Be Excellent To Each Other

So, unless she runs round the track backwards in the 800m, Jess Ennis seems nailed on for heptathlon gold.

Having said that, there's some real tottie in the heptathlon.

Hell yeah.

I know they call it pursuit cycling, but I don't think you're supposed to actually catch the people you're racing against!

That was astonishing! They mullered the US!

The GB women cyclists there were just amazing. Couldn't believe how they kept on breaking the world record each time.

Also, in interviews, they were all silly and giggling, which was lovely.

Blimey. Sophie Hosking scrubs up well.

Well that were an impressive run.

Amazing and inspiring. She's just brilliant.

And looks like we might get a very possible gold in the men's long jump too.

Another gold can we get a third?

Yes.

Incredible!

And there we have it!

The people who got tickets for this evening's athletics certainly got their money's worth.

What a totally awesome day. And I suppose the long jump was a lovely bonus really.

Has Team GB ever scored 6 golds in one day before?

Wow! What a day!

Bring on the 2nd half of the olympics!

Malc

Yay for us. I felt really sorry for that triathlete lady, Jenkins - she did so well and then lost out in the last mile.

Either which way, this still wasn't worth £7bn.

We just lost a penalty shoot-out in the football. Makes a change.

Couldn't give a toss about the football myself and haven't watched any of it. Doesn't belong in the Olympics.

Lost to South Korea...

Football is supposed to be our national game isn't it?

One thing to spoil today for me is that twat, Paul McCartney, turning up in all the crowds, and then some prick playing a crap Beatles song in the stadium/velodrome.

Piss off, McCartney!

I guessed 26 golds in the work Oh Limpets sweepstakes. Was this silly? Everyone told me it was silly.

Tonight has been fucking priceless.

I LOVE THE OLYMPICS!!!!!!

For GB? Well we have 14 so far and I think there will be a few more to come in the cycling etc. Probably won't make 26, but rule nothing out after today.

Cycling, tennis, sailing, diving etc... Lots more to come I hope

The cost is ridiculous of course, but I think this may well prove to be worth it long term. It's a cliche to "inspire a generation"' but I believe it will. Hell, if it just inspires 'ordinary' people to get a bit fitter and all that, it will have been money well spent.

Also, it should make people see there are many awesome sports to watch and follow or maybe even try out - there is more to life than poxy football (I love football, but you all know what I mean).

Oh, I don't disagree with either you or Myp, to be honest Starling, but as awesome as it is, it's still not worth £7bn of our money. It would have been this ace if someone else hosted it, or if we'd done it in a field in Devon. In fact that would have been better, as then then been able to have spent £7bn on sports facilities for the kids who have been inspired (in particular PE for primary schools, which is woeful when it isn't completely absent. With most sports if you haven't started at age 7 you may as well forget an Olympic gold. We've got an aspiring Phelps in the family...). The priceless inspiration isn't worth much without the facilities and access to let it get somewhere.

Anyway. In all seriousness I think the heptathletes and the triathletes should get multiple medals, as it is far, far harder to win one of those than it is to train to jump a long way.

We're about halfway to our medal total from Beijing (as our the US and China), but I'm not sure how many are left up for grabs. We're about 3/4 of the way to the number of golds we got last time, so we may well exceed that.

I agree with Kissyfur, if the aim of all this is to encourage more participation in sports then the 7 billion (plus what we spent on facilities and training for all the athletes) could be better spent. For instance loads of skatepark projects around here have been scrapped at the last minute due to spending cuts. This would have had loads of normal kids using them day in day out. But at the same time money is getting shovelled into shite like getting a very few people really good at rowing and sailing because it will get medals.

If the only aim of all the spending is a nationalistic vanity project aimed at getting more medals than other countries then fair enough I guess.

At least we're not offering cash prizes to those who win, they get the honor of being immortalised on a stamp.

Those are the ones that APOD bought, and then sold.

Also, Mr Kissyfur, the 7billion figure is disingenuous. When the Games were confirmed they shunted other projects into the budget, such as the extension of the DLR line, which they were going to do anyway. It also includes the tax on the wages paid to people, which is of course going right back to the Treasury. And it doesn't include any money made from selling venues and stuff afterwards.

It still cost a lot, but IMO well worth it.

