The Commonwealth Games

PeterCS wrote:Oh, I don't know.

Australia - sometimes (a bit misleadingly) called a very outdoor-orientated nation - invested very heavily in certain sports in the late 20th century, in terms of finance, facilities and coaching, and there were enough talented elite athletes to take up that challenge and beat the world in those specific areas. Swimming, cycling being the two most obvious sports, rugby especially the league code another - though that more by private club interest and investment, I think. (Cricket is not dissimilar in this respect.)

But it's by no means guaranteed England (as opposed to the UK, as of 2012) is going to run up a large medal haul in the next few days - despite replicating the Australian model of investment in that and cycling in particular in the early years of this millennium.

It remains to be seen.

I don't know about misleading. I think punching above our weight for years (even in athletics) led a lot of other nations, particularly in Europe, to build indoor sports facilities to match our natural advantage in all round great weather.

Then we started to play catch up by the way of investment in sport generally and in some more specifically.

SA will never each it's potential with the racist ANC government promoting mediocrity in sport.

Is this self-gratifying charade still going on?!

Which one? The Saf racist one?


Cross-country mountainbiking (men), meanwhile:

Amazing explosion from the thighs from littlel Anton Cooper after a brutal, endless frame-crunching 35 km or whatever it was. Well done the pocket-sized Kiwi. My legs were aching just watching those last 3 laps, all the jockeying over the lumps, hollows and edges.

PeterCS wrote:Which one? The Saf racist one?.

Care to elucidate? My post or the government?

I was asking Merls for clarification.

Fair enough. Just one of your snide little comments then.

I have to say, whatever the murky world of quotas and hunker-munker, it was refreshing to see a team of colour-blind men represent South Africa in the hockey, and then in the rugby (unsatisfactory though the format may be).

And with great success. Well done Cecil Afrika and his rainbow team, who - however handicapped by quotas and racist corruption - beat the "unbeatable" (and previously never beaten) All Blacks, and thus deservedly won the gold medal with verve, enterprise, speed, determination and skill. Great performances.

http://news.yahoo.com/zealand-set-australia-semi-glasgow-rugby-sevens-134225018--spt.html

What a great advertisement for whole-society rugby, against the Grot' Boerkop doubters.

Even the elite Boks of the Golden 60s couldn't have done it more convincingly.

taipan wrote:Fair enough. Just one of your snide little comments then.

You wear the glasses!

PeterCS wrote:I have to say, whatever the murky world of quotas and hunker-munker, it was refreshing to see a team of colour-blind men represent South Africa in the hockey, and then in the rugby (unsatisfactory though the format may be).

And with great success. Well done Cecil Afrika and his rainbow team, who - however handicapped by quotas and racist corruption - beat the "unbeatable" (and previously never beaten) All Blacks, and thus deservedly won the gold medal with verve, enterprise, speed, determination and skill. Great performances.

http://news.yahoo.com/zealand-set-australia-semi-glasgow-rugby-sevens-134225018--spt.html

What a great advertisement for whole-society rugby, against the Grot' Boerkop doubters.

Even the elite Boks of the Golden 60s couldn't have done it more convincingly.

Ah, I love it when you discuss rugby like you know something about it.

Ever heard of a guy called Errol Tobias? Probably not.

Actually the Boks of the 60's were pretty shit, but let's not bring facts into it.

Are the Commonwealth games followed much in SA taips? I remember for every Springbok match the bars would be packed, would it have been the same for their gold?

vilkrang wrote:Are the Commonwealth games followed much in SA taips? I remember for every Springbok match the bars would be packed, would it have been the same for their gold?

Seems a pretty good following Vilks. The sevens were on on Sunday night so not sure many would be in the pubs. I've watched a bit between the cricket, quite a bit of the swimming. Oddly enough the lawn bowls has been quite a hit.

Three separate channels showing the various sports.

One thing that has surprised me is the strength of British swimming. When they combine for team GB they could look good for Rio.

