Whatever GB cycling put into the water every four years ahead of the Olympics, there must be a lot of coaches in different sports wishing they could borrow some.

Absolute masters of peaking at exactly the right time, whether it's the sprint or endurance boys.

Quote son of headingley="son of headingley"Congratulations, you have named one country. Only another 195 to visit to research the strengths or otherwise of their broadcasters.'" Canada? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html Australia? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html It may offend your fragile randian sensibilities but the BBC, and its sports coverage, are admired the world over. Quote son of headingleyBut you stated "The BBC drives up standards across the board". I quite clearly gave an example of where it hadn't driven up standards & then invited you to withdraw the "across the board comment". You have chosen to ignore this, which I can only assume is an admission of error. I know from previous ramblings on here that you are stubborn individual, so I shan't expect a specific reply to this omission.'" No you didnt, you pointed out you like sky's coverage better, i pointed out that the BBC's technical and production expertise are so admired other countries pay for them. Quote son of headingleyIf it is so incredibly successful, why does it need to extract £145.50 from every household in the UK per year? '" Because it does far more than simply £1b worth of business. Including being one of the largest investors in british tv production by far, creating a mutli-billion pound industry that the UK sells throughout the world. Things the private companies simply dont do. Quote son of headingleyUm, OK. Try smiling, you'll feel much better for it.'" Try not lying. It will make you look less stupid. Quote son of headingleyAh, but as you well know I cannot choose not to receive the BBC, but watch Sky & other terrestrial channels instead. That, to me, is a gross misuse of power handed to it by successive governments.'" You wouldnt have Sky or the other terrestrial channels without the BBC. They simply wouldnt exist. Quote son of headingleyUndoubtedly. Unfortunately, the BBC is not an example of one of them.'" except by an reasonable measure, it comfortably is.

Quote son of headingley="son of headingley"Congratulations, you have named one country. Only another 195 to visit to research the strengths or otherwise of their broadcasters.'" Canada? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html Australia? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html It may offend your fragile randian sensibilities but the BBC, and its sports coverage, are admired the world over. Quote son of headingleyBut you stated "The BBC drives up standards across the board". I quite clearly gave an example of where it hadn't driven up standards & then invited you to withdraw the "across the board comment". You have chosen to ignore this, which I can only assume is an admission of error. I know from previous ramblings on here that you are stubborn individual, so I shan't expect a specific reply to this omission.'" No you didnt, you pointed out you like sky's coverage better, i pointed out that the BBC's technical and production expertise are so admired other countries pay for them. Quote son of headingleyIf it is so incredibly successful, why does it need to extract £145.50 from every household in the UK per year? '" Because it does far more than simply £1b worth of business. Including being one of the largest investors in british tv production by far, creating a mutli-billion pound industry that the UK sells throughout the world. Things the private companies simply dont do. Quote son of headingleyUm, OK. Try smiling, you'll feel much better for it.'" Try not lying. It will make you look less stupid. Quote son of headingleyAh, but as you well know I cannot choose not to receive the BBC, but watch Sky & other terrestrial channels instead. That, to me, is a gross misuse of power handed to it by successive governments.'" You wouldnt have Sky or the other terrestrial channels without the BBC. They simply wouldnt exist. Quote son of headingleyUndoubtedly. Unfortunately, the BBC is not an example of one of them.'" except by an reasonable measure, it comfortably is.

im delighted that we won silver. Those guys have something ill never have and have achieved something i wont.


