Beijing Olympics Thread

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

My tax dollars are going towards their development - your damn right they owe me something. Even as a fan they owe me something. This is sports, not elementary school recess.

If they want us to care - they have to take the criticism along with the praise.

In short - they need to suck it up. No sympathy from me. No one made them become olympic athletes.

They always have taken criticism. Fact is, step up and support them with at least a half decent backing and maybe they will get results. Its laughable that people think throwing a few bucks (barely enough to buy groceries in some cases) is worthy of expecting results.

Take this on for size - canada has a combined funding for winter/summer olympics of 40mil. It was considerably less just two - three years ago.

Australia - 160 million.

Seems a little more reasonable to cut them some slack no? You try concentrating on being a top calibre athlete for at least a decade while getting funding like that and competing against athletes who have one job - training.

If you think that increasing it is not worth it coming out of "your tax dollars" (which equates to a whopping $1.20 per person a year) then don't complain about production at the one event most people watch every four years.

[moon]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

Seems a little more reasonable to cut them some slack no? You try concentrating on being a top calibre athlete for at least a decade while getting funding like that and competing against athletes who have one job - training.

If it is so tough then don't do it. As Jiri said nobody is forcing these people to become Olympic athletes.

I don't think it is crazy to hope that Canada can do better than setting Canadian records and finishing 25th.

Personally if the option is to increase funding or continue these results I hope we slash funding immensely and only fund those sports/athletes that we are competitive in.

[browna]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

As far as i'm concerned i'm happy if they are out there setting new pb's and national records. The medals would be nice, but be realistic....unless funding reaches levels of other countries on a consistent basis, raising expectations isn't fair.

Jiri's covered the first part, but the failure after faliure of those athletes that have already supposedly proved themselves in the world is concerning. Should all be competing for a medal? No, that's not realistic.

But those that are ranked top 2-5 in the world currently or recently, going into the Olympics based on world cup wins, world championship podiums etc etc...and then they come to the Olympics and finish 5th...that's not coaching or funding, because they're proven that the can get to that level supposedly, its failing when it matters the most.

Its those like the synchro divers late last night ranked second in the world and finish 5th. 4x200 swim team world silver medlists a couple years back at World Championships, 5th. Brett Hayden who was a world champion, who's face is all over the TV for Rona (who are proud of Brett the photographer as much as Brett the world Champion..yeah right) and Visa, not even making the finals of his specific race. Some of its bad luck and not their day...but its still failure in all those cases of what appeared to be reasonable expectations going into the events and warrants proper critcism.

[Ruttiger]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

My tax dollars are going towards their development - your damn right they owe me something. Even as a fan they owe me something. This is sports, not elementary school recess.

If they want us to care - they have to take the criticism along with the praise.

In short - they need to suck it up. No sympathy from me. No one made them become olympic athletes.

Wow - that's pretty harsh. At the risk of coming off as a jerk, exactly how many of your tax dollars do you think have actually gone to Brent Hayden, Mike Brown, David Ford, etc.? A couple, maybe? Do you seriously feel they should be competing in the hopes of winning to repay you Jiri Hrdina, or me, or anyone else here specifically? Get over yourself. These people compete for the love of the sport and due to their internal drive to be the best. Very true - they can't get there without our contributions. But as was pointed out above, amateur athletics in this country has historically been so woefully underfunded that higher expectations are just not realistic - yet. It is changing and improving, but a cheque cut one day does not translate into world class performance the next. If fingers are to be pointed, the majority of them should be pointed at those who determine funding. The athletes absolutely do the best with the tools they're given, by and large. Having said that, Brent Hayden not qualifying for the 100m final was a definite shocker - no question he dropped the ball and should have been there.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by moon

If it is so tough then don't do it. As Jiri said nobody is forcing these people to become Olympic athletes.

I don't think it is crazy to hope that Canada can do better than setting Canadian records and finishing 25th.

Personally if the option is to increase funding or continue these results I hope we slash funding immensely and only fund those sports/athletes that we are competitive in.

How is it that we can judge if our athletes are competitive when this is the case? You can't exactly slash funding any lower (it only recently even was raised to any level of respectability. Sad when we are ok with forking billions of tax dollars to gun registrations that don't work and have a problem with 1.20 a year per person for our athletes.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by fredr123

I really wish I could find a link to the video so you can all see it for yourself and tell whetehr I may be over-reacting but I guess I'll just have to go based on my memory.

