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Why are English Athletics so bad?


Rob W
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Yeah, and how many World Wars have Jamaica won?

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Pele played a Jamaican in 'Escape to Victory' so it's at least one.

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http://edit.mougayar.com/athens2004

 

this guy has compiled some relative tables

 

 

Comparing to weighted performance we came 37th out of 75th - in fact almost dead on the median value

 

 

medals to competitors we came 22nd

 

medals per million of population we came 22nd

 

medals per billion $ GDP we came 62nd

 

medals per capita we came 41st

 

but this is ALL Sports and ALL medals

 

our athletics team was both large and poor in performance cp the other teams such as rowing and sailing so they dragged us down overall

Edited by Rob W
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But in Athens we came third in the medals table Rob, have a look at the official Athens 2004 site if you don't believe me. I don't call that poor despite what your mate reckons. :o

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But in Athens we came third in the medals table Rob, have a look at the official Athens 2004 site if you don't believe me. I don't call that poor despite what your mate reckons.  B)

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We're crap and you know it............................. time to warm up for the next paula radcliffe thread................................. :o;):(:(:(:blush::blush:B)B)B)

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We may disagree over Paula :o but I'm with Rob on this one.

 

I think its a combination of:

Less athletics/sport in general in schools.

Most kids give up sport after school.

US domination of sprints via scholarships for African Americans.

African domination of middle & long distances due to genetic advantage - highlands of Kenya/Eithiopia produce stunning natural athletes with perfect ratios of legs to torso. And they are hungry for it.

And the success of both the US and Kenya/Eithiopia breeds future success.

We were never that good anyway.

More and more nations now competing.

UK athletes not hungry for it/cossetted by Lottery funding.

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My God!

 

Someone taking it seriously

 

but I agree Mr M - I'd also be a lot happier if 10% of the money that is going to be poured into the hands of land owners, builders and PR types for London 2012 was spent instead on the items you list

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"Sweden, for example, had an athletics squad of just 16 - but produced three gold medals, for Carolina Kluft, Stefan Holm and Christian Olsson."

 

Holm - high jumper: technical event/rich country; long tradition in Sweden/tall guy

Olsson - triple jumper technical event/rich country; minor event/tall guy

Kluft - heptahlon technical event/rich country; minor event

Edited by Mr Misery
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"Sweden, for example, had an athletics squad of just 16 - but produced three gold medals, for Carolina Kluft, Stefan Holm and Christian Olsson."

 

Holm - high jumper: technical event/rich country; long tradition in Sweden/tall guy

Olsson - triple jumper technical event/rich country; minor event/tall guy

Kluft - heptahlon technical event/rich country; minor event

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MINOR EVENT???

 

FFS man Alex was counting on that to get us up the table.....................

 

We also had a long tradition in certain events

 

2 100m winners in the last 30 years

 

400 m

 

several medals in the middle distance events for the girls as as well as the blokes

 

Coe, Ovett etc etc

 

we've never been very good at the technical events but we have had the ocasional sucess

 

but now.............................................

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We also had a long tradition in certain events

 

2 100m winners in the last 30 years

 

400 m

 

several medals in the middle distance events for the girls as as well as the blokes

 

Coe, Ovett etc etc

 

we've never been very good at the technical events  but we have had the ocasional sucess

 

but now.............................................

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2 100m in last 30 years hardly a tradition is it :o One of those was Alan Wells at Moscow when the Yanks weren't there - also the slowest 100m final ever 10.11 or something.

 

400m - yeah fair enough but it was still at the margins : minor individual medals; team golds.

 

Its all quite small margins though isn't it - Swedes get 3 golds whoopee do its (understandibly given population/the sports stature) not that much is it compared to US/Russia (where they are picked out an early age and groomed - just look at how good they are at tennis for similar reason).

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My God!

 

Someone taking it seriously

 

 

You mean agreeing with you.

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Well....... it's pretty rare to be honest.............. :drinks::P:(:(:(:(:(:(

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My God!

 

Someone taking it seriously

 

 

You mean agreeing with you.

9111[/snapback]

 

Well....... it's pretty rare to be honest.............. :drinks::P:(:(:(:(:(:(

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Rob on a similar note, have you noticed that although Australia is very strong when it comes to team sports and swimming, our atheletics team like England is quite weak.