I still dont think the tournament showed a high skill-level

Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Canada? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html Australia? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html It may offend your fragile randian sensibilities but the BBC, and its sports coverage, are admired the world over. '" Well done you! You've managed to find one Australian article where a few people have claimed their Olympics coverage is not up to scratch. That must prove that the BBC is far superior in every way in all sports coverage. That's two down & 194 countries left (though you may have to do better than a few anecdotal quotes). Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"No you didnt, you pointed out you like sky's coverage better, i pointed out that the BBC's technical and production expertise are so admired other countries pay for them. '" So I guess you must be the only viewer who doesn't believe the quality & quantity of football, rugby (RU & RL), cricket to name four sports hasn't been increased since Sky's involvement. The BBC had one camera per event (including cricket where every other over you couldn't even see what was happening - they didn't even have the world-beating technical mastery to put a camera at each end!). Events would be interrupted at random for all sorts of reasons, leaving the viewer frustrated. The concept of live games was reserved for FA Cup Finals & other one-off events. If Sky hasn't driven up standards in these sports (& not the BBC), then I don't really know what you should do. Oh yes, I know: buy yourself a black & white telly, get a VHS recorder & watch some tapes of Pot Black, Grandstand, & every other over of a cricket Test Match. Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Because it does far more than simply £1b worth of business. Including being one of the largest investors in british tv production by far, creating a mutli-billion pound industry that the UK sells throughout the world. Things the private companies simply dont do.'" All at the British citizens' expense. Where, in normal working society, would you find a Director of a company who did not have anyone to report to, nor anyone who reported to him/her? & then pay him off handsomely when deeply involved & influencing output over a fat crook. The same place where a KNOWN serial paedophile was lauded, revered & protected. Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Try not lying. It will make you look less stupid. '" Aw diddums - incidentally, what lie? Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"You wouldnt have Sky or the other terrestrial channels without the BBC. They simply wouldnt exist. '" And the BBC would not exist without the existence of John Logie Baird. Great. I thought we were talking about more recent times. I have already stated the BBC has served a wonderful role in the past. Not now.

Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Canada? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html Australia? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html It may offend your fragile randian sensibilities but the BBC, and its sports coverage, are admired the world over. '" Well done you! You've managed to find one Australian article where a few people have claimed their Olympics coverage is not up to scratch. That must prove that the BBC is far superior in every way in all sports coverage. That's two down & 194 countries left (though you may have to do better than a few anecdotal quotes). Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"No you didnt, you pointed out you like sky's coverage better, i pointed out that the BBC's technical and production expertise are so admired other countries pay for them. '" So I guess you must be the only viewer who doesn't believe the quality & quantity of football, rugby (RU & RL), cricket to name four sports hasn't been increased since Sky's involvement. The BBC had one camera per event (including cricket where every other over you couldn't even see what was happening - they didn't even have the world-beating technical mastery to put a camera at each end!). Events would be interrupted at random for all sorts of reasons, leaving the viewer frustrated. The concept of live games was reserved for FA Cup Finals & other one-off events. If Sky hasn't driven up standards in these sports (& not the BBC), then I don't really know what you should do. Oh yes, I know: buy yourself a black & white telly, get a VHS recorder & watch some tapes of Pot Black, Grandstand, & every other over of a cricket Test Match. Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Because it does far more than simply £1b worth of business. Including being one of the largest investors in british tv production by far, creating a mutli-billion pound industry that the UK sells throughout the world. Things the private companies simply dont do.'" All at the British citizens' expense. Where, in normal working society, would you find a Director of a company who did not have anyone to report to, nor anyone who reported to him/her? & then pay him off handsomely when deeply involved & influencing output over a fat crook. The same place where a KNOWN serial paedophile was lauded, revered & protected. Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Try not lying. It will make you look less stupid. '" Aw diddums - incidentally, what lie? Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"You wouldnt have Sky or the other terrestrial channels without the BBC. They simply wouldnt exist. '" And the BBC would not exist without the existence of John Logie Baird. Great. I thought we were talking about more recent times. I have already stated the BBC has served a wonderful role in the past. Not now.

I thought the Fijian offloading and short passing was a joy to watch, even if the long passes were all loopers

like these other countries paying the BBC for their expertise? You may believe that Equitorial Guinea has a fantastic private broadcaster all paid for through lovely capitalism, i dont think its likely enough for me to bother proving you wrong.

You should try watching it before the BBC and their innovations and have a look at the quality of broadcasting then!

Though if Sky and ITV's lovely wonderful invisible hand of the free market have created such fabulous content, why does the BBC beat them in to the ground on simulcast sports? 5 times more viewers watched the BBC's coverage than watched ITVs coverage of the Euro 2016 final


News Corp?

