed about applying a monetary cost/profit to everything we do. If young people are inspired to take up sport rather than waste their lives on legal or illegal drugs, then the societal benefits could be enormous.
I'm thoroughly enjoying the games so far, and it does make me reminisce about by more active and healthy younger days. It may even help encourage me to stop the filthy smoking habit which seems to be a long drawn out way to slowly destroy ones own health and quality of life.
Go Team GB !!!

[ashgray]

As many have said above, let's celebrate that success and commitment of the athletes involved. The thread is, after all, titled "Olympic Success".

If anyone wishes to drag that success down to another/your level and simply whine, please do it elsewhere, ideally on a non railway-related anti-Olympics forum somewhere.

Like it or not, let's leave the anti-olympic politics out, please.

Ash

[jbilton]

Hi

Agreed .... when I was at school, my teacher was a real Olympic champion.
We certainly thought of him as a hero.
Son of a local garage mechanic.
He trained in his own time after school ,in all weathers, buying his own equipment, on the local Brayford pool and rivers.
Used his holidays to travel to the Olympics, gained local sponsorship, to help pay his travel costs.
He won a Silver and a Bronze in 1968 and 1972.
Lawrence Oliver was is name.
The Olympics today are very different, hardly recognisable to what was originally envisaged.
I never thought allowing professional sports people to compete was a good idea.

Cheers
Jon

[moranb]

Congratulations from across the Irish sea to the UK athletes on their fantastic results in these games. The coverage of the games has been enthralling. The only downside is that for two weeks, I have not even clicked on the RailWorks icon once to open the program! But maybe it is wrong to describe it as a 'downside' - an occasional break from route building is probably a good thing.

BFM

[paulz6]

I think all Olympic Champions are real champions, whether professional or amateur. I'm not sure there is really much difference in competing for prize money or a competing for a training grant anyway.
Most events these days require athletes to train full time and live with very strict dietary regimes to reach peak performance. It's the way the world has evolved and I don't consider it all bad.
We can all have fun competing in sports at our own level anyway.