SusannaF
Well-Known Member
You appear to be confusing some punters on HHO with the authorities which decide these things.
Olympic test event- reactions to the XC
- Thread starter SusannaF
- Start date
You appear to be confusing some punters on HHO with the authorities which decide these things.
teapot
Well-Known Member
Well the British eventing squad haven't struggled yet, and whilst they haven't won Olympic team gold in recent years, I'd say that's because of horses, team members, luck (anyone remember Tamarillo cracking his stifle in Athens, or PF struggling to keep Primmore's Pride in check over a too small a course?) and genuine issues, not because there's no national training centre. You're aware that the British event team have won team gold at the past 8 European championships?
Dressage Team GB are coming into their own at just the right time. Show jumping Team GB has far more pressing issues than national training facilities. Lack of horses and consistent results is the problem.
And as well all know with horses having all the gear is nothing if you don't have the idea. The biggest worry for 2020 is that it's highly likely the Equestrianism won't be an Olympic sport. It was touch and go whether it would be in 2016 but is still at the moment.
Pebble101
Well-Known Member
I get the impression you are pleased about this there is a smug 'told you so' tone coming out in your posts.
Those of us who use transport in and around London know what an ordeal it can be.
Personally I don't know why we would want the Olympics (mind you Football World Cup would be even worse).
However I suspect I am in the minority, and having said that, we have it and I really truly hope it is a success.
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SusannaF
Well-Known Member
It's the "don't say I didn't warn you" that gives it away. You can hear the finger wagging.
Wishful
Well-Known Member
I commuted on the river for the best part of 2 years- the catamarans that run the service don't really notice the tide - they weren't late that I noticed - even with masses of people getting on and off. The only tidal issue was an extreme spring tide where the little ferry from where I lived couldn't dock at low tide - so they altered the little ferry times. The main route cats use docks that are plenty deep enough and have a robust time table.
London public transport is fantastic - occasionally you get delays, but the only major ones I experienced (from New Cross and Rotherhithe) were very unusual events (7/7). London is the one city I've lived in where I never missed having a car (apart from shopping - but that was pure laziness).
As for equestrian legacy - unless the equestrian events can prove that they can be run without a stately home to host it in the grounds, they will be out by 2020. Proving that the Olympic event can be run in a city park with issues and solving those problems will give eventing (and the other horse sports) far more chance of being in the Olympics long term then running a huge event at Badminton, Burghley or Windsor, all of which don't really have equivalents in most Olympic countries. Not being an Olympic sport will do far more damage than not creating a physical legacy for the UK.
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
My impression is that there is no one in charge of "vision", as it were, for the UK equestrian sport: consulting widely and drawing up five year plans and how to fulfil those plans. Just competing vested interests.
Wishful
Well-Known Member
Well in contrast to everywhere else I've ever lived, the public transport options from New Cross and Rotherhithe to the City were amazing. Between bus, boat, train, underground there was some means of transport available to me between approx 6am and 11pm and night buses after that.
Where I lived before and since the bus routes stop early, start late (no buses on Sunday where I live at the moment), bus is only means of transport - nearest train station 10 miles, nearest train station with a car park 15 miles, nearest train station with service more than every 2 hours 25 miles, so yes London was amazing for transport. I'd never drive into London, either train from nearest main line station or deposit car at underground/overland station outside London. Neither did I ever choose to get a taxi in the city, even when work was paying (unless what I was carrying was confidential or wouldn't fit in a brief case). Rush hour is busy and fairly uncomfortable, but you don't get stranded - 3 or 4 times the last bus (6.30) from my local town has been too full, so people have been refused travel by the driver - I assume they had to get a £40+ taxi.
teapot
Well-Known Member
Spudlet
Well-Known Member
I am another who is not sure what RM hopes to achieve by coming here and haruanging HHO-ers. There's nothing 'we' can do. Why on earth didn't their campaign focus on building relationships and consensus with the BEF and its member bodies, thus presenting a united front and a well argued and reasoned case for another, viable venue with a decent cost-benefit analysis, including reference to the planned Olympic legacy which has never to my knowledge been about facilities (many of the venues are being dismantled or reduced in size after the games) but is all about bringing up levels of participation in sport. Unfortunately the anti-Greenwich campaign has been fragmented and appears very much rooted in NIMBY-ism (one of my greatest pet hates), and mean-spirited to boot.
