Be Excellent To Each Other

I'd rather not have a fit, healthy, underclass that knows karate, thanks.

That's not how it works at all! Genuine question: Have you ever been into a sport? That sounds like the logic of a person who would categorise themself as "not a sporty person". Not trying to offend, but that theory just doesn't compute in my brain as someone who loves sport.

We don't?

Awww crap.

Dream killer!

Give it 4 years, just you wait!

Haha!

I'd be getting fucking shot puts through my front window rather than stones.

I read this the other day. Seems to fit.

Excellent use of Nietzsche!

You could probably drag yourself up to a decent competitive level, on sheer practice, training and perserverance. Those that get that bit further are probably the beneficiaries of a larger heart/lungs whatever to give them that extra 0.5%

And they're the people the legacy of the Olympics is going to help discover!

My work here is done. The Olympics is awesome and everyone agrees with me.

Really? As happy as I am to pay and make the effort with the kids to do lots of sport, the fact that a primary school does no football at all doesn't strike you as a bit odd? A bit, y'know, not the right thing? I was playing a lot of sport at all ages at school.

From my POV there is a *huge* distinction to be drawn between the entirely laudable aim of trying to get kids - all kids - fitter and healthier through sport and P.E., and expressly trying to develop a tiny, tiny minority of people to compete in utterly meaningless stuff like the Olympics. Especially if these few happen to be immensely privileged in monetary terms.

However, if we're getting worked up about mere physical education, how about just plain old education? The former is simply a small subset of the latter.

Perhaps - I was in the school team in Junior school, but that was at ages 10/11. I had to play for a local "under 7s" team or whatever before that. Just the way it is I guess.

Primary school football was only available for Year 5 and Year 6. But this is one of the reasons we haven't won a world cup in nearly fifty years and probably won't any time soon. But getting kids to play football from a young age is a whole other argument that I also have totally correct opinions on.

Or "the way it wouldn't be if we spent some of that £7bn on buying back all the playing fields we sold off".

That was entirely tongue-in-cheek, and should have had a in it.

Actually, I reckon one of the best things the Olympics does it is show non-mainstream sports at prime time. For a decent chunk of young 'uns, this is probably the only chance they'll get to see weightlifting or judo or fencing or water polo or volleyball on TV.

I dunno. I think the excuse at the time was that kids under 10 "weren't ready" for competitive football. No excuse for not helping them play for fun, though.

There is clearly some justification for the argument of spending that £7Bn on tangible things, such as Kissyfur's example, but I STILL think the Olympics will have a lasting good effect on sport in this country. Besides, how much of that money would've been spent on that sort of thing anyway had we not hosted the Olympics?

At the very least, increased interest in sport as a result of the Olympics might force the necessary hands to spend future cash on those sorts of investments.

I never did football at school. Frankly, they didnt need to as the kids just played it all the time anyway.

Worst. Investment. Ever.

I'm alive, aren't I? You've met me - I would've got killed at state school.

Worst. Investment. Ever.

Briefcase wanker.

Our school didn't do football in PE for this very reason. We did Rugby, Athletics, Cricket seemingly one week a year, Tennis and Swimming. I was at a dirty comp and they've since upgraded the sports hall by selling playing fields. This would cause outrage, but the fields that they sold were so surplus to requirements (we had 4 rugby pitches, 2 hockey pitches, a 100m track and a cricket pitch in the field that was retained).

However, from year 10, snbooker and table tennis became PE options, so, y'know

Gold for the grim gritty urban sport of prancy-prancy-horses. A popular playground game in Middlesbrough

Lies, that's selling crack.

Only in primary school

In the velodrome sprint, has anyone ever just thought "fuck it" and gone flat out right from the gun?

Yes, Jason Kenny did against the French guy some time ago.

Malc

The bollocks slow weaving about bit is because you always want to be second wheel in a sprint. Nowt stopping you gunning it right from the off.

Gold for Hoy! 47 medals already!

A note on the barrier to entry for 'posh' sports such as rowing.

Wasn't one of our gold medallists a PE teacher who had never done rowing before properly just four years ago? Then she made the effort to go to a 'Team GB talent thing' and got selected, etc?

