Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

I posted a comment on your last blog. Where did it go? Oh well it's not important.
Very interested to read these statistics. Olympic success is indeed expensive. But I believe it is worth it. I think it is important we don't put all our eggs in one basket. We did badly in swimming as did Australia. That ruined Australia's chances of finishing high up the medal table. Where as we have had our most successful Olympics ever. Invest, diversify, innovate, and provide opportunities for our most talented up-and-coming athletes, and may our olympic success continue.

So money buys sporting success. Well who would have thought it......

You don't have any eggs you could give my granny by any chance?

Does money buy success? That depends on the individual sportsmen and women. I would suggest that football has the largest sums of money spent on it in the UK and what have we got? In general we have sportsmen who are not exactly very good role models. Footballers earn huge amounts of money yet the levels of skills they show can be extremely poor. How many are highly proficient with each foot, first class headers of the ball, have the stamina to run non stop for the length of the match, including extra time, and tackle well? Very few if any with many struggling to keep control of the football and passing consistently well, simply beyond them.

What i have seen during the last few weeks at Wimbledon, the Tour de France and the Olympics are men and women who seriously bust a gut because of their dedication to their sport, their pursuit of excellence, to push themselves to try and become the very best in the world at their sport.

Can any of our footballers, and dare i say rugby players say the same?

You're absolutely right about the exclusion of most of the world from competing in cycling and swimming, but it goes further than that. While African athletes dominate the running events there is one in which we never see an African- the pole vault. This is because they are extraordinarily expensive. The solution is to have a standard , cheap pole and the same goes for cycles. And don't get me started on the medals reserved for the super rich upper class in horsey events.

Take a look at the pride and joy in the country, John. Sport costs money. Success raises a fairly miserable population's morale. I can't really see the point in your article, which I normally enjoy btw, next week are you going to have an exposΓ© revealing politicians often lie?
Come on John, you're better than this.

Perhaps we should copy rugby and just pull in some foreigners to play? That'd save a few bob.

John, the sports you mention, the Olympics are the pinnacle of their career. The athletes make huge sacrifices both in terms of career and family, some are now rewarded by funding from external sources. You mention not a fair fight, what is the point to your argument? If you want to be the best you need to invest in the infrastructure. 10 years ago Paris had more 50m polls than the whole of the UK. If we want our children to have role models and aspire to be the next Chris Hoy, Rebecca Adlington, etc, they need the facilities and support to do so. Is it right to say, come on kids get into sport, you can represent your country at the Olympics but by the way, you have to train a a 25m pool not a 50m pool. You have no physio support..John I think you should stick to rugby blogs and write about something you seem to care about, not having a go at funding in these sports.. Can you quantify the Β£4.2 Million spend on Edinburgh players next year???

#3 AngelicOne: You raise an interesting point but I think it's a little skewed. Whilst football in this country has the most amount of money involved in it, it does not necessarily have the most spent on the game itself. As you rightly point out vast sums of money go to the players themselves, in fact I would hazard a guess far more than on the development of future talent.

Spain & Germany roughly 10 years ago started to spend the money on infrastructure and coaches (in 2008 Spain had almost 15,000 Uefa A and Pro Licence coaches - more than double the number of any other European nation) The results pretty speak for themselves.

Switching back to the Olympics we have to hope that that kind of investment is sustained, or even increase to other sports if possible, so we don't backslide in results and developing our sporting talent to the maximum.

I can only wish though that we had this kind of funding available to the development of junior rugby and upwards in Scotland!

Good post Stu (No 7)!!! You can only beat the man in front of you, and let's face it... there was PLENTY of top-notch competition for our cyclists, swimmers, rowers, etc to face!! Well done Team GB!!!

Initially I took this blog to be a typical moan - who would be at the spectacle of seeing possibly Scotland 's greatest athlete and think about money? - but, having given it some thought and a second reading, Beattie is actually complaining about the amount of sports funding in Britain! What kind of sports commentator would do that? Sheer idiocy. Absolutely shocking. I hope you'll visit all the schools and sports clubs next year to explain why sport shouldn't be funded. I have to advocate a boycott of this blog, although judging by the lack of comments that wouldn't take much. Shame on you John, abusing your position for an attempt at controversial and sensationalist writing. Shame on you.

This is so true but Britain does not invest huge amounts of money in all Olympic sports. the rhythmic gymnastics today is a prime example. British Gymnastics did all in their power to stop the GB group from going to the Games and it is with hard work and fund-raising that those girls have even reached London at all. The Olympics is different for everyone and for some just being there is a great achievement.

Yeah, back to oiled up naked men running , jumping and throwing in a field...might please some people i suppose.