That the BBC is a state broadcaster.
It does so now. By any and all reasonable measures. That you, a useful fool of the media oligarchy doesnt think so is neither here nor there.

It's called "money". Only rowing gets more UK Sport funding than cycling.
They do get a lot of medals for the investment though.

Money isn't guaranteed to buy you a top quality programme which produces consistent medal winners across a range of disciplines, unless you spend it properly. Under the current UK Sport funding formula though, it does perpetuate success and failure.

How much does the LTA make from Wimbledon every year, yet we still have to import Konta to get a decent female player?

So that's a couple of Aussies moaning about their countries' broadcasting of one event & an assumption that one of the poorest countries in the world might not have as strong a national broadcaster. Great debating skills there my friend!
As for the BBC selling programmes I have already said that the BBC has strengths. Sport is not one of them. Your original assertion remember was that the "BBC drives up standards across the board". That you cannot see that that is a preposterous statement only demeans your argument.



So I take it that you have no answer to the examples of sports broadcasting standards that have been increased by Sky after the BBC failed to do so, despite many years of a virtually free field?



Why are you comparing the BBC to ITV? ITV are just as crap (possibly worse so) when it comes to sports coverage. Other organisations, on the other hand, have moved certain outputs on beyond where the BBC could take it.



Nope, but I can see how you would like to think so. The good old Auntie Beeb were aware of a serial kiddy/incapacitated/corpse fiddler in their employ & chose, as an institution, to regale him. Only when the weight of evidence was so great did they decide to "have an investigation" (whitewash). Alan Yentob, along with numerous executives throughout the decades, was given a very healthy pay off, using our money to do so. This despite him trying to influence public opinion on his fat, useless, dangerous friend by using his position to try & persuade lower level staff along a certain editorial path.



Despite me explaining that it was said tongue-in-cheek?
Even if you didn't accept this, to be a lie I would have to have known that the BBC was not a state broadcaster, and thought that you did not know that it wasn't. Any other scenario & it isn't a lie. So either it was a lie & I think you're thick, or it wasn't a lie & you definitely are thick for calling it a lie when it wasn't. My work here is done.

You make a good point about tennis. There are differences I think between tennis and cycling - just to take those sports in isolation. Tennis, especially female tennis, is a very early developing sport. The quality of coaching and access to that is limiting. The cost of coaching is very high and like a lot of sports quality is patchy. One of my friends daughter is U14 county champion. He plays to a decent standard himself but he pulls a painful face when he talks about coaching costs. And she's been playing since she was 4 years old and they live 5 minutes from the club that produced Tim Henman. That's not needed for cycling, or rowing for that matter. After London there was a campaign to basically recruit tall sporty people into rowing. You can identify talent later and quality of youth coaching is not so critical. I think with cycling they got the right people where they needed them - at the top end. That team then did pretty much everything right.
Sports like tennis and swimming need high quality coaches getting hold of kids at a very young age and that's a bigger net to cast. I'm sure the LTA do spend a lot of money but you could easily waste a small fortune if you don't put the money in the right place, and my guess is they could do much better.

We used to be a bit of a laughing stock when it came to how we equipped our sportsmen and women to succeed, but now having the best gear for track cycling and conditioning makes a huge difference and the coaches have delivered some phenomenal athletes.

Sport is one of those broadcasts sold abroad. If you are in Canada, or Australia, or America, or anywhere else in the world. Some of the sports, this olympics right now, come from the BBC.
Plenty of examples, First sports match broadcast in the country, first HD sports broadcast, first Outside Broadcast, first floodlit broadcast, first football match in the entire world broadcast, the first ever worldwide satellite broadcast, first colour tv station,
But what have the romans done for us lately?


we can compare the BBC to skys viewing figures on sport if you want? I dont think its going to work in your favour though...


You dont need me to explain what a lie is, you just want to argue over semantics to distract from you being a bit of d1ck.