Rich

Not quite sure why hockey has been given an extra million but will let it go on the basis that we need to encourage team sports.

Fair enough, both. But it just seems a bit strange to fund so many with such limited Olympic outcome over a long period. I'd be delighted to see something meaningful come out of it but, on a surface level, other sports have not been shown as much patience.

That looks like a lot of very mediocre (on an international level) athletes getting support. I assume the funding is extremely minimal? Only Giles' world ranking suggests an athlete in the right ballpark to do something significant and even then, I don't get the impression that Judo is a sport where the world number 8 is likely to win an Olympic medal (if the Olympics were tomorrow)?

Reeves clearly spent too much time watching Keely etc and not enough time watching hockey and other relative disappointments.

It's quiet around here Funding for the next cycle has been announced and, in a pleasant surprise to me, there's been a 10% uplift. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cy87xr28jj7o

It's terribly sad and, at the same time, his attitude is inspiring. Fingers crossed he gets as much time as possible.

A very good performance! Interesting that there are no Dutch medals on the list and conversely a strong performance by Germany.

The UK won't be building new pools sadly. It would be nice if local government, underfunded by central government in massive debt, stopped closing them. This is an article from 2023: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/12/england-has-lost-almost-400-swimming-pools-since-2010

Life has kept me busy for most of the last 24 hours so apologies if I'm repeating something somebody else had said but, on this issue of a drop in the number of gold, I think some of the response is OTT. UK sport has (rightly) moved away from the so called 'win at all costs' philosophy and this must make a difference. Anecdotally (and it might be unduly influenced by the positivity of people like Finucane, Kerr and MHS or some of the rowers), the people who have missed out on gold have been able to put it in perspective, possibly more so than their contemporaries a decade ago. The people who have been really disappointed are the ones who have significantly underperformed (men's hockey, Molly C). If the the change in emphasis means fewer golds but a happy, smiling Emma Finucane, instead of a broken and depressed Vicky Pendleton self-harming in front of team management then that's surely preferable. Certainly, those two are very different personalities and you can say 'false equivalence', but VP needed to be looked after and wasn't. You might also tell me that I don't know how these people are feeling behind closed doors and I'd agree. The Aussie sporting attitude means winning is embedded in their identity which must partly explain their neat spread of medals (I note that the disproportionate number of Golds they had has evened out, which reflects the fact you shouldn't judge too early) but even from my distance from Aussie sport, I can recall past high-profile Aussie athletes with serious mental health challenges. I hope that they too are looking out for the wellbeing of their athletes. I also think it was inevitable that our lead over Europe / Australia would shrink because it was based on spending. Given the natural physical gifts of the Dutch, they were always going to be a problem for us. If the Germans start funding certain events more generously then we're in real trouble because they have advantages of wealth, population and, like the Dutch, are taller on average. Equally, the Aussie climate, the natural rise and fall of sporting success and the fact that they were debating Olympic performance in parliament after the last couple of games meant they weren't likely to stay down for long. If these countries get more medals then, leaving aside new sports, we're bound to lose a few. Progress isn't linear and if you thought we were just going to continue getting more and more gold each games until we eventually surpassed America then I think you were being very naive.

An hour and 50 mins of flat out freestyle in a dirty river swimming with and against the current and the medalists looks fresh as a daisy. Remarkable people.

Fun Ding

I don't think you needed that 'almost' in front of the word impossible 😀

Even if he gets relegated, that was a great series of races between them. If they do relegate, it will be harsh as the Japanese guy did the same in race 1 and got away with it.

Now THAT is track sprinting.

Andrews was brilliant.

A brilliant elimination race by Ethan.

Some of you need to be lovers not Hayters in this thread.

Fingers crossed for a fun day! How sweet will a gold be if we get one? And maybe that's the point? Highs and lows creating the extreme emotions that wake us all up, not just coasting along feeling smug. Either way, I'm determined to enjoy the ride today. The Olympics come but once a (4) year(s) and feeling glum is just not the way to savour them.

That's not really the press having a go. Nobody has been called a flop of a turnip. I've seen four back pages and it's words like 'pipped'. They reflect frustration not anger.

Sure, but it's also a target that you can't really hold anybody accountable for. If each governing body has met their target then what you going to do. The rest of the world had raised its game. And just like we learnt from the Aussies post 96 so, in turn, others have learnt from us - the Aussies themselves to some extent but also the Dutch and others I'm sure.

Gutted for Matt. Love watching him. Same with Josh and Molly. But there's no divine right and I'm sure the two men would take their performance over Molly's. I'm equally sure both would have good words for her - they've lived through their own athletic disappointments. The silvers are frustrating when so close, no question. But there is a reason that the target is about medals not golds and it's because GB success has been built on controlling the controllables. Sometimes, like tonight and yesterday, no matter what you do to prepare, no matter how extraordinarily fast you run, no matter how much you want it, somebody else is just better. Medals not golds allows for that uncontrollable.

I agree. They would have fixed the problems with the combinations and pitter patter shots if they had wanted to but they wanted in on the money and prestige of professional boxing and so set up their weird in-between boxing league and made loads of changes. Professional boxing is too dangerous for the Olympics and they need to move away from it again.

A beautifully made point, @mpjmcevoy but I would say the 'nobility' of such moments often comes from their clarity. Yes, sometimes it's a context dependent clarity, but the most timeless of sporting moments aren't. Kelly running through the line (almost every kid knows what it is to race), Redmond and his dad hobbling down the track. Gemma Gibbons looking to the sky and whispering to her mum. Forgive my British bias. Kayak X may well produce these, but when events become too harum-scarum then that clarity can be lost in the seemingly random and faintly comical. I just think it needs a bit of evolution. A bit more space. To give a 'cross' example, the greatest snowboard cross moment was Lindsey Jacobellis falling on her face, which only happened because the course was long enough for it to happen. If Kayak X is doing its best to encourage incident every single second then the great moments might be drowned in incidents. Stephen Bradbury might disagree with me but, for all the chaos of short track, it is, essentially, just a race.

Watched Kayak X medal races this eve and wasn't completely convinced. I like the idea but the inflatable posts, the compulsory roll... Seemed a bit total wipeout. Couldn't it just be from point A to point B with some upstream turns? Maybe I just didn't get to watch enough.

A golden evening for our women. Highs and lows (mostly just 'not-as-high-as-I-would-like-lows' not actual lows (apart from poor Molly)- the Olympic rollercoaster.