The AH Tokyo 2020 Olympics/Paralympics Thread in 2021

What.Now

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117726289#Comment_117726289

What would the mainrenance upkeep be on it? Would you need to keep it at a particular temp & humidity to prevent warping. Would daily maintenance be required to check the surface, insurance etc.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117726683#Comment_117726683

I've never run a velodrome facility but I would assume the track needs to be kept at the same temperature and humidity as a sports hall floor. Maintenance and insurance would be required.

As stated above though, what is the purpose of a velodrome? The track bikes are so expensive it will be limited to being used by high level athletes rather than community use. So really it's an Olympic training facility, grand. But medals, great and all for the athletes themselves, what good are they to anyone else?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117726813#Comment_117726813

The general public would be able to rent bikes on open days. Other velodromes both open air and closed do it

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117726289#Comment_117726289

The government have promised funding for it and continually say it is going to be part of Stadium Campus Ireland which is also do to get a badminton centre to go alongside the National Diving Centre, National Horse Sport Arena, National Cross Country Track, Cricket Ireland High Performance Centre so it being a niche sport should not go against it.

Housing it in a warehouse was one of the original plans for a site in Dundalk.

Also how much does a velodrome floor cost ?

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117726813#Comment_117726813

8 indoor velodromes in the uk, you can go in and rent bikes and ride round , in fact i know someone who has busted both shoulders coming off on manchester !

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117726960#Comment_117726960

Cheers to you (and the other person who pointed it out). Didn't realise this was a case, largely because I would have thought more people would bust their shoulders on velodromes if they rented out bikes! That seems super dangerous. However then I would be presuming that there is not that many hurting themselves if they are still going. That works a bit better than I had thought. I wouldn't go but I am sure there are many who would so maybe not the worst idea.

harr

Hope this thread keeps going for the Paralympics , i nearly enjoy the para more at times and I think the athletes are amazing and have over come a lot of hurdles ( pardon the pun) in life to get to compete on a world stage .. some very inspirational athletes .

Kunta Kinte

Crazy thati Ireland has never hosted a world championship in sports like boxing, rowing or road cycling in the Republic anyway. Surely this should have happened a long time ago.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117727792#Comment_117727792

Don't know about the others, but with boxing it comes down to the money. Or lack thereof. The majority of world championships and Olympic qualifiers take place in eastern Europe now, been like that for a decade and more as that's where the big money is. Uzbekistan has the next world championships. If it wasn't there, it'd likely be Baku!

I remember a major controversy when the European female boxing championships were due to be held in Dublin around 2014 or 2015 and had to be switched for reasons I forget. I recall Katie Taylor only learning about it during a press conference as nobody from iaba had informed her!

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117727894#Comment_117727894

I think I'm right in saying the Olympic qualifiers in Paris were not held under the auspices of AIBA, but by the IOC itself. Which is great news and means AIBA (or individuals within) cannot fix who qualifies. I assume it will be the same for 2024.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117727792#Comment_117727792

I feel like we often aim too high. People talking about bids for World Cups and even that Dublin mayor going on about the Olympics about 15 years back.

In cycling the Ras hasn't run in a few years now and went bust even before Covid and the Tour of Ireland didn't last long. Luckily the new planned Ras is a bit smaller which is good but tours are expensive to run. I never understood why we didn't instead put our efforts towards a world class single day classic

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117728101#Comment_117728101

That's right, aiba had nothing to do with qualifiers and as they've seen Olympic boxing can go very sweetly without their involvement, they've now decided to play ball with the IOC in terms of enabling an independent investigation into Rio and governance issues. So have to see how that plays out.

Richard Hillman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117728354#Comment_117728354

Yeah a single day classic or bidding for a world championship would be realistic. Essentially bike races are loss earners because you don't get paying punters but beyond that why the likes of France take the TdeF so seriously is because it is the greatest tourism advertisement they have. And they have genuine cinematographers coming on show to get the great shots. All of the big tours have them. There is a Tour of Norway that was on last week and again, it probably loses a fortune for the race but it's invested in for tourism. The shots and scenery are amazing.