Maybe it's the convict blood where it was a good talent to have running with a loaf of bread under your arm or being able to throw an apple to your accomplice but take the ball away and we can't seem to run for shit!

Or maybe like in England there is no money in atheletics and hence no-one really gives a!

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from todays Times.................

 

 

Semi-finals underline paucity of the British challenge

By David Powell

 

 

THE torrential rain that poured on to the track at the end of the third night of the World Championships was a fitting epitaph to the bleakest of sessions imaginable for the Great Britain team. Without a representative in any of the five finals, there were only four Britons on show, all in semifinals. Not one progressed.

 

Michael East was eliminated from the men’s 1,500 metres, finishing last but one and complaining after that he was suffering from stomach trouble. In the women’s 400 metres semi-finals, Donna Fraser, Christine Ohuruogu and Lee McConnell went out without looking close to progressing.

 

As desperate as the Britain team have become to cling to any hope of a medal, the departure of Fraser, Ohuruogu and McConnell was seen as an advantage. They will be fresher for the 4 x 400 metres, in which they have a chance of bronze because, after the United States and Russia, there is no outstanding squad. Britain were the only team other than the US and Russia to qualify three semi-finalists through the first round.

 

East’s exit from the men’s 1,500 metres, leaves Britain without a finalist in this event for the fourth successive World Championships. And to think that Steve Cram won the first title here, in 1983.

 

Britain may be spared their worst World Championships — a gold and a bronze in 2001 — but only Paula Radcliffe, in the marathon, and Nathan Douglas, in the triple jump, are geniune individual medal prospects. How ready Douglas is for the weight on his shoulders can be judged in the qualifying round this evening.

 

It would have been beneath Radcliffe even to consider it, but she must have wondered last night, as women steeplechasers were allowed into the World Championships for the first time, how easy it might have been for her to pick off a gold medal in this substandard event. Won by Docus Inzikuru, who provided Uganda with their first world champion, the 3,000 metres steeplechase is a long way off maturity.

 

Inzikuru is a former 3,000 and 5,000 metres flat runner of little standing who saw her chance when this event was added to the programme. She was only fourth behind Radcliffe in the Commonwealth Games 5,000 metres in Manchester three years ago.

 

Last night, Inzikuru took her victory after what little challenge there was, from Yelena Zadorozhnaya, of Russia, collapsed as a result of her appalling water-jump technique. Zadorozhnaya faded to finish sixth.

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Right then Rob, don't come to me with problems...come to me with solutions. What should we do about it then? What's your plan to make us great once again?

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That's asking quite a lot of the BBC website.

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Right then Rob, don't come to me with problems...come to me with solutions. What should we do about it then? What's your plan to make us great once again?

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Couldn't give a shit about athletics actually - but BOY does it get you lot hopping..........

 

 

 

:drinks::P:(:(:(:(:(:(:D .

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Yeah Rob, I think we all realise you're good at posting articles from the net.

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I'll teach you how if you ask nicely................. :drinks:

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Right then Rob, don't come to me with problems...come to me with solutions. What should we do about it then? What's your plan to make us great once again?

9237[/snapback]

 

 

Couldn't give a shit about athletics actually - but BOY does it get you lot hopping..........

 

 

 

:P:(:(:(:(:(:(:D:D .

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I must say, going by this and previous threads centred around your irrational hatred of Paula Radcliffe, you really do seem to care Rob. Just the impression I get, obviously :drinks:

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Right then Rob, don't come to me with problems...come to me with solutions. What should we do about it then? What's your plan to make us great once again?

9237[/snapback]

 

 

Couldn't give a shit about athletics actually - but BOY does it get you lot hopping..........

 

 

 

:(:(:(:(:(:(:D:D:D .

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I must say, going by this and previous threads centred around your irrational hatred of Paula Radcliffe, you really do seem to care Rob. Just the impression I get, obviously :drinks:

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Me too, you know your stuff and have used it well to back up an argument, yet you don't care? Come on Rob, we all know you've got girly picks of Wor Paula up on the fridge. :P

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Come on Rob, we all know you've got girly picks of Wor Paula up on the fridge.  :drinks:

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They're next to his Ellen MacArthur ones apparently.

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Come on Rob, we all know you've got girly picks of Wor Paula up on the fridge.  :drinks:

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They're next to his Ellen MacArthur ones apparently.

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Don't get me started.............................. :P:(:(:(

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