Aye taips, which is rather surprising when you consider that after London 2012 they lost funding from UK sport to the tune of around £4 million (15% or so). Due to only gaining three medals when the team was expected to gain between 5 or seven.

Taips, stop being a gigantic hand-shandy.

Growler wrote:Aye taips, which is rather surprising when you consider that after London 2012 they lost funding from UK sport to the tune of around £4 million (15% or so). Due to only gaining three medals when the team was expected to gain between 5 or seven.

Could be worse Growls. Over here they were telling the team that they would have to find their own airfares to get to the Games.

Ouch - that really is a policy to ensure that elite sport is only for rich people isn't it ?

In a similar vein, its one of the things which grinds my gears with distribution of National Lottery "good causes" money. Huge sums of money have been spent on big projects over the last 20 years, some running into the hundreds of millions of ££££. On the other hand, a local village/town footy or cricket club, scout troop etc have to jump through hoops to get a grant of a few thousand.

These are small. well run organisations which generally pay their day-to day running costs and bills through subscriptions and fund raising with a small surplus in their bank account ...... but not enough to replace an ancient boiler for hot showers and heating, or roof/structural repairs and the like. These irregular, one-off costs should be virtually automatically granted, but some have had to be submitted for several years before money is made available (by which time the cost of the work has risen)

Don't get me started on this. My club is a multisport club that gets no funding of any sort. It is essential in my town as school sport has deteriorated to an extreme extent. I won't even go into the football side of things as grass root club football has been virtually destroyed in this country. For proof look at SA's world ranking.

Let's look at cricket. For years we have run a junior section very successfully despite having to do it all ourselves. The local black clubs get supplied free kit which normally gets flogged off by the "coaches". I think our subs are somewhere in the region of ZAR 750 p.a. Which computes to about 40 quid per annum. We have three turf pitches, say 5 grass nets and 5 concrete nets to maintain. Three years ago our enlightened government decreed that we must pay property rates on our grounds in addition to electricity and water charges.

Now let's look at something else. Two quick bowlers, both came though our system, and went to the same Uni. Both played for the same 2nd tier in our FC comp

Player 1.
51@15.41

Player 2.
67@27.35

Both are 24 years old, but guess which one got the franchise contract. Remember I know both these kids and they have stayed at my house. My son kept to both of them.

People have absolutely no clue of how quotas are hurting SA sport. It is worth bearing in mind both of them grew up after apartheid was finished.

Oh, in addition, I have often said that I would have no objection if the SA cricket consisted of 11 black players. I would support them just the same. One small proviso though, they must be the best 11 players in the country.

Yeah, luckily we don't suffer quotas in sport to any great extent - if you're good enough, you're selected on merit as a rule, no matter what your race, religion or sexual habits.

Sadly, in so many other aspects of life, they are creeping in through the back door, so to speak ...... although not so much on racial grounds - but on gender. The great & the good blather on about more women in the boardroom, standing for parliament, in the cabinet etc etc.

They don't seem to understand that -  for whatever reason - whilst women are equally capable of reaching the top in any field, and there certainly should not be any bar to them doing so, many women simply don't want to chase the highest positions, with the ruthlessness often involved, and stress associated with getting there.

Hence we have the ludicrous situation of all-women short lists filled with possibly second-raters where potentially far better men can't even be nominated. let alone be considered. If someone dared suggest all-male shortlists, the screaming sisterhood would lynch them within minutes ........

taips is creepy

Brass Monkey wrote:Taips, stop being a gigantic hand-shandy.

 
the worst thing one can ever ask of another is to do something they are not capable of

This was pretty funny:

must say Oz disgraced itself in the weightlifting,....carried on like pork chops after a failed complaint against a PNG lifter - who ulimately won gold - with Oz guy collecting silver...completely over the top reaction.....rats aand meerkats - who gives a rodent?

It has its moments as described above. The only set the alarm moments for me are the shooting and maybe some of the T&F events. Do they have modern pentathlon?