I think if anyone is good enough and wants it enough to succeed at athletics they'll manage it. That certainly has the lowest barrier to entry. If we've got a kid in a deprived area running pro-standard times at any distance, they'll get the support they need.

Blartin like a bost tap.

Sat on your bollocks again?

to everything.

I would be confident that if a random kid showed exceptional promise in running/cycling/football/almost anything at all, someone, somewhere, will be putting in a call to the British Athletics Club (or whoever), to get them scouted.

No guarantee you'll have a future Olympic champion on your hands, obviously, but then that doesn't appear to be the main argument in this thread - more that working class scum can't break into sport because the Tories won't let them play on the grass, or something.

Anyway, loads more medals won today, and yes it does matter, and yes it is important, and it was glorious to see.

The Olympics is made of fantastic.

The UK has done so well, before this started I was pretty much turned off the whole event due to all the sponsors and general twats involved in the organising.

Found myself watching events and getting into it, even the transport has gone well.

Makes you proud to be from the UK.

What's the story with all the gloating about the less than impressive Australian medal haul? For over a week now I have seen loads if tweets poking fun at Australia for their performance at the games but haven't seen/heard the reason why Australia are such a target at the moment?

Because they are Australia...during the period of Aussie Cricketing domination and after the Sydney Olympics you couldn't shut the buggers up.

They also take great delight in having a pop at the Kiwis which is a tad nasty, like picking on a toddler for not being able to walk properly...which is why it was so funny when they were level in the medals table.

Because Australia are our biggest sporting rivals and for decades have been better than us at virtually any sport we compete in. The main rivalry is of course cricket, but any other England /Australia competition is referred to as an ashes match. In the past, when Australia have been so dominant in commonwealth games, they joked that they should enter as provinces to give us a chance, but then that would only mean that Australia took the first 6 positions in the table.

I've never seen this referred to at the Olympics until Beijing when Australia were far lower down the table than they were used to, and their newspapers referred to the team being woeful and "even GB are higher in the table than us". Of course logic says that the relative size of our populations means that this is logical, but neither we or Australia would ever accept this. If both teams had the same number of golds, silvers and only one medal different in bronze, this would be a yawning chasm of such magnitude that one team would be the greatest ever seen and the other should all kill themselves.

It's basically just good natured banter and when the tide eventually turns, we will get it all back with both barrels.

Found this article which is a bit relevant to the earlier discussion:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/legacy_o ... tion-27735

Inconclusive but tends to support the view that recent Olympics haven't contributed much to participation in sports in the host nation.

Also this one about the Canadian experience:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editoria ... -in-sports

Which seems to indicate that the obsession with medals and targeting spending at elite athletes actually harms grassroots participation.

It costs more and more money all the time to win these medals and the money comes from funding for sports.

The jackets and trousers are very rigid (so much so that it's impossible to bend over in the trousers without unzipping them first.)

The idea is to help your body keep as still and steady as possible, as obviously even a slight movement can send your pellet way off course when you pull the trigger.

Air pistol shooters generally only wear that stuff at this level though, at the amateur/semi-pro level they tend to just wear jeans and a T-shirt, as rigidity isn't quite as important with pistol shooting as it is with rifle shooting.

The boots are tight around the ankles, and have a completely flat sole that keeps everything level.

Frankly, that is enough.

I think they were especially giving it large about what they were going to do to us in the cycling. That worked out so well for them!

Taekwondo is a bit good. Three points for a boot to the head!

Why don't they just switch to using a remote-controlled tripod?

Same with the cycling and "magic wheels" and that. Fucking just bring a Kawasaki then.

Also, BMX starts today! 1600 on BBC1 apparently. Hope they show it properly else I'll have to watch it online.

I'm looking forward to this and the mountain biking. Hopefully there will be RAD AIR and GNARLY GRINDS and BODACIOUS TUBES. Dude.

Grown-ups look stupid on BMX bikes.
Tony hawk also looks stupid skateboarding, given his age.
Should curtail it to the under 21s, only, for reasons of not looking silly.

If looking silly was a problem they'd have to just ban cycling outright.