Rwanda are likely to be holding the World Championships in the next couple of years. They have been pumping money into trying to attract tourists (Visit Rwanda is a sponsor of Arsenal). Pumped money into a Tour of Rwanda which attracts the world tour teams. Again, it's literally all about tourism. Norway, Rwanda, France, Italy. The races are all heavily funded as a tourism advertisement.

Brendan Bendar

Who is Noel Kelly going to give the ‘homecoming’ gig to.

Answers on the back of a brown envelope.

fryup

don't tell me Joe Duffy is going to be there??

frosty123

Pretty sad state of affairs that we have to rely on a woman beating the head off another woman to get a medal 🏅

HeidiHeidi

Did nobody give that Walsh fella a few lessons in how to use crutches??? 🤣

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733223#Comment_117733223

Great press conference from Kellie though. She seems incredibly grounded - you can just tell that fame won't affect her or change her in the slightest.

HeidiHeidi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733267#Comment_117733267

I haven't seen that yet.... just saw the clip of Walsh hopscotching through the airport on Twitter.

God to hear (about Kellie) though.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733314#Comment_117733314

Yes, she's totally chilled out and relaxed and sounds like the exact same Kellie from a year or two ago. You can just tell that fame won't go to her head or change her. She was talking as much about investment in sport and giving encouragement to children as about her gold medal win.

Muahahaha

It could be done, it just looks like the will isn't there from Irish cycling and the business case is too weak for government.

The will is definitely there from Cycling Ireland to get it built, they have been screaming about it for years. But they are essentially powerless until a Minister for Sport coming along and saying 'right, we are going to finally build this velodrome and here is the funding to get it done'. Its not really about a business case, if it was we would never have built the National Aquatic Centre with a 50 metre Olympic sized swimming pool in Blanchardtown. It had to be built because up until it was we were sending our best swimmers over to the UK at great expense just so they could train in an Olympic sized swimming pool. Now it is built they have a base to train from. Plus it is also a valuable resource for the community, there are over 300,000 people who live within a 15 minute drive of it. Anyone can go in there, pay their Є6 and go for a swim. For those who want to compete they have access to training programs and swim coaches. A velodrome would be similar, its primary purpose is to give a base for our best cyclists but it will also used by the wider community. Anyone can show up pay their money and rent a bike to give it a go just like you can in the UK right now where they have introductory sessions for kids 9 years of age and up. The UK has seven velodromes while we have none. Is it any wonder that Team GB has had such massive success in track cycling when they have those facilities and they are starting kids off at the age of 9.

The main part of the problem is how we actually fund of sport in Ireland and who gets what. There is a limited pot of money and more than half of it is taken up by only two sports- greyhound racing and horse racing. Greyhound racing gets Є18 million a year every year and horse racing Є80 million a year every year. Millions of taxpayers money goes into horseraciing every year and is distributed by the governing body Horse Racing Ireland as prize money for horse races. So what the government is funding is prize money so billionaires can compete against other billionaires to win taxpayers money.

Then there is a massive drop off to the funding of other sports. Below is the latest allocations, when reading through it bear in mind that horse and greyhound racing get just under Є100 million a year in taxpayer funding. GAA, football and rugby which are the most participated sports in Ireland with the highest club memberships collectively got just under Є62 million. Cycling Ireland got Є533,000 and Rowing Ireland just Є149,000. Thats for a sport where Ireland has actually won Olympic medals yet all they get is a couple of crumbs off the table while horse racing and greyhounds get Є100 million. To put that in context at current levels of funding it would take 668 years for Rowing Ireland to get a single years worth of funding that horse racing and greyhound racing gets every single year.

