Why team GB has won so many medals...

Video from The Guardian: click HERE!

Transcript of the video:

Rio 2016 has seen GB’s most successful overseas Olympic Games ever. Team GB won 27 gold medals in Brazil. At Atlanta 1996, they won just one event. So what’s behind the gold rush? Well, maybe it’s more money. The team received £274,5m ahead of Rio. That’s around £40m more than Beijing 2008. So each medal won by Team GB this year cost £4m. The aim this time was simple: become the first nation to increase its medal count immediately after its own Games. And it worked!

But it’s not good news for everyone. Sports that fail to hit medals targets usually face budget cuts. While those that perform well get more cash. Critics argue that the money could be better spent elsewhere – such as grassroots sport. Since 2010, local authority grants have shrunk by a fifth. And a quarter of people in the UK now do less than 30 minutes of activity a week. So, with current public health and NHS crises… How much are Olympic medals really worth?

UK Sport, which determines how public funds raised via the national lottery and tax are allocated to elite-level sport, has pledged almost £350m to Olympic and Paralympic sports between 2013 and 2017, up 11% on the run-up to London 2012. Those sports that have fuelled the rise in Britain’s medal-table positions over the past eight years – athletics, boxing and cycling, for example – were rewarded with increased investment. “It’s a brutal regime, but it’s as crude as it is effective,” said Dr Borja Garcia, a senior lecturer in sports management and policy at Loughborough University.

Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of the funding agency UK Sport (quoted in The Guardian) said: “I think we’ve all seen and felt the impact of medal success on ourselves and on the UK. Success in sport can inspire the nation, make everybody proud and unite the nation. There’s no doubt about that. We can all see it and feel it. Why do we invest in medal success? We invest in medal success to create a proud, ambitious, active, healthy nation.”

But the UK Government has come under fire… Why does it give money to successful sports rather than to sports that need money in order to achieve better results? And why does it not give more money to grassroots sports? Some say its priority is to get as many medals as possible to show that the UK is a “successful” country. It also considers that the more medals the UK wins, the more patriotic the country will feel… And does winning lots of medals really inspire the nation to practice more sport as Mrs Nicholl says?

If you divide the £274,5m subsidy from UK Sport by the total number of medals won, the medals cost the UK £4m each (the medals are worth £4m each) in terms of how much was spent (i.e. the cost of) training the athletes. The medals are worth a lot too (i.e. the value given to them) in terms of how much prestige they bring the UK. But the cost to (the price for/the effect on) those who lose out from the Government’s meritocratic system is also very high, namely: the sports that have not won medals (and are therefore no longer subsidised), and grassroots sports (which are essential to improving the health of the nation and would reduce the cost of health care).

Who plays sport in England? Click HERE!

Are Olympic champions born or made?

Mo Farah writes…

I always loved football at school and playing for Arsenal was my dream. But my PE teacher saw something in me when I was running down the wing. He pulled me aside and said to focus on athletics – it all started there.

I began racing seriously at 13 but it was after winning the European Junior 5,000m title in 2001 I started to really believe this could be my full time job. I dedicated myself to it 24/7 but I couldn’t have imagined I would become a double Olympic champion, especially not in my own back yard.

London 2012 and the Rio games have both been a dream come true for me. But what does it take to win an Olympic gold medal?

It is seriously tough to become an Olympic champion. The most important thing is commitment; it’s all about getting on top of that podium. I don’t dream of winning – I train for it. In the run up to Rio I was running about 120 miles a week. I become a bit of a robot – eat, sleep, train, repeat! Sometimes you have to make big sacrifices, like running until your body is crying out for you to stop, or missing your child's birthday because you are at a training camp.

When preparing for a long race, like the 5k or 10k, I practice running that distance the weekend before. Then in the week leading up to it I ease down. Just before the race I like a seriously strong espresso too – then I’m ready to go. The mental side is really important too. I always like to plan my race tactics in my head – visualizing how I’m going to beat my competitors.

Preparation is vital. Combine those hard yards in training with mental toughness and you give yourself the best chance of winning. If you’re anxious and worrying about your rivals then you can throw it all away. You can have all the natural talent in the world, but there is no substitute for hard work.