Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Not only that any of you tried running a marathon in 100 degree heat I felt for her.
Cheers
Colin

RichWalk

She raced to win its that simple, if she had just competed like the other two Brits she would have finished- but that wasnt/ isnt her style.

Faire D'Income

PC, not wishing to bust your ***** over this but your/the British attitude towards sports is what gets up my nose somewhat with this 'it's the taking part that counts' philosophy. As far as I'm concerned our athletes should be good enough to compete at the top level - and that means Gold - and they need more mongrel in them in order to achieve this. Forget taking part, turn up and win!


Drumster. I touched on this in another thread as the sailing team is indeed, something we should be proud of but like most other sports we have sufficient talent to produce top class sportsmen but we don't invest heavily enough in them by providing decent facilities and financial support. Sailing is an exception being particularly well funded which allows the natural talent to float to the top. Ben Ainslie is typical of this can do approach, having being supported since he was a junior in the Laser moving through to Olympic Silver and Gold in that class and on to Gold in the Finn.

The cylists have benefited from the lottery funding prior to the last Olympics together with another switched on governing body which has ensured that those facilities are used to the benefit of all. The riders, in my opinion, benefit from the fact that most participants are either relatively wealthy or have top drawer sponsors which again allows the cream to the top. The same applies to rowing where facilities and training is far above average - just look at the new facilities being built at Eton to see what I'm saying.

Successive governments have failed to support our athletes time and time again. The Tories got involved half heartedly with Sport for England and Labour provided more lottery funding which resulted in reasonable success at the last Olympics - but then promptly withdrew the funding which is why we have such an abysmal performance. It's basic stuff like financial support to allow them to train rather than having to worry about full time employment.

Returning to Paula Radcliffe. Either she has some injury problem that we're unaware of or she failed to prepare properly, that being the case she should stop whingeing now. All the competitors knew the course and what the conditions were going to be like so I see no excuse there but hopefully she'll explain it all in her press conference later.

ProperCharlie

Faire D - yes, it is about winning.

all i'm saying is that we're one relatively small nation in a world of 6 Bn+ people. we can't expect to win by just turning up. I don't think we have a particularly strong sporting ethic from school level onwards. when i was at school "PE" just meant bunking off for the afternoon.

Faire D'Income

Your bang on about the sporting ethic which is probably for another thread but returning to a hobby horse of mine, how do you equate being a small nation with Australia which has a population of around 20 million people?

As an exercise in national pride and prestige they began to develop an infrastructure and funded in particularly well to the extent that as a percentage of GDP, they spend more than any other country on sport. As a result, for a country with a third of our population they have twice as many medals as us.

It's not just the Institute of Sport they have but also a series of State supported facilities which feed into it and they are now at the forefront of sports sciences and support - look where all the former Soviet bloc trainers ended up, not to mention Australian athletes with Russian names.

anc-sti

None competitive sports in schools doesn't help the cause much either.

Kids arn't pushed anymore.

Brit_in_Japan

There is hot and then there is hot and humid. I read that there was high humidity during the race, can anyone confirm that?

High humidity impairs the bodies natural cooling mechnism. I'm sure Paula trained in hot conditions but if it was hot and humid then it's a whole new ball game.

For the record summers in Japan are hot (35degC +) and very humid, so the Japanese girl could have had quite an advantage.

Faire D'Income

The Japanese girl had spent all summer training in St.Moritz at high altitude to prepare herself.

Pavlo

The japanese girl was completely out of it at the end!

unclebuck

Indeed. She's not much of a role model though really. Throwong a tantrum and giving up just because you're not winning. IIRC the other two Bitish girls finished the event.

ProperCharlie

It's not much of a role model to be a world record holder? What about the Ethiopian who gave up after 45 minutes - I suppose she ought to be shot as well?

Faire D'Income

Now you're getting the idea. We really need to incentivise our athletes.

OllyK

Read "The long walk" by Steven King

unclebuck

What about the Ethiopian who gave up after 45 minutes? I'm not talking about her. What I'm talking about is the behaviour of 'our Paula' and the apparent message given out that if you can't have what you want you throw a wobbley, give up and go off in a sulk. That sort of behaviour doesn't reflect the 'olympic ideal' as I understand it, where the honour lies in the taking part rather than in the winnning of a gold medal.
Imagine if all the athletes behaved like that. Hmm - actually, it would probably be more entertaining come to think of it.