The video is now up on the CBC On Demand Video section: http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/ondemand/ It's from Day 5. Search for Sherraine Schalm and it should be near the top of the results list (it's from the Olympic Morning program with Scott Russell).

Originally Posted by browna

Jiri's covered the first part, but the failure after faliure of those athletes that have already supposedly proved themselves in the world is concerning. Should all be competing for a medal? No, that's not realistic.

But those that are ranked top 2-5 in the world currently or recently, going into the Olympics based on world cup wins, world championship podiums etc etc...and then they come to the Olympics and finish 5th...that's not coaching or funding, because they're proven that the can get to that level supposedly, its failing when it matters the most.

Its those like the synchro divers late last night ranked second in the world and finish 5th. 4x200 swim team world silver medlists a couple years back at World Championships, 5th. Brett Hayden who was a world champion, who's face is all over the TV for Rona (who are proud of Brett the photographer as much as Brett the world Champion..yeah right) and Visa, not even making the finals of his specific race. Some of its bad luck and not their day...but its still failure in all those cases of what appeared to be reasonable expectations going into the events and warrants proper critcism.

Scott Russell as Schalm why she thinks she hasn't been able to translate her success in other international fencing competitions into medals at the Olympics (this is her third trip to the games, I think). She replied that everyone at the Olympics is capable of winning. Thirty two other countries are asking their athletes why they didn't medal.

I think she did a good job avoiding the question. She's competed successfully against the world's best before and come out on top. It's not like she just missed the podium this year; she was out in the round of 16. Could be she had a bad day. Happens to everyone. Except when I don't perform at the top of my game a gold medal isn't at stake.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

My tax dollars are going towards their development - your damn right they owe me something. Even as a fan they owe me something. This is sports, not elementary school recess.

If they want us to care - they have to take the criticism along with the praise.

In short - they need to suck it up. No sympathy from me. No one made them become olympic athletes.

I agree with your sentiments for the most part.

I think it's telling that the funding debate only comes up every two years when either the summer or winter olympics rolls around. In between those events, no one talks about and no one seems to care.

Deep down I think I'm jealous of olympic athletes. I'm convinced that if I had the opportunity to try something like fencing or equestrian when I was young and had the resources to practice and really pursue those events, I could have been an olympic caliber athlete. Well, at least as good as the ones that we field. But I didn't have that funding and I didn't have those opportunities so now I'm sitting here in Calgary not winning a medal instead of sitting in Beijing and not winning a medal.

Do I feel bad about our olympic athletes (maybe not our hockey team) having to refinance their house so they can afford to practice their sport? Honestly? Not really. I'd prefer to see more athletes have to work a regular job and practice their events in their spare time like many of Canada's athletes claim to do. At least, I'd much prefer that to what seems to be becoming the norm with the rest of the world. USA, China, etc. all seem to fund athletes so they need do nothing else but train and compete around the world. They're basically being paid to play. That's not really amateur athletics, my friends.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by Ruttiger

Wow - that's pretty harsh. At the risk of coming off as a jerk, exactly how many of your tax dollars do you think have actually gone to Brent Hayden, Mike Brown, David Ford, etc.? A couple, maybe? Do you seriously feel they should be competing in the hopes of winning to repay you Jiri Hrdina, or me, or anyone else here specifically? Get over yourself.

It's kinda funny if you do the math. It was said earlier that Canada's combined Olympic funding is $40 million. Based on the fact that winter Olympics get more funding let's say the summer athletes get $15 million of that. With a population of 33 million and let's say 75% of that are paying taxes (~25 million). So essentially of that $15 million of funding each of us is providing a whopping 60 cents.

That's surely enough to expect dominance, right?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

I get tired of people ragging on these athletes who owe the average person nothing. Infact, unless you attend some of these events or watch them any other time then the olympics I think you have no right to complain about performance.

Fact is, these athletes work harder to get to this level then 90% of the population could even imagine.....training as hard as they do while working jobs to afford to go to event like these means they are working 80 hours a week just to make ends meet.

Canada is improving its abysmal funding system but its not enough to see a dramatic increase. The system needs to fund these people more then just for olympic medals. In every one of the medal leading countries the majority of the athletes are not working jobs to support themselves and can just focus on training. Its expensive for the government and tax payers but I'd rather see that happen then money being thrown into useless programs or rebates.

