Lottery funding of Olympic disciplines ...

[no_no_nanette]

Interesting piece on the telly yesterday comparing the lottery funding that has gone into some of the Olympic disciplines, and the "payback" in terms of medals .... I think that it totalled between £24 and £26 million over the years for both sailing and cycling, and its obviously paying off! Does anyone know how much has gone in to the equestrian disciplines? It would be fascinating to know. (And then to do the caluculation

) The Danes have described the GB cycling team as "perfectionists", apparently the coaches and admin and the athletes themselves have absolutely everything covered, and work incredibly hard as a team to get every detail right. OK bikes are not horses, and we all know how much can go wrong with the beasts, but I do wonder if the SJ team took such a rigorous approach? Maybe the young riders are doing better 'cos they are more willing to listen and learn and change their ways if needs be. Can't see the Whitakers - and we may love 'em to bits! - taking the whole rider fitness, diet and exercise piece that seriously somehow ...

 

[kerilli]

the British cycling team even had a psychologist (or do i mean a psychiatrist, i always mix them up) in the team area in the centre of the velodrome track, which the presenter said no other team had.
horses are rather less predictable than a bike though... who could have forseen that P Ed, for instance, would do the worst test he's ever done with William, really let the atmosphere get to him. he must be kicking himself for taking the 'wrong' horse, but of course either of his others could have been even worse!

I would be amazed if the Whitakers weren't as fit as fiddles out there, I think it was a prerequisite of going, wasn't it?! The eventers certainly weren't given an option, i believe.

 

[NoCollection]

The UK Sport website shows that lottery funding of equestrian sports was £3M for Sydney, £4.4M for Athens and £11.7M for Beijing. It looks like Athens was better value for money than Beijing, but presumably a fair bit of that increased funding goes into developing the sport for 2012.

Incidentally, cycling had £22M, atheltics £26M and swimming £20M, with synchronised swimming at the bottom of the heap at £1.6M.

The details are here: http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/summer_olympic_sports_-_home/