[Devongone]

I'm tired of the medal table. We're turning it into a substitute for war. Look look look we're ahead of China. Wow we're beating Germany, Merkel eat your heart out.

I'm tired of Team GB. Why the fcku do we need branding? We'll be GB Eagles or Brexit Badgers next ......

I'm tired of competitors having to say all the same things to all the same questions, especially two minutes after they finished.

Of course Mo's great, everybody loves Jessica, mourns at JKT's inability to throw and ability to lose 30cm somewhere in her long jump; Christina, see her smile; Jade kick 'em in the head; Nicola's never going to stop talking and laughing ....an' Trotty will she ever shut up?

But my favourites were seeing Nick Skelton trying to look mature and 58 when tears of emotion needed to be released all over the place, and a hammer thrower called Hitchon who achieved the impossible and got a medal in an event we never have anyone good enough even to contest. Good one Burnley.

And as a big athletics fan here is my advice ....... will someone tell KJT if she just concentrated on JUMPING she would have had a great chance of a medal in both High and Long Jump?

By the way does anyone know what Rishi Persad is for?

[St Charles Owl]

We can have a bit of a debate about the medal table, just to finish off the games! Everyone is talking about us being ahead of China in the medals table, yet over here we are not ahead of them, we are in third place!! In the US the medal table positions is based on the number of medals gained, whereas in the UK it's based on the number of gold medals won, which one is officially correct though?? I thought I would go to the official Olympic site but on there they have a button on the medal table to rank it by Golds or Total Medals, so that doesn't help either!!

Of course we could all be like Dev and not care anyway!!!

[Lord Snooty]

It's always been golds as long as I can remember.

[St Charles Owl]

It's always been golds as long as I can remember.

Yes, I looked it up, the British media have always done by Golds, and the US have always gone by total medals. The IOC officially does not recognize medal tables as they claim its individual athletes in individual sports and not a country by country thing.

[Lord Snooty]

Lol. That's what we used to say when we never won anything. It's not the winning, it's the taking part.

[ritchiebaby]

To be quite honest, I dislike any attitude which puts down someone doing the best they possibly can. Laura Trott is a bubbly character - enjoy it, we need people like her in our lives. Jason Kenny is a quiet, more withdrawn character. Enjoy his attitude too. Variety is the spice of life.

Anyway, what's wrong with doing well? My whole ethos in life is based on enjoying people doing well. I particularly enjoy Scotland and GB doing well, but that's where I come from. Well done GB, you've brought a lot of joy into my very ordinary life, so thanks for that.  

It is the taking part that counts - doing your best for your country and we happen to be very good at the moment, so we see it reflected in the medal count. I don't care if we're top or bottom of the medal table. Enjoy every one of them and enjoy the fact that other countries are jealous of our success and our elite performance system.

[0762]

Yep! It's a big 'well done' to Team GB and I totally agree taking part in the spectacle is just as important. I believe our final tally of medals is 68 and it's reckoned that £350M was spent on UK involvement in these games. So that works out at approx £5M per medal. A different topic but was that short term 'feel good factor' really worth it at a time in the UK when many people are using or contributing to food banks and others are finding it hard to make ends meet? Also is it right that a disproportionate number of privileged folk and those with private school backgrounds are grabbing the sporting opps that are available?? It's certainly not representative of the huge number of people within the UK who could well satisfy the requirements to at at least compete and would fairly cover a broader spectrum of folk who should be considered to be suitable.

[Lord Snooty]

No. Big companies avoiding tax. That's the important thing to sort out.  We play the national lottery for Olympic funding and feel good stuff. Feeding the poor and building hospitals and such like is for tax payers to fund.
The lottery is vouluntery. Tax should be paid and gratuitous avoiders should be slung in jail (at the taxpayer's expense).

[St Charles Owl]

Personally I think this sort of funding for sports is exactly what the lottery money should be used for. Government probably shouldn't be putting money into any sport in this way, as Snooty says they need to go after the "bigger" things.

As for the cost, not sure its fair just to divide that cost by the medals won, the funding allowed us to take a team of nearly 500 athletes plus all the others behind the scenes including coaches, doctors and support staff. It also provides funding for the next generation of athletes, the ones who tried to qualify for the GB team but on this occasion didin't make it. We can send three athletes for each athletics event, as long as they attain the qualification standard, but the lottery funding will be used for many more behind those three.

I also thing the feel good factor is not necessarily short term either. People still talk about the London games 4 years later!! Cycling is one of the real success stories of this funding, since the London games they have received about 30m pounds from the lottery funding and while that has produced a very good medal haul (the best in the world currently) it has also helped produce Tour De France winners and seen cycling as a whole have a major spike in popularity, not just at these levels but also at the level of the general public riding bikes more than they have in recent memory. That won't, nor can't, translate to every sport but it is an indication of a very beneficial longer term benefit.