• Gaelic Games (GAA, LGFA, Camogie, GAA Handball) – 30,795,000
• Irish Rugby Football Union – 18,000,000
• Football Association of Ireland – 13,000,000
• Golf Ireland/CGI – 2,730,000
• Cricket Ireland – 1,498,500
• Gymnastics Ireland – 1,380,000
• Basketball Ireland – 1,157,500
• Horse Sport Ireland – 1,040,000
• Tennis Ireland – 950,000
• Athletics Ireland – 805,000
• Swim Ireland – 780,000
• Irish Sailing – 650,000
• Irish Athletic Boxing Association – 645,000
• Cycling Ireland – 533,000
• Badminton Ireland – 369,000
• Hockey Ireland – 240,500
• Triathlon Ireland – 235,500
• Rowing Ireland – 149,000
• Irish Martial Arts Commission – 120,000
• National Community Games – 110,000
• Archery Ireland – 101,000
• Student Sport Ireland – 95,000
• Irish Orienteering Association – 77,000
• Volleyball Ireland – 71,500
• Irish Underwater Council – 70,000
• Fencing Ireland – 59,000
• Motor Cycling Ireland – 50,000
• Irish Surfing Association – 50,000
• Bowling League of Ireland – 50,000
• Canoeing Ireland – 48,000
• ONAKAI – 40,000
• Pitch and Putt Ireland – 39,000
• Irish Squash – 38,000
• Racquetball Association of Ireland – 33,000
• Special Olympics Ireland – 348,000
• IWA Sport – 194,000
• Vision Sports Ireland – 97,500
• Irish Judo Association – 24,000
• Irish Ice Hockey Association – 20,000
• Rugby League Ireland – 19,000
• Bol Chumann na hÉireann – 12,500

So when you look at how the system works and who gets what it is little wonder the national velodrome has not been built. Theres no way Cycling Ireland can do it on their own with an annual grant of just over half a million. The funding to build it simply has to come as a single block grant from government. Cycling Ireland estimate it would cost 8 million to build the velodrome yet despite the project being talked about for more than a decade now no Minister for Sport has ever come out and said 'lets get this done Cycling Ireland, here is a cheque for 8 million now go and build it'.The land is there, it is ready to go but still the funding hasnt arrived. Yet Ministers of Sport going back over the years have continued to throw hundreds of millions at horse and greyhound racing. Their funding in comparison to other sports, even the most popular ones like GAA,football and rugby is wildly out of kilter. Rowing Ireland getting 149,500 is actually some kind of sick joke given the recent Olympic success in the sport.

So when we are here again in three years time after the Paris Olympics wondering why we dont have sustained success in sports outside of boxing think back to how sport in Ireland is funded and who gets what. The governments priority is horses and greyhounds and theyve made that clear for decades now by the sheer amounts of money they have pumped into them. GAA, rugby and football are the next priorties and then all the remaining sports are lucky to get a few crumbs off the table.

Cosmo Kramer

It seems like there's a lot more coverage of Kellie Harrington and her gold medal win than there was for the rowers when they won theirs. Is that because of straight up Dublin bias in the media or is there another reason?

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733994#Comment_117733994

Wasn't taking note, but one factor could be Kellies gold coming at the end of the games so the news cycle was almost entirely clear for her as opposed to the lads who had their day out and then we got straight back to the action. Dunno really, maybe there is bias there, the rowers definitely got massive attention in 2016 but then again, it was a great story and there wasn't a huge amount else to shout about.

FatherTed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117725830#Comment_117725830

I was reading for Paris 2024 that the Surfing competition will take place next door in Tahiti.

Quantum Erasure

still part of France, I suppose. Hard to hold surfing competitions 100 miles inland

Joe_ Public

Not into surfing but have been to Biarritz a few times and it is a big surfing town. Maybe the swells aren't big enough round olympics time, though.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733994#Comment_117733994

I think Kellie may well have been our star name going into these Games, even more so than Paul O'Donovan. It helps that she is very media friendly and has a bubbly personality. Also, as she progressed through the rounds for the last week, you could feel momentum building.

Strazdas

David Gillick making some interesting points about our athletics team - he reckons they are not as well coached as the boxers and the rowers and that the entire coaching / high performance set up for them is less professional.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/athletics/2021/0810/1240138-gillick-irish-athletics-falling-behind-after-tokyo/

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117727792#Comment_117727792

World cross country was in Limerick.

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117735535#Comment_117735535

Women 4 by 400s in the European Championships.

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733950#Comment_117733950

Maybe my eyes are playing up. Where are you getting 668 years?

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117724953#Comment_117724953

Potentially similar number of elite athletes in Ireland as the UK as part of high performance.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117738972#Comment_117738972

100 million is pretty much what greyhound and horse racing get in funding every single year. Rowing Ireland got just 149,000 of funding in 2019. So one year worth of greyhound and horseracing funding is the same as 668 years of rowing funding. The way we fund sports in Ireland is massively out of kilter with a collosaol priority for horses and greyhounds to be funded far more heavily than anything else including the big 3 of GAA, football, rugby

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739118#Comment_117739118

Thanks.

