Time to make business pay for Olympians

UK Sport have announced that they will put most of the Funding into gaining medals at the next Olympics and they have suggested that most of the money will go to the those Olympic Sports that were successful in the London Olympics. I just wonder if this the correct way to go around promoting sport? Should we concentrate all our time, energy and money on a very small percentage of our sportsman/women? Surely the ultimate aim is to encourage more people to participate in sport. The government have stated that there has been an increase in the participation in Sport since the Olympics, I have doubts that this is true because at ground level and someone who is involved in Sport, all I have seen is a lot people making enquires but not going any further. This could be that I am involved in Martial Arts and Judo and Taekwondo in the Olympics left a lot to be desired the view on these two sports by people I spoke to were, one was about trying to get hold of a jacket and the other was about kicking someone up the backside not the most spectacular of sports. The one thing I have seen an increase in is cycling and not just some one buying a cheap bike but people getting proper kit and buying quality cycles. Maybe the reason for this being popular is that it can be done when you like and you are not restricted to time and place.

I have no objections to Olympians receiving money to train and win medals for the UK but maybe the time has come to make them become true professionals like Football, Tennis etc. Government money maybe should be spent on every athlete rather then just the few for the bigger the base the more medals we get. Why not make running a sports club a proper business have leagues like football where maybe one sports club competes against another and they become paid employees. Football fans pay an astronomical amount to watch their teams, TV pay astronomical amounts for TV rights. The Olympics is nothing what the original concept was about where we had true amateurs, modern day Olympians are professionals some have competed in 4 Olympic games if they were not professionals they could not survive, in the past some tried claiming unemployment benefit this was classified as fraud because they were unavailable for work. The taxpayer actually sponsors them, and I think this should stop. Taxpayer’s money should go to introducing everyone to sport, as sport keeps people healthy fit and takes stress of our National Health Service but this cannot happen until alter our attitude to Top Sportsman and make them receive a reward like other Celebrities get.

I have included some previous artless on the subject :

Cameron has said he wants to encourage more sport in school so we can have more Olympic Champions what concerns me will all government subsidised sport be just the Olympic Sports? There are 34 Olympic Sports according to I.O.C. web site yet SportEngland has 148 recognised sports and there are many other sports which are not recognised or yet to be invented. So by all means get people doing Sport but throw the net wide and do not restricted it just to the Olympics




Olympic Honours and Plastic Brits

Dear Editor

In response to Mr Richard Vanlint article according to the newspapers and Wikipedia there were 61 plastic Brits that was 11% of the British Team. This includes people born of British parents born outside UK. 8 of them have competed for other countries in the past. Cuban Borne Triple Jumper Yamile Aldama and Wrestler Olga Butkevych from Ukraine only got their passports a couple of months ago
My point was that
1)   Athletes compete to win an Olympic Medals for themselves and to do that you have to be completely selfish. This may not be what you want to hear but it is the truth my own experience and my experience with many other Olympic and World Class Athletes know that to be a fact
2)   The Olympics is no longer a Festival of Amateur Sports people gathering to together once every 4 years to celebrate the purity of sport and the perfection of the Human body
3)   The Modern Olympics is about a cooperate organisation I.O.C. putting on a entertaining spectacle that will capture the World s imagination, which it does
4)    Athletes are paid professionals today how else can you attend more then one Olympics, some have done 4 or 5. I was a reserve for the Moscow Olympics 1980, I spent 4 years trying to get there what money I earned went on me, the wife worked to keep the family. If I had another 4 years I would go to the next Olympics but it was financially impossible, that was the norm in those days.
5)   The Olympics is a show and the athletes performers if that is the case why not take athletes from any country to compete for GB
6)   How long before there will be no countries in the Olympics only Athletes who are sponsored by major companies? Would that be such a bad idea?


I was also extremely dismayed by the fact that an un elected Civil Servant Sir Bob Kerslake has decide that all medallist will be mentioned in the New Years honour
The following says exactly what I feel:

”I share the enthusiasm for the outstanding Olympic performance of Team GB. I don't, however, see why they would expect 'a gong' at all. Surely their medals - that’s what they competed for with such outstanding results, rewarded them. Awarding to civil servants who are paid well for doing their jobs and who often enjoy pensions that the private sector can only dream about is entirely outdated and ludicrous. These people are essentially achieving for themselves either because they are well rewarded or to fulfill personal ambitions - that should be enough. If we are to keep the awards systems at all they should go to people who are motivated to help others - the unrecognized charity workers, fund raisers, researchers, people who devote their lives to careers to help their communities despite rather than because of their meager pay. We could also do an awful lot more for our servicemen and women - they are our real heroes.”
How many Service men and women, have died for this Country, how many have lost limbs. Lets put into perspective the Olympics was an extremely well organised and spectacular Sports event but it was ONLY SPORT

Yours Truly

Martin Clarke