OllyK

You are making an awful lot of assumptions here, she stopped, tried to go again and couldn't, looked more like completel physical exhaustion to me (but what would I know).

Yes the other British girls may have finished, but they weren't exactly up at the front, pushing all the way and in contention were they.

Let's see what she has to say for herself before you start accusing her of having a sulk shall we.

I think it is about giving it your all, not just "taking part". Paula could no doubt have jogged round and come in last after 3.5 hours without too much trouble, but what would be the point? Why do the 100m finalistss bother if the taking part is the main thing? They may as well all just stoll down the 100m hand in hand

Pavlo

We obviously all know more about what Paula's body was doing than she did.

You have no idea.

Paul

ProperCharlie

to me it looked like she was thinking:

"shall i carry on?

i'm a bit hot, i fancy a sit down, maybe a quick *** break.

damn - left my bensons on the start line... maybe i'll jog on for a bit - might as well now i'm here.

ah sod it. i'm off for a beer. this running lark's overrated."

messiah

Felt sorry for her, but I couldn't help feeling like she spit the dummy out when she realised she wasn't going to win.

What's all this crap about not being a fair test? It was run on the route of the original Marathon course.

davyboy

I never knew SN was a source of athlectics information.

How enlightening the comments are

OllyK

SN isn't a definitive source for much but it's all good fun to chew the fat whilst leaning on the virtual pub bar!

David Lock

It does spelling as well sometimes

Leslie

Well I am not prepared to throw any stones until I hear what Paula has to say about it herself. I think that what she does say will be the truth anyway and then we can make our own assessment.

I'm with Proper Charlie in that I think it is more important than anything to take part and do the best you can. If you are not good enough, accept it in a "sporting" spirit and congratulate the winners in all due honesty. If I remember rightly, that used to be considered the true basis of partaking in competitive sports.

From the point of winning, then of course basic education in competitive sport is absolutely necessary. The modern PC ethic of banning sports days and making it impossible for any child to lose at a game in case they get upset is so mindbendingly stupid that I find it difficult to believe that anyone can support it.

We need full sporting facilities with good training and strong competition to get our sports representatives to produce their full performance. I think that so many schools have sold off their sports fields for development that it will be difficult to do in the future. They seem to be favouring smaller hard surfaced areas for mini versions of sporting games.

I think the British athletes in Athens deserve our full support for what they have achieved so far. They have all tried their best and if they don't succeed then we should accept that they still have not failed us, maybe more the other way around.

The incredible efforts made by some other countries in the past can go the wrong way though, encouraging the use of drugs etc. was obviously going too far. It was effectively prostituting the athletes purely for the glory of that country at any cost.

Les

scoob_babe

She looked like she was limping a bit on her left leg just before she did actually stop and probably didn't want to aggravate any injury which would put her out of the 10k before she even started.

Faire D'Income

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olym...04/3590166.stm

The best thing she can do is go out and win the 10000m on Friday.

Senior_AP

Initial question of this thread.

Bare in mind Lennox Lewis is British when he wins but a useles Canadian when he got beat.

Typical fickle English mentality.

Nick

I also watched the marathon & was impressed with the hard work that Paula Radcliffe put in on the day. However she appears to have got her tactics wrong & was out raced by both Mizuki Noguchi and Catherine Ndereba. I also think that Deena Kastor would have caught her had she continued. If you'd have watched the race carefully, just before Paula gave up, her legs where shot - very out of shape & wobbly. I think that this was the reason she stopped, she just couldn't run any further. This hopefully will add some useful experience to her career & I wish her luck for next time.

I was very unimpressed with the commentators, I've never heard such a load of rubbish sprouted out for 2 hours! Did anyone notice Brendan Foster insulting the Ethiopians as some sort of inferior people? Words to the effect of "Elfenesh Alemu doesn't understand about taking on water with carbohydrates etc - they don't understand these things so well in these countries!" FFS! This was the same Elfenesh Alemu who had the strength of mind to keep going (& support from her husband), when she had nearly given up. She ended up 4th, not bad for an inferior people Brendan?

Organisation? Anyone notice Mizuki Noguchi have to wallop the media truck which was stopped in her way?

Aaquil

She'll be back..she is human after all. Try walking it let alone run it!

Aaquil

I'm talking about Paula... Brendan Foster is an ignorant fool...get a life you sad jealous git.