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
From the BEF link
and
That is a contradiction in terms. I had no idea that the future of UK equestrian medal-winning was wholly dependent upon grant-aid.
teapot
Well-Known Member
Yup! Performance = more money. But they need the money to perform. It's not uncommon for owners to stump up the cost of flights for horses when entered for the Kentucky 3 day event, given the BEF doesn't have the money to do it themselves...
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
It was evident from the outset that the BEF (and the IOC) was completely seduced by the idea of holding the event in Greenwich.
We actually had a top economist do something on these lines. Didn't make a blind bit of difference.
I don't think any of that is true. NOGOE is the only pressure group having any effect at all in mitigating the damage to Greenwich Park and trying to have the event moved to a more appopriate venue. It is not NIMBY-ism or mean-spirited to stand up for the deprived in Greenwich and the rest of east and south-east London for whom Greenwich Park is their "backyard".
I really wonder if H&HO-ers can conceive of the depth of deprivation in these parts of London. For instance, on an estate just five minutes' walk from Greenwich Park, there are young children who don't know who their parents are because their father and mother have changed partners so often. There are children who are not cared for properly because their mother is a drug-addict and the father absent. And you all think it is OK to deprive them of the one beautiful and free thing in their lives, even for one day?
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
And despite that, you are all prepared to say "no thanks" to the chance of a (at no cost to any of you) multi-million pound upgrade to UK national equestrian facilities?
teapot
Well-Known Member
And despite that, you are all prepared to say "no thanks" to the chance of a (at no cost to any of you) multi-million pound upgrade to UK national equestrian facilities?
I wouldn't mind better national equestrian facilities at all. That said it would still split the equestrian world over location and who gets what and someone somewhere still wouldn't be happy. BUT if money can be better spent with regards to team training, getting horses abroad (you're looking at a flight costing close to £8000 to the States per horse) and more support staff I'd rather the 3 main Olympic teams getting that than a new dressage arena.
And like I said before, you can have all the facilities in the world but without the support staff, riders' abilities and horses, it won't make a blind bit of difference in terms of performance. The US event team is a case in point. They fell apart at their home World Equestrian Games last year despite the facilities and coaching on offer. It was widely documented that when the Team GB event team turned up, they performed over the week at a completely different level to every other nation, from their stables organisation to their warm up to their competition performance. Now if because the Brits don't have national facilities and instead work their arses off at home to get to the right level and then go out and literally wipe the floor then that's fine by me in terms of bringing home medals.
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cefyl
Well-Known Member
windsorblue
Active Member
Oh, purleeeze! DON'T use THIS to support your intransigence.
There are children like this everywhere in the UK, sadly. Some in areas that would be far more "affluent" than the East London estates you are alluding to.
"......the one beautiful and free thing in their lives......" yeugh!
Spudlet
Well-Known Member
Actually, I used to live and work in London and have spent a lot of time in some extremely deprived areas as a volunteer, resident and professional - including yours. I have also seen deprivation VASTLY more severe in my current role with an international organisation. And I'm not exactly one of the silver spoon brigade myself (state school where assault and battery was the norm, drug addication in the family, broken home etc). Hate to burst your bubble of stereotypes there.
SusannaF
Well-Known Member
Yes, actually, I can imagine. I spent a deal of time with the Ebony Horse Club talking to the people that run it and the kids, and I know what it will mean to them to have a stable right at the heart of their community, which is one of the most beleagered in the UK and has a rising gang violence problem. It'll last a lot longer than the Olympics.
They're a grass-roots organisation which has been making their own way and fighting for funding since the mid-1990s.
Which is why I found it grossly insulting when you dismissed them as "just being on benefits" and said they'd "give up as soon as the benefits dried up".
I think the kids in Greenwich will survive not having the park for a day or two, and I hope that Shooter's Hill restarts and the kids see the benefit of that. Perhaps Greenwich kids could do with someone to advocate for them with as much energy and consistency as the Ebony Horse Club?
They're a grass-roots organisation which has been making their own way and fighting for funding since the mid-1990s.
Which is why I found it grossly insulting when you dismissed them as "just being on benefits" and said they'd "give up as soon as the benefits dried up".
I think the kids in Greenwich will survive not having the park for a day or two, and I hope that Shooter's Hill restarts and the kids see the benefit of that. Perhaps Greenwich kids could do with someone to advocate for them with as much energy and consistency as the Ebony Horse Club?