As far as i'm concerned i'm happy if they are out there setting new pb's and national records. The medals would be nice, but be realistic....unless funding reaches levels of other countries on a consistent basis, raising expectations isn't fair.

I don't think that you get my point here. Its not that the I think these people owe me anything, or that everyone there ought to win a gold medal. My point is simply that its frustrating and disappointing to see medal hope after medal hope slip away.

I'm happy to see the Canadian records fall as well....but when that still leaves you a few seconds off the podium its a muted happiness. I also question how much of that improvement is due to improving technology and training in general though?

As far as the funding goes I think that Baumann interview alludes to an interesting issue in Canadian sport when he basically says "whats the point of adding another $500k to the funding if there are not capable people to run the program?". (Not a direct quote, but quoted to make this sort of readable).

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Ruttiger

Wow - that's pretty harsh. At the risk of coming off as a jerk, exactly how many of your tax dollars do you think have actually gone to Brent Hayden, Mike Brown, David Ford, etc.? A couple, maybe? Do you seriously feel they should be competing in the hopes of winning to repay you Jiri Hrdina, or me, or anyone else here specifically? Get over yourself. .

If they want my support either emotionally or financially than they do need to make me happy. If they don't care about me caring about the olympics than that's fine. After these games I likely won't care about the summer games. And if that's not important to them - so be it.

But if they want us to support them - better results are required.

Honestly if someone chooses to become an olympic athlete they should know what they are getting into. I have myself chose a career that hs some drawbacks including serious financial ones. Do I whine about it at every opportunity - no because I made the decision to do what I do knowing full well what I was getting into.

Whining never sits well with me. I hate it.

I also really question the notion that throwing more money at the problem will solve anything - I believe there are likely other root causes at play that should be solved...though don't ask me what those are

[moon]

Originally Posted by JayP

It's kinda funny if you do the math. It was said earlier that Canada's combined Olympic funding is $40 million. Based on the fact that winter Olympics get more funding let's say the summer athletes get $15 million of that. With a population of 33 million and let's say 75% of that are paying taxes (~25 million). So essentially of that $15 million of funding each of us is providing a whopping 60 cents.

That's surely enough to expect dominance, right?

Who exactly is expecting dominance?

I think that is enough to expect better than the embarrassing results we have seen so far. I don't see anyone here bemoaning the fact we can't keep up with China and the US.

Heck at this point a bronze would be nice

[JayP]

Originally Posted by moon

Who exactly is expecting dominance?

I think that is enough to expect better than the embarrassing results we have seen so far. I don't see anyone here bemoaning the fact we can't keep up with China and the US.

Heck at this point a bronze would be nice

How many realistic medal opportunities have been blown at this point?

I don't follow any of these sports so I'm not the one to answer that question. I have heard several times that most of Canada's best chances to medal are in the second week. There's definitely too many people who look on CBC and see 0 medals for Canada and then just make noise. If Canada was only expected to get 1 or 2 medals at this point is it really that much of a disappointment?

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by JayP

How many realistic medal opportunities have been blown at this point?

I don't follow any of these sports so I'm not the one to answer that question. I have heard several times that most of Canada's best chances to medal are in the second week. There's definitely too many people who look on CBC and see 0 medals for Canada and then just make noise. If Canada was only expected to get 1 or 2 medals at this point is it really that much of a disappointment?

I'd say we should have 3-5 at this point.

[moon]

Originally Posted by JayP

How many realistic medal opportunities have been blown at this point?

I don't follow any of these sports so I'm not the one to answer that question. I have heard several times that most of Canada's best chances to medal are in the second week. There's definitely too many people who look on CBC and see 0 medals for Canada and then just make noise. If Canada was only expected to get 1 or 2 medals at this point is it really that much of a disappointment?

For me it isn't just the lack of medals but the basic lack of competitiveness. We have had what one or two "close" calls.

I saw the Canadian trail the other day on CBC and it was full of 25th's, 17th's, 40th's, 53rd's etc.

Ignoring the fact that we haven't got any medals the fact that we haven't even been competitive up to this point is what concerns me.

Although that isn't to discount the fact that there does appear to have been at least 4-5 decent shots to win a medal that have fallen through as well. I imagine if a few of those had been medals the other results may look a little less glaring.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

But if they want us to support them - better results are required.

