Medals of shame

[brightlywoven]

So in the last week I've lost count of the number of times someone has asked me to express chagrin that 'Team GB' (seriously?) has won more gold medals than Australia at the Olympics. Seriously. As though I ought to start gnashing my teeth in despair at this fact.

I've always been rather ashamed at the fact that, per head of population, Australia features quite highly in these tables, because, frankly, it suggests we spend far too much money to enable people to take part in elite competitions. It doesn't reflect the sporting prowess (or participation) of the average Australian, but does highlight a rather nasty aspect of our culture - that we care deeply about being the winner in zero sum games. To see the Brits now aspiring to that is depressing.

To have radio 4 natter on about how they have more medals than Australia for more than 10 minutes every morning is a bore, and undermines the high ground Britain had previously held (in being able to claim to have more important things to care about).

Next time the Daily Mail rails at NICE for 'trying to put a price on human life', http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1042447/MAIL-COMMENT-How-NHS-price-life.html
maybe they could ask how many cancer drugs could be funded with the £12 billion budget for 2012. And instead of bemoaning the use of public money to treat 'obesity and IVF',
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7561724.stm
maybe Terry Pratchett could hassle the cycling team to fund his Aricept.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

'Team GB' is a ludicrous affectation, a confused attempt to be inclusive of the multiple nations and regions and possibly even islands of the United Kingdom, while inventing a moniker to compete with football teams, as if this should be important.

As for the official culture of ignorance and immaturity relating to public spending, I fear that I am too angry to be coherent on this matter; not to say under-rehearsed where facts are concerned.

[dr-biscuit.livejournal.com]

My own knowledge of the facts is not terribly detailed, but it strikes me as incredible that the two stories
1. Look at our medals!
and
2. Why can't we pay for these drugs?
run side by side and *no-one says anything*!

[shehasathree]

hear hear!

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, it is good for peoples psychology to support a team of some sort, but that applies to some extent even if the team is not doing very well.

Sadly this is a source of psychological health denied to me because I have never understood the attraction of it. However, it is probably hard wired into a large proportion of humans, so that competitive sports are probably unavoidable, whether or not a good idea.

[(Anonymous)]

Possibly true, but I don't think the sheer scale of spending necessarily follows

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I was pleased to hear that British sporty folk had done well, but frankly all the crap about aussis whinging left me bemused. I hadn't ever heard of it before, was it all a media storm in a teacup in an attempt t drum up interest?

[dr-biscuit.livejournal.com]

Sounds very much like a tempest of drinking vessel origin. I think there was some pre-Games banter in which the Brit's minister for sport asserted that GB would get more medals than Australia, and a bet was made, but on the whole it seems to be a media-generated orgy. And massively overplayed by BBC.

The Ashes rivalry is one thing (calling England 'The Old Enemy'), and you can sort of understand the glee of beating the mother country (especially as, in many ways, Australia still has a big inferiority complex), but it makes slightly less sense when reversed.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Either way up though it is ridiculous that more people aren't protesting the spending priorities