My tickets were for next Saturday, not this. Bizarrely I think the max price last night was only £450.

Well to be honest, if it had been held in another country I'd have still enjoyed watching it (doubt we'd have won quite so many medals though, as it's been shown there is a massive uplift of medals won for a host country).

Also if it was elsewhere you wouldn't inspire quite so many youngsters I'd say, seeing as it isn't being held in their own country.

I agree we need the money to trickle down to schools, etc, but just from a few random bits and pieces I've read on the funding for the various GB teams in recent years, it seems clear that if you chuck money at these things, you will reap rewards in future Olympics, etc.

I read something yesterday about how they're now going into schools to pick out kids who are excelling at whatever sports, to get them young and (I presume) into the training programmes we now have set up thanks to all the increased funding.

I think only time will fully judge if this London Olympics was "worth it".

Agreed, although the true cost is well, well above even £7 billion (particularly indirect, consequential losses also, e.g. when one factors in the undoubted workdays losses etc.; the current quarter's GDP figures will make grim reading when they become available).

Also, I doubt you'd even be able to spend £7 billion on sports facilities for primary school kids, even if you tried - it is a vast sum of money, enough for over 1,000 entire new schools.

In terms of providing inspiration, my money says brand new, state-of-the-art schools and facilities, year on year, would be bound to provide a good deal more of it than a one-off sporting competition, however prestigious. And of course, not just for sport either, but for all other subjects as well.

Hmm. It's funny how most of our best athletes are from fee paying schools, too. Currently the money on projects gets spent, as mark and starling both intimated, just on the best getting better. so we're just chucking money at posh boys and girls to get medals for the country.

A massive investment in sport across the state education system would reap huge rewards, most importantly in terms of health and wellbeing. Yes, we may get some more medals too.

And Cavey, given that most of our school playing fields have been flogged off for property development, I reckon you could easily spend £7bn just getting them back...

I don't disagree with any of your sentiment, chap. I too abhor the practice of selling school sports grounds for housing developments or whatever. We've got enough sedentary, fat kids around as it is, and it's by no means their fault in most, if not all cases.

I still take issue with your last paragraph though; a entire new-build school AFAIK costs around £6-7 million on average, including land. (Obv. this is a mean figure I plucked from Google; doubtless it could be much higher, or lower, depending where in the country one is looking at, in individual cases).


EDIT: As regards your initial point about excellence in fee paying schools, did you catch this year's Reith Lectures by the way chap? Interesting; plenty of stuff about the possible increased role of public schools/bursaries, diversity within the education sector, the "Dead Hand" of LEA control and empirical demonstrable, hugely marked improvements derived from their removal (e.g. Academy schools) and so on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reith

Oh I know, mate, I wasn't being entirely serious that the full £7bn should go on school sports. Just that a lot more needs to be spent on it, and some of that budget would have been better spent doing so.


I didn't catch them this year, no, but will give it a go at some point.

We're seriously considering sending the boys to the local, very good, private school when they get to senior school, as First Born is very, very interested in sport. In the meantime we're paying for a lot of extra-curricular stuff, as there is literally no sport at his primary school

Ladies' marathon - am I the only one who thinks Radcliffe should have given up months ago, to let Freya Murrary have a bit more than a week's notice so she could actually properly train? Radcliffe should really just accept that she's past it, and let someone else have a go.

I really don't think it could be better spent for the purposes of inspiring people to take part. The entire nation has been glued to the coverage for over a week.

Opening a new skate park in some town is only going to inspire the people who already skate there anyway. The Olympics' inspiration is what will force more new facilities to be built over the next 20 years because of demand. You need that demand before you can go around spending money on facilities. It's a necessary expenditure to create that demand.

Don't get me wrong, spending the money on school sports and facilities for the public would have been a good thing, but my point is that the Olympics are going to result in more money going in those directions in the long run because the country will have a greater appetite for competing in various sports.

Absolute made-up bollocks, skateparks get more kids into skating, get them out doing something. How many kids do you seriously think are going to get into athletics? In terms of actual mass participation most Olympic type sports are pretty shit.

Like I say, I don't think it would be a bad thing to build more skate parks (or anything for that matter), I just disagree that the Olympics is a waste of money and I firmly believe that they'll have a lasting good effect on sport in this country. The skate parks will come, just not this year.