Equine and canine are Government funneled expenses.

Muahahaha

From what Ive seen all sports are funded by govt. it is just that just some are direct funding and others are indirect. Horse Racing Ireland, Bord naGon (greyhounds), the GAA, FAI and IRFU get direct funding every year.

The indirect way is when the government give Sports Ireland funding and they then distribute that money among 50+ other sports, of which Rowing Ireland are just one.

Regardless of how the money gets to each sport horses and greyhounds far outstrip any other sport in Ireland when it comes to funding. In the case of rowing horses and dogs get 668 times the amount, in the case of cycling they get 181 times the amount.

It goes a long way to explaining why there is still no velodrome in Ireland, something that has been costed at 8 million by Cycling Ireland. They have been trying to build for over a decade now but funding for it has never been allocated to finally build it. Yet in that same time frame funding to horse and dogs has consistently increased to the point that they are not far off getting 100 million a year every year. If you looked at funding of horses and dogs over the last 10 years the total would be somewhere in the order of 800 million. Just 1% of that total (8 million) would have built the velodrome long ago.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739262#Comment_117739262

Horse racing / bloodstock is unusual though in that it is an industry and employs something like 20 to 25,000 people fulltime. It's not as if money is just being thrown at the sport for no reason.

Funding of horse racing in the UK and France is done in an almost identical way.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739308#Comment_117739308

Horse racing in the UK, and France too I'm almost sure, is mostly funded through the betting levy. Horse Racing Ireland is funded through the Dept of Agriculture, but it generates a fair bit more in betting revenue than it receives as a subvention. It is really funded as much as an industry as a sport and while I'm all for funding of all sports, and hope they can all secure more, the direct comparison between them feels like a bit of a false dichotomy to me.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739308#Comment_117739308

The difference being though that the UK and France properly fund other sports where as we do not. I cant see any justification for a sport like rowing where we have won Olympic medals getting a paltry 149,000 in funding while horses and dogs get not far off 100 million. There is only so much money going around for funding sport and dog and horse racing are by a country mile taking the lions share of it.

Also much of the employment claimed by horse racing is dubious at best and it contributes little taxes to the economy. The bulk of employees working at stables are being paid a pittance, less than minimum wage in many cases and they pay very little income tax. Lots of their employers are actually tax exiles who are worth billions yet its the taxpayer who is funding the prize money in their sport.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739411#Comment_117739411

I'm all for increased funding for all Olympic sports (and for sport in general). We are clearly underfunding them at the moment compared to our European counterparts.

As I said though, racing and bloodstock are unusual in that a large team of staff are needed to look after the horses 24/7 and 365 days a year and they also need stables and training gallops. It's as much a standalone industry as a sport. Without generous prize money (to justify all the outlay from horse owners and trainers), the sport couldn't exist.

Joe_ Public

Just taking the example of rowing. The figure I see for rowing core grant, according to Sport Ireland website, is €320,000 for this year.

In last four years Rowing Ireland has received €1.15m in grants. That compares to £4m Sport England allocated to rowing over the same period which seems modest in comparison even if you adjusted for exchange rate.

As for high performance, a different story. UK Sport gave over £24m to rowing over 4 years where Sport Ireland awarded €2.3m. So, they invested more in their Olympic athletes, but i wouldn't say by a huge amount.

To be honest, I don't believe the UK is any shining example when it comes to investing in grassroots sport anyway. A few weeks back Boris Johnson made some big spiel about investing £50m in building community pitches after which, it was pointed out, it wouldn't even make up for the amount of pitches that had been lost to cuts over the previous decade. They have done well at targeting Olympic medals to be fair but when it comes to grassroots sport, i think they are as bad as us in some respects tbh.

Cosmo Kramer

I would agree with that. I was talking to someone yesterday who's son is involved in Rowing in the UK at junior level. He was saying that it's pretty much all self funded by the clubs and by well off middle class parents at that level. But once the rowers get to 16 or 17 years old UK Sport come in and pick out the very best rowers and throw millions at their development in search of Olympic medals. None of that feeds back to the local clubs that initially developed them though.

