Olympic Games Paris 2024 - AH Thread [Thread banned posters listed in first post.]

In fairness to hurling it produced one hell of an advert for the sport during the all ireland final this year....it was an excellent game/spectacle...

A lot more than stick fighting...and very skillful...

And that's from someone who couldn't give much of a shite about GAA most of the time ....

How many sports does the local rugby or soccer pitch cater for ?

I love this auld shte that it's everyone pulling together harmoniously except for the GAA.

Imagine a world without GAA

There's no point complaining about GAA anyway as it's going to be around forever and is actually brilliant for Ireland, particular rural areas where there's literally nothing else.

The key is to expose kids to as many sports as possible and see what they enjoy and are talented in. GAA doesn't impede that. Loads of people in Kerry play multiple sports and that's possibly the most GAA obsessed county.

If you've been following the thread you have seen me say many times that I don't watch RTE unless there's an Irish person in a competition that's not covered elsewhere.

It was either BBC or Eurosport that I was watching, not sure which.

It also has to be asked why do we want extra olympic medals and why should we spend more money to get them? If we won twice as many Olympic medals why would that be so great and would the public really care.

If it's for the health of the population then sharing the extra money between all.sports organisation's would have the same impact.

No. In reality the Olympians inspire a tiny number of children compared to the likes of the GAA, soccer and rugby. It's once in 4 years wheres the GAA and other team sports are ialways on so it would be better to pump extra funding into that if the aim is to 'inspire'.

I think people want greater investment in sports in general. GAA and Rugby are already very well run so it's more about the other sports like soccer and all the Olympic sports.

This has enormous benefits for society.

The great thing about Olympic medals is that it inspires millions of people to take up sport or even just continue playing sport or to train harder, this in turn will bring more Olympic medals, so it's a virtuous cycle.

I can guarantee numbers in boxing gyms and athletics clubs will increase this year as a result of these Olympics.

So it's about building on the success.

I don't think we're in a terrible place now so we don't need to start from scratch.

I think most towns in Ireland have boxing, athletics, swim clubs etc..So although there's huge room for improvement, we still have something to build on.

stop being a child.

Will be interesting to read commentary on the UK's efforts this time and maybe there is something to learn for us in terms of sustaining support. They seem to have hit a wall in gold and overall achievement.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable can point to why this is?

Nobody is asking GAA to turn itself into a charity. But the GAA is very happy to take government funding for those facilities, that should come with strings attached about access to those facilities for other sports.

When I was growing up the community games athletics competitions always took place at the local GAA grounds. Not sure if that still happens. GAA club also does loads of 5k runs for fundraising. Loads of non gaa people enjoy those.

It just requires spending the money well.

Having realistic targets in participation but also in producing elite athletes.

One thing is I'd fund the LOI academies.

Also increase and improve PE in schools.

The number one metric should be participation, but not just kids but all ages. I bet there's loads of adults out there inspired by the Olympics to get back into sport.

The key to producing elite athletes is casting as wide a net as possible and having kids try as many sports as possible. Then when they're older filter them into high performance and elite coaching.

So why is government money for soccer or rugby not being asked to come with strings. Why do we not have athletics courses and hockey pitches in the middle of all the greyhound stadiums ?

There is a great team up in Limerick with Greenmount cyclo-cross and the horse racing stadium. That should be forced on every horse racing stadium in Ireland I suppose.

Every sport is happy to take government money for facilities and every sport does exactly that.

Serious cold turkey here in the house yesterday….

Went downstairs after work, we had dinner and sat on the couch afterwards, turned on the TV, and after a quick scan around the channels, turned it back off….

Thats the beauty of the Olympics… it doesn't matter what the sport is, it's all compelling viewing…

and it's also sad too that it'll probably be at least 12 years before we have another Olympics in our region/time zone again….. yeah we'll still see some live events from LA & Brisbane, but the vast majority of everything else will be happening at stupid O'Clock, and RTÉ can't be relied on to provide a comprehensive highlights package…

Even the little TV in my office has probably done more work this summer between the Euro's and Olympics than in the previous 6-7 years or so it's been on the wall!!

Anyway….

what day is it even…….