The Rio Olymoucs have finished. Team GB came second. At a cost reported to have exceeded £270 million the country's athletes won 67 medals; a record.
But stunning though these personal achievements were they did not, as is widely recognised, happen by chance. The money bought the back and facilities that clearly made a massive difference.
It's convenient to many that the money came from the National Loittery, but the fact is that this was government directed: the Lottery was given no choice about the use of the funds in question. They were told they were for funding Olympic sport. In other words this was state directed spending.
And it worked.
The government chose to invest in an activity.
It set up a system to pick winners.
And it delivered them.
So let's stop the pretence that this is not possible. It seems to be stunningly successful. I take nothing away from the athletes but the difference between Atlanta in 1996 and Rio 2016 is not the commitment of our athletes; it is the funding and backup they've been given.
The lesson should be noted and replicated whenever appropriate.
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Debatable – ask China! I think you could equally argue that the UK’s success shows market incentives at work: lottery funding conditional on results. Note also that Sky at heart of cycling success: this high-performance (private sector) model replicated in other sports.
Wow
Fantasy time
Sky do not do track that I am aware of
Sky are the road team, they may sponsor much that is to do with British Cycling, but the track team funding mostly comes from lottery funding. Therefore sky is not the driving force behind the track success.
Precisely
Team Sky and BC share everything. It has been a mutually beneficial agreement with Sky effectively providing the money to stop the riders pedalling off to join other pro teams who would have little sympathy to their contracted riders spending time riding for their country. Track cycling doesn’t pay unless you are pretty enough to get sponsorship deals or willing to go and live in Japan.
We will see how things pan out in the next few years without Sky backing British Cycling, but without another major backer willing to share the burden a lot of British riders are going to lose their track focus.
Is it true to state that the poorest in society disproportionately purchase more lottery tickets? I don’t know, but if it is so, then the very poorest have disproportionately funded the successes of the GB Olympic Team. This shouldn’t be, instead the GB Olympic Team should be directly funded by Government, period.
Agreed
Can’t remember where but I read a better comparison of the Olympic success with grammar schools. Identify the gifted and talented, throw disproportionate resources at them, cheer their triumph whilst ignoring those left behind.
We think we are a nation of sporting excellence because a tiny number of the elite excel but the vast majority do little or no sport and have little or no access to it. It really is ironic that we are dominating in cycling yet compared with our northern European neighbours cycling rates of the general population are pitiful. Or that we have world record holders in the swimming pool whilst swimming for the general population becomes increasingly expensive and rare.
I buy that
Good points there.
But it doesn’t detract from Richard’s point that state planning works.
At issue is what the state decides to plan – they chose elite sport and they succeeded. They centrally planned WW2 production and won that as well!
The same principle could be carried over to public transport, manufacturing industry, science, education or housing. We just got the circus, but it’s better than nothing at all.
Actually as a nation we weren’t that good. About 9th or 10th in medals per population (around 972,000 per medal). New Zealand were easily the best with around 320,000 per medal. We were also worse than Australia, who were deemed to have done badly, and Azerbaijan but a lot better than the USA and China (21m per medal). Be interesting to see a comparison of costs per medal – I’ve seen estimates for GB of between £4m -5.5m. I have to admit I enjoyed watching (some of it) but wasn’t too impressed with the Beeb that celebrated its exclusive rights by abandoning news for the duration.
When it comes to sports, State planning may be a hazardous example. See former East Germany, Russia, China. They did not only offer funding and facilities. Hopefully this is not transposable to the UK
THat wasn’t state planning
That was state doping
Medals per head of population are listed here http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/eye-opening-facts-prove-wales-11762148 some surprising ‘facts’.
Medals per head surely needs adjusting for the fact that in most, if not all, team events only one team per nation is allowed (USA could win all 3 medals at basketball if they could enter 3 teams) and, competitors have to meet qualifying standards & in some events a limited number of competitors per nation is allowe
Spot on – money buys results. But we also know that pouring money on a problem doesn’t solve it, either. And their are huge accountability and value-for-money implications.
So the message is “Spend to create talent” in any endeavour, but a high spend doesn’t itself guarantee the result.
All the boring caveats about probity, value for money, accountability, priorities are still there in spades.
Any fool can spend someone else’s money; it takes wisdom to spend it well and with the general consent and approval of the funders.
If state planning worked, in athletics, China would have been top of the list. The USA was top. Money works.
“planning” could just be the upholding and defending of property rights. After that, how long do you want your piece of string.
No doubt State spending on sports is a waste of money in terms of GDP growth, but it appears to keep people happy. Although it makes high brow snobs like me, the minority, unhappy.
Btw, State sponsored doping was all very much “part of the plan”.