Like, I am sure, many others, I have been impressed by Great Britain's medal showing in the Rio Olympic Games. Depending on how you want to measure it, they placed second, above China, although of course well back from the USA. Their total of 67 medals was lower than China's 70, but it included 27 golds to China's 26, 23 silvers to China's 18, and 17 bronzes to China's 26. So the quality of their medals was certainly higher even if China can claim the overall quantity. (Quick shout-out to Canada, which also had its most successful Olympics ever, with 22 medals, mainly thanks to our women competitors, and a top 10 finish).
Just as an aside, it's interesting how British websites show medals table in order of gold medals (which favours Britain), while Canadian sites show the table in terms of overall medals (which favours Canada: 10th in overall medals, but 20th in golds).
But anyway, for a country that came 36th in the medals table as recently as 1996 in Atlanta, this is quite an achievement for Britain. Even in 2012, when the Games were held in London in front of a supportive home crowd, GB placed third, well behind the USA and China (and also behind Russia in total medals). So, in Rio, Britain has achieved that rare thing, an improvement over a record-breaking home performance. It has also strongly outperformed other developed countries with similar or greater populations, like Japan, Germany, France and Italy, as well as the populous and sports-mad home country, Brazil.
So, what is Britain's secret? Well, depressingly enough, the answer seems to be: money. UK Sport, which is the government body that allocates money raised from the national lottery and taxes to the various aspects of elite sport, has actually increased its investment in Olympic hopefuls over the last few years, even over and above its funding of the run-up to London 2012. And those sports (like athletics, boxing and cycling) that have fuelled Britain's rise in the medals standings over the last decade or so are the ones that have benefitted most, at the expense of less successful sports like swimming, wrestling and volleyball, which have seen their funding cut. In addition, the national lottery pays out as much £28,000 to individual medal-winners, and up to three-quarters of that to top 8 finishers, and half to individual identified future stars.
So, arguably, GB's success has come as the result of a brutal but effective policy based on a soulless cost-benefit analysis, similar in some ways to Canada's own "Own The Podium" program of recent years. As such, just as in Canada, the policy has come under some intense criticism for its cynical and money-centred philosophy.
In particular, many argue that the financial focus on elite sports is actively damaging "grassroots sports". In an environment where activity levels and participation in sports has reached an all-time low, where obesity is an ever-increasing problem, and where local authority budgets continue to be slashed, what then is the purpose of investment in sports? To boost Britain's image in the world at large, perhaps? Just as an example, in the wake of Britain's successes in swimming in the Rio Games, there has been a large surge in interest in swimming, but local pools remain underinvested, and many are closing or struggling to remain open due to funding cuts, and an estimated 52% of schoolchildren leave school unable to swim 25 metres unaided.
There is necessarily a limited pot of money available for countries to invest in sports. What should be the focus of that investment? Is it more important for a country to get a gold medal in sailing or taekwondo, than to achieve a modest improvement in the proportion (currently standing at about a quarter) of the population that does less than 30 minutes of activity a week?
No comments:
Post a Comment