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The World According to Jaggy - December 19, 2008 Follow The Money ... Great minds think alike, eh? I wonder where Mr Ecclestone got his idea from to introduce medals to Formula 1. Could he have been reading a certain column in a recent issue of 'Motorsplurt News'? Maybe he recognises the fact that UK Sport only recognises those activities which reward competitors with medals. If you score points and/or win a trophy, then you get nowt! On that basis, if F1 drops it's point scoring activities and starts awarding medals, it might just be recognised as an Olympic sport of the future? Maybe rallying will have to do the same. Anyway, the author of said column was contemplating the issue of an amateur sport which rewards successful athletes with cash support during training on their medal-winning way to glory. If it was gold that the UK was after, then it would have been much simpler and much less costly just to buy the stuff - at around 500 quid an ounce. By all accounts, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing was the best ever for Britain. Team GB comprised 311 athletes and 236 officials. And that's not all. There were more than 600 publicly-funded workers attending the Games, including government ministers, press officers, local councillors and policemen. This added some £7million to the cost of sending the whole Team out. Just for argument's sake, let's take the price of the most expensive metal, gold. Currently trading at around 500 quid an ounce that equates to a total value of £316,000. Let's also forget for the moment that Olympic 'gold' medals are not actually solid gold, they are cast from a 'base' metal and then plated with just 6 grams of gold per medal. It's the same with the silver and bronze medals. You'd think with all that money being spent on the athletes, the least we should expect is a solid gold, silver and bronze return on our investment. That makes it a pretty expensive way of replenishing Britain's gold stocks which were greatly depleted when the Chancellor of the Exchequer sold 400 tonnes of the stuff at a knockdown price in 1999, which ultimately cost the UK some £3.3bn. But that's another story. Fast forward a few years to 2006, and that same Chancellor of the Exchequer pledged £500m plus £100m from private sources to support Britain's efforts at Beijing. Since Kelly Holmes and the Men's 4 x 100m Relay Team won gold at the Athens Olympics four years ago, UK Sport has invested some £26.5m (yes, that's 'm' for million) in athletics. That's £4m more than the swimmers got and just half a million more than the rowers. The cyclists got a lot more and they also got a custom-built national training centre at Manchester. The trouble is, the more one delves into this 'business' of amateur sport, the more money is found. And that's without counting the cost of staging the London Olympics which is rising faster than unemployment figures. In fact, it's pretty hard to get a grasp of the total money being spent on athletics in this country - to the detriment of some 'minority' sports. And I include rallying here, only because this nation's various sporting authorities reckon it is a minority sport. But the point I would like to make is, where is our share? Rallyists have as much right to Government grants and Lottery funds as any other sport. If we can send a team of 548 people to Beijing then why should Guy Wilks have to sell the shirt off his back, and his soul, just to get a serious crack at a World Rally title? Not to mention all the other potential rally stars in the waiting in the wings. It's not fair, and it's not right. At least Kris Meeke's got a deal, but just how much support did he get from UK Sport and our own sporting governing body? * * * * * |