That's really all UK Sport is - millions for medals. They don't actually care about grass roots sporting development and improving public health, because that's not what Team GB is really about when it comes to it - it's about buying medals as a method of promoting British nationalism and so that they can have Gabby and Clare on the BBC couch telling everyone how great Britain is.

So yes, we need to improve funding of minority sports, but I wouldn't want to see us go down the British route either. The long term goal of all of this needs to be accessibility of a wide range of high quality sporting facilities to the general public. If we get that in place, alongside appropriate top level coaching for our elite competitors, the medals will follow in a sustainable way.

Joe_ Public

I think it was posted earlier in this thread, total government expenditure on sport & rec in this country is around 0.4%. That's barely half the EU average. The UK, as point of comparison, is even lower. We just don't make the case well enough for the benefits, both moral and practical, for investing in grassroots sport. Sweden, for example, invests over four times as much as we do and then we wonder why they've got such a better health system than we do. They simply understand how joined up the whole thing is better than we do.

ArmaniJeanss

There was some minor crowing in UK circles (I shouldn't read the DM/Express, but hey) about how well they did vis a vis France. 22 Golds UK v 10 France, and 65 v 33 medals in total.

It's quite interesting when you look at the medals though.

Great Britain at the 2020 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia

France at the 2020 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia

France Gold in Men's Volleyball, Gold in Men's and Women's Handball, Silver in Men's Basketball (silver is arguably what everyone is fighting for behind USA). So lots of team sports medal, which only count as one in the table but they do mean that 15 team members will forever have a gold medal in their possession. Presumably France invest reasonably heavily in those sports for kids, even though in the best case scenario it can only translate to one Olympic medal.

The GB medal total is by and large made up of individual medallists - even when they won as a team it tended to be relay/medley events in sports which are traditionally individual.

Now whilst it may not happen that way in 2024 (GB may get back to winning in Hockey, and Volleyball/Handball are so competitive France may well be beaten in the quarter finals), I just thought it gave a nice perspective on why the medal table isn't always a good guide to who is 'sporting better'.

yerwanthere123

Posted it in the athletics thread but should give it a mention here too.

After all the sneering and thinly-veiled accusations of the British press towards the Italian sprinters, it's one of their own who's doping. CJ Ujah provisionally suspended after testing positive for two banned substances. Looking likely they'll be stripped of the medal.

NIMAN

You have to laugh at the brits, like they haven't got a history of dopers.

Always try to play the whiter than white card , when they obviously dope like everyone else or else they wouldnt be doing well in the medal count.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117744293#Comment_117744293

And when our greatest Olympian Michelle Smith won a few medals, what did our local media do? Tear her down in subsequent years and accuse her of doping........ Whitewashed since out of public view and off official media. The hypocrisy would make you retch.

Furze99

And I agree re the excessive funding given to the horse & greyhound racing industries. 'Sports' that have very little to do with sport for the masses and which largely exist for the needs of a betting industry.

Sport Ireland is the main vehicle for funding sports that are both participatory and which lead to excellence. That should be the focus of sports funding.

Some reservations about funding boxing and other sports which have a split 'amateur' / 'professional' structure.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117744373#Comment_117744373

But they're also employers and generate revenue for the country through the export of horses (an estimated €230m a year is generated in racehorse exports). 40% of racehorses in the entire EU are Irish born. There's a bit of a misunderstanding of how horse racing operates and how it is funded. Yes, the state pumps tens of millions of Euros into the industry (mainly prize money) but it's a continuous circular process - every year thousands of new horses come into training in Ireland and owners pump back much of the prize money into buying more and more new horses. So it's far from the case that the state is just throwing money at horse racing with no return.

yerwanthere123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117744341#Comment_117744341

Michelle stop embarrassing yourself 😥

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117744470#Comment_117744470

There's also some very basic misunderstanding that funding of racing is somehow taking away from the general sports pot, which isn't the case. As already pointed out, racing is funded as an industry by the Dept of Agriculture and is judged on that subvention by the returns it delivers. The idea that if this money was removed, more funds would flow into other sports as a consequence is simply naive. It would go to beef or dairy or maybe some form of organic sustainable farming. Some other facet of agriculture anyway.

I think most of us agree here that Irish grassroots support is underfunded and deserves better, but that's nothing much to do with racing, it's a red herring.