Honestly if someone chooses to become an olympic athlete they should know what they are getting into. I have myself chose a career that hs some drawbacks including serious financial ones. Do I whine about it at every opportunity - no because I made the decision to do what I do knowing full well what I was getting into.

Whining never sits well with me. I hate it.

I also really question the notion that throwing more money at the problem will solve anything - I believe there are likely other root causes at play that should be solved...though don't ask me what those are

What tells you they don't know what they are getting into? They are doing this out of passion for the sport they are in and are doing the best with what they have and are getting. They don't have to please anyone but themselves and until they get funding that is actually notable no one has the right to call them out. $1.20 (or less as some have pointed out) does not qualify, especially when countries far smaller are putting forward significantly more money and are seeing the results.

The fact that you are saying you hate whining when you are infact whining about their production kind of confuses me. The few athletes that have spoken up are doing so in defense of people like you who are attacking them for not medaling.

Essentially what you're saying is that if the flames had a payroll of 15mil and everyone else in the nw was at the limit you would expect them to win the division every year or they would be failures....thats not attainable, much like the notion our athletes should be winning medals with every other country.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

What tells you they don't know what they are getting into? They are doing this out of passion for the sport they are in and are doing the best with what they have and are getting. They don't have to please anyone but themselves and until they get funding that is actually notable no one has the right to call them out. $1.20 (or less as some have pointed out) does not qualify, especially when countries far smaller are putting forward significantly more money and are seeing the results.

The fact that you are saying you hate whining when you are infact whining about their production kind of confuses me. The few athletes that have spoken up are doing so in defense of people like you who are attacking them for not medaling.

Essentially what you're saying is that if the flames had a payroll of 15mil and everyone else in the nw was at the limit you would expect them to win the division every year or they would be failures....thats not attainable, much like the notion our athletes should be winning medals with every other country.

I have every right to call them out. They are representing my country over there.

I'm sure they know what they are getting into but then why are they complaining about it after the fact? You chose to go into this profession - deal with it.

If they are getting any funding they are accountable to the taxpayers - no matter how small the contribution.

[Ruttiger]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

If they are getting any funding they are accountable to the taxpayers - no matter how small the contribution.

Curious if you feel the same way about the Flames when you buy a ticket or tickets to a game, given that a large chunk of that revenue goes to pay their salaries. I know they get critiqued, but do you feel they need to answer to you for their performance because you contribute to their pay? Are they directly accountable to you personally?

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Ruttiger

Curious if you feel the same way about the Flames when you buy a ticket or tickets to a game, given that a large chunk of that revenue goes to pay their salaries. I know they get critiqued, but do you feel they need to answer to you for their performance because you contribute to their pay? Are they directly accountable to you personally?

Darn right they are.

[Antithesis]

Originally Posted by Ruttiger

Curious if you feel the same way about the Flames when you buy a ticket or tickets to a game, given that a large chunk of that revenue goes to pay their salaries. I know they get critiqued, but do you feel they need to answer to you for their performance because you contribute to their pay? Are they directly accountable to you personally?

I don't see how the situations are that different. Where is the confusion coming from? It's not as if his (or my) opinion is not consistent. If I was not happy with the Flames' performance, I'd say it, or stop cheering for them. It's the same thing, is it not?

Besides, I don't want them to answer to me specifically about the results. I want the results to be better. Not so many 'disappointments' or people who are supposed to be contending for medals having 'bad days'.

Brent Hayden is quoted on tsn.ca in an article about this very subject: "I just have to accept it," he said. "That's what happens sometimes. I'll live." What? It almost sounds like he doesn't even care.

http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id...=secStory_main

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I have every right to call them out. They are representing my country over there.

I'm sure they know what they are getting into but then why are they complaining about it after the fact? You chose to go into this profession - deal with it.

If they are getting any funding they are accountable to the taxpayers - no matter how small the contribution.

If you're that bothered by the performance I'd say you should write the government and demand your loonie back then.

Some canadians need to ditch the logic that a lucky loonie is all the athletes need to compete with the worlds best. Its much like everything else in the world in the sense that you get what you put into it. With Canada we put in the minimum for a country our size and we are seeing the results.

For myself, I'm impressed that this group of athletes is actually making finals and producing top 20 finishes in many events where they have never been close in past years.