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Marek. In reply to your post #9.
Rugby player Brian Moore, I have no idea who he is from Adam but apparently he was a major figure in Rugby Union some years ago has commented on Labour's attempts to claim glory for the British team.
The Government claim is that they tripled of funding for elite sport, to £265 million, which is, partly, responsible for the success.
He compares the funding over four-year cycles between games. Up to 2 years ago the extra funding was £2 million above the 'Sydney cycle' of £63 million.
The £200 million additional money was announced after London was awarded the 2012 Games.
This increase of funding to do with backing the London games with cash, rather than any effort to increase the chances of those training and competing this year.
Not all of this extra has been distributed to athletes and the long term preparations by the members of the team started when funding by the Government had increased only a very tiny amount.
So we come back to the real reason for the success of the British team as their own dedication and hard work.
On the same subject Jeremy Hunt has also written on conservativehome.com about Olympic funding. I quote part of what he said here::::
"""""""""""""It must make athletes in Beijing furious that the government is trying to claim credit for their success. The real credit should surely to our superb athletes and no one else.
In fact lottery funding for grassroots sport has been virtually cut in half since 1997. If you add in government spending, there has been a real reduction of £135m per annum going into sport, mainly caused by Labour's lottery raids for ministerial pet projects.
Grassroots sport is not the same as elite sport, but just as vital when it comes to London 2012, where we won the bid on the basis that we would inspire young people through sport.
But even the funding for elite sport has been a shambles. In March 2006 the government promised a £600m package of which £100m would come from the private sector. They have failed to raise this money, and yesterday a government minister said this was because at that time it was "unclear" which rights the government would have to sell off. A few phone calls to the BOA and the IOC could have cleared things up - instead of which they persisted with a promise they are now struggling to fulfil.
The harsher economic climate doesn't make things easier either, but they might have had a chance if they had started two years ago. Since then we are on our third Culture Secretary which I suspect is the real reason why this particular ball was dropped.""""""""""""
So there we are - just about everybody, apart from the Government, recognises the fact that the team's success is eveything to do with their own efforts.