But also, I think kids are just as likely to get into any sport as they are skateboarding if the facilities are available. What's so special about skating? When I used to skate, my cul de sac was ideal!

Overall, whilst the cost is massive, I still think it's a great thing. It'll inspire an entirely new generation of sports-folk.

I can only assume you're not reading my posts.

It doesn't matter if it inspires loads of kids (and it needs to be kids it inspires), as there's, generally speaking, fuck all sport at primary school for them to participate in and develop that inspiration.

This is why most top athletes are from "better off" families - if you want your kid to do well at something, you have to pay for lessons for it, cos they sure as shit won't be doing it at school, or at least not to any amount that will help.

They actually do interpretive dance for "PE" at one of the local schools here.

That's the situation now, yes.

I cannot commend all three lectures highly enough. I urge you to make the time at some point mate.



I don't blame you one iota, in fact I totally support your sentiments. What price a decent education?
Mrs C and I would not have hesitated with our two, had we been able to afford it. My youngest's best friend at primary school was of equal intelligence and aptitude, but her Bank Director father sent her to a public school at Year 7. She's now an Architect. My little girl does a fantastic job with troubled teenagers and I am immensely proud of her, but it is appallingly low paid. She could earn just as much flipping burgers and would not have to endure bruises all over her body from being habitually physically assaulted by her charges.



More power to your elbow. If only the average parent could be similarly arsed - in time if not monetary investment terms, even (although, cutting down on beer, fags and Sky TV might free up a few quid in those cases), we'd *all* be better off.

Ooooh, hold your horses there. There are a couple of academically and behaviorally very, very good comps near here, and a very good grammar school which I'd be happy sending them to - I'm not too worried about the academic education they'd get, more the additional opportunities, both in terms of sport and everything else, they'd get at private school.

That said, this isn't the thread for education discussion, so we'll leave that part of the discussion there, I think!

Weren't Jess Ennis, Mo Farah and Whatsisname Rutherford all from state schools?

Either way, I still maintain the 2 billion or so, before any benefits from tourism increases etc, is money well spent.

I guess what's slightly different about it is that it's a sport which appeals to those kids that maybe don't like football or just want to have a laugh with their friends rather than go somewhere to get taught like they're still at school or something. You can't really just do athletics for a laugh, it's based entirely around competition so you need to be pretty obsessed or else why bother. There's nothing wrong with that but it seems pretty obvious to me that it's not going to be for many kids.

If the Olympic success does anything it will be to cement the notion that only those sports should really get money.

Well, if you'll at least permit me a brief response, chap.

1. The term "good comprehensive" is relative, as I'm sure you well appreciate. Let's leave it there.

2. Grammars are, of course, selective schools. I'm all in favour of them as it goes.

3. "I'm not too worried about the academic education they'd get," pfft, pull the other one mate. Of course you're worried about that; you'd have to be a fool not to be, and you're no fool. In no way does this fundamental truth detract from wanting decent sports and extracurricular activities of course, or being prepared to pay for them.

There's nothing shameful about wanting the best for your kids or doing everything in your power (including financially) to ensure that they get it. If "the system" itself is shit, and/or if that doesn't rest easily with one's political philosophy (not applicable in my case obv., as a Tory) there's no honour in offering up your own kids as sacrificial lambs to it regardless. Just ask Dianne Abbott and a whole bunch of other left wing politicians who sent their own kids to private schools, and who can blame them?

You can do athletics for a laugh. I was always terrible at anything physical activity related and so directly competitive sports such as cricket, football and rugby were entirely not fun to participate in. However, our school had a cross country team, and with the guarantee that I would always come last (out of all runners) I could run for fun and try as beat my personal best time as my only focus.

Sure but in general though I don't reckon that significant numbers of kids are going to take up track and field type stuff just because of the Olympics. Just can't see it.

Growing up I knew loads of kids into skating, BMX, mountain biking, playing football, all things that they did of their own volition not just for a meaningless hour or two a week as arranged by their parents. Didn't know many into track and field.

Conversely there were no spaces at the athletics club I wanted to join when I was a teenager and they closed the skate park because it wasn't used.

Malc

We're all arguing with pure anecdotal evidence.