How did the UK strike Olympic gold?
By
Associate Editor
David Stevenson Aug 22, 2008
Print this article
Are the Games really a UK triumph?
Beijing 2008 looks set to be the most successful UK Olympic effort since 1908 (37 medals at time of writing, 16 of which are golds). To put that achievement into perspective, our record in the second half of the 20th century was awful, hitting a nadir with one solitary gold at Helsinki in 1992 and one four years later in Atlanta. Event and participation 'inflation' have made things worse. In 1920 at Antwerp, 2,626 competitors (only 65 of whom were women) from 29 countries competed for 154 events. Great Britain picked up 43 medals, of which 15 were gold. At Beijing, there are some 10,500 athletes from 204 countries, competing for 302 golds. That said, we've still done rather well. Before the Olympics, for example, UK Sport, the distributor of Lottery funds to elite athletes, targeted eighth place in the medals table, equating to just 12 golds.
How has it been done?
In a word, money. That's not to detract from the huge efforts made by the nation's athletes, but without massive doses of extra funding the UK's triumphs in cycling, rowing and sailing wouldn't have happened. After Atlanta, some serious soul-searching started about how a country that invented many modern sports could finish 36th in the world. Taxpayers' cash wasn't on the agenda, but National Lottery funding was. "Most of the money the lottery raises goes on social services, church roofs, heritage sites and public football pitches – yet the UK's Olympic success shows you can literally buy gold medals," says the FT. Funding for athletes with realistic medal chances has jumped from £59m ahead of Sydney in 2000 to £70m in 2004 to £235m for Beijing. The extra cash started to pay off in Sydney, where Great Britain collected 28 medals (including 11 golds) and four years ago in Athens where the medal haul totalled 30 (with nine golds). And the Department of Culture, Media and Sport predicted ahead of the Beijing Games that the tripling of funding gave Britain "a good chance of its best performance in a non-boycotted Olympics since Antwerp".
So, loadsamoney for 2012?
As Chancellor, Gordon Brown announced an unprecedented £500m public sport investment for 2012 in the 2006 Budget – £300m from the lottery and another £200m from the taxpayer. The success in Beijing has also helped to silence the critics. Steve Richards of The Independent reckons that for the first time he can recall, "there's a consensus that public investment has made a pivotal difference" to British sporting success. But there's already a snag. Britain's Olympic heroes are set to return home to a political spat over a potential £79m funding shortfall for 2012. Mr Brown had expected his largesse to be boosted by an extra £20m annually from the private sector. But the sports sponsorship specialists appointed to raise the money haven't been able to – 2012 is yet another credit-crunch victim.
How will it play out?
Unless the funding issue is resolved, UK sports chiefs will have to start an emergency "shortfall plan", says Ashling O'Connor in The Times. Underperforming sports will face the deepest cuts, but even successful areas like swimming won't be immune. Athletes face months of financial uncertainty. Their 2012 grants aren't announced until April, and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell has warned there will be "no more money" for the London Games if the overall bill exceeds the £9.3bn budget. But shadow sports minister Hugh Robertson insists "it's vital that UK Sport gets that money now, or elite programmes will be cut in the run-up to London 2012, and that is ridiculous". And with so little else to cheer about in Britain right now, politicians will surely be fighting to ensure a solution is found so they can associate themselves with Olympic glory.
Where do other countries' athletes get funding?
In some countries, the military supports training – Pakistan's national rifle champion Siddique Umer serves in its army. Kenya's entire $1.5m Olympic budget is state-funded. But such programmes can be poorly run, says Olympic author David Wallechinsky. "Officials take most of the money, and it doesn't really get to the athletes," he says. In the US, athletes receive no public funding but rely on income from the sale of broadcast rights and corporate sponsorship. This puts them up against professional sports like the National Football League, says Steve Roush of the US Olympic Committee. "We're in a tough economic situation now, so there's less corporate [funding] to be had," he says. But, says shoe-shop owner Keith Hanson, who provides distance runners with health insurance, equipment and even part-time jobs, "one nice thing about our country is that we have private individuals who can take over those responsibilities that many think the governing body should".
Is team GB's success down to the old school tie?
Fee-paying schools educate fewer than 10% of UK children. Yet they accounted for a "vastly disproportionate" 40%-plus of Team GB's Olympic golds last weekend, says Leo McKinstry in the Daily Mail. And a recent study found that 60% of British medallists in the 2004 Athens Olympics and 58% in Sydney were taught at fee-paying schools. Another common complaint is that Britain's top sports – cycling, rowing and sailing – are "posh sports" inaccessible to "ordinary" people. But look on the bright side, says Boris Johnson in The Daily Telegraph. This shows "there is a huge reservoir of potential athletic genius" in state schools. If we could ensure they had "access to the facilities they need... think what they could achieve in 2012".
Published in
Economics
| More
articles
by
David Stevenson
FREE - MoneyWeek's daily investment email
Our free daily email, Money Morning, is an informative and enjoyable analysis of what's going on in the markets. Written by our Editor, John Stepek, and guest contributors.
Sign up FREE to Money Morning here.