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
Sigh - what an awful thing to say - most of the Park was closed to the public for several weeks this year and will be entirely closed to the public for several months next year. Not days, months. At the height of summer when everyone wants to be outside in green surroundings if they can. Green spaces are healing and restorative, especially with all the trees around (now extremely threatened by LOCOG).
Why do you think the lads who work off their aggressions in endless games of football on Le Notre's parterre, every day, all day, would be interested in horses? (The temporary arena occupied the whole of Le Notre's parterre.) It is a completely different culture/sub-culture. Greenwich is home to the football club Charlton Athletic (and Beckham's Academy was sited on the Greenwich Peninsula) - that has a big influence on local children and businesses.
Greenwich Park hosts thousands of important activities every day for all sort of people: mothers (keep-fit), children (running around in safety), joggers, elderly (there were lots of memorial benches until LOCOG took them into storage), dog-walkers, young people (for whom the Park is a safe place to socialise, which you cannot say about much of the local area). Also, I have discovered during the NOGOE campaign, Greenwich Park enables the lonely (retired, unemployed, unwell) to structure their days and fill their time with something useful such as starting a little personal project to study a particular species or area of the Park (going there every day to note developments, take photographs) and therefore have something to talk about with others. Equestrians are going to take all that away and perhaps even destroy the personal projects of some very very lonely people. Just for the "iconic backdrop" which seems to have seduced everyone at the BEF, IOC, etc. This isn't the way to make people feel friendly towards horses and horse-riding.
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Spudlet
Well-Known Member
How patronising of you to automatically assume they won't be - why, are they not clever enough? Not rich enough? Not middle-class enough? How patronising you are to the poor little poor people who you deign to speak for.
SusannaF
Well-Known Member
So, prior to this campaign, you were completely uninvolved with this section of your community and were not contributing to help them?
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
Which makes your determination to make things worse for Greenwich children and young people - and the young people who travel to Greenwich Park from all over east and south-east London at weekends - completely incomprehensible.
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
I am not sure what you mean. I have been a member of the residential and small business community in Greenwich since 1977. I was talking about the local culture/sub-culture. Not about cleverness, wealth or class.
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
To whom are you referring ("this section")?
SusannaF
Well-Known Member
The impoverished inner city kids to whom you refer.
Look, as you have been told ad nauseam, for "the equestrians" read "The London Olympic committe".
Until you understand that, you are wasting a huge amount of time and energy and alienating people by setting up a false, reverse snobbery divide.
Pebble101
Well-Known Member
See previous posts - you are completely off target on this forum we are not the decision makers. As you say it's the BEF and IOC you need to be targeting - why not route your energies in that direction?
I have no doubt now that you will be s*** stirring among locals and saying that horses and horse riders are the route of all evil.
I would have loved to have gone to the test event, but didn't get the chance which the locals did. So in my eyes they have already experienced something many of us couldn't. Or can't you see any positives in this? Probably not.
Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
I do my bit to "give something back" and have done so all my adult life (I am now 60).
If UK equestrians spoke with one voice and said: "We - and the rising generation of Olympic-competitors - deserve better than this", the national authorities would have to listen to you. An "iconic backdrop" is not a good, ie grown-up, sensible, reason for choosing Greenwich Park. I would go further: it is a bonkers reason for choosing an urban park (180 acres, some of this "off limits" because of important archaeological remains and rare habitat, Badminton is 1,500 acres) in a densely populated city district, with - in reality - road and transport infrastructure that cannot safely cope with tens of thousands coming and going every day, to whom will have to be applied "airport type" security checks. (Once spectators are in the Park, they will not be allowed to go out and return, eg at lunch-time.)
Unfortunately, the UK equestrians' voice appears to be that of the BEF. That the BEF never insisted on cost-benefit analyses being done on the alternative venues, never costed the security necessary on ANY of the sites, says an awful lot about the calibre of people at the BEF and the culture - looks from here like a sort of "cargo culture" - which is not acting in the best interests of the UK's equestrians.
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Rachel Mawhood
Well-Known Member
You are mistaken. The UK signed contracts with the IOC, so the IOC is not interested in details now. The BEF have a problem, and equestrians could - if they spoke up - help solve it for them.
Silly. I myself learned to ride while at boarding school.
Pebble101
Well-Known Member
Irrelevant.