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.

Translation: Oops I got that wrong, so let me see... oh yes, if I resort to an insult perhaps that will muddy the waters & no one will notice!

Your debating skills require a little work

Australia are 7th on the medal table

Ahh, the old 'i know you are so what am i'

Very impressive from GB to be one medal ahead of where they were at the same stage in 2012. No country has ever increased their medal total the following games after hosting. We got 65 in London, our best 'away' showing in Beijing was 47 so we've got a great chance of beating that with us already on 30 with more medals already guaranteed today and with the likes of the Brownlee brothers still to come and Justin Rose looking in a good position to get a medal too in the golf.

And as I mentioned previously it's good to see our medals spread out over sports. With our 30 medals yes we have our stronger sports with swimming (6) and rowing and cycling (5) but not to the extent of some of the other countries near the top of the medal table. The swimming features so many different races/medals that it can really alter the table.

USA have 60 medals, 33 of them are from swimming only. So from all other events they 'only' have 27 which puts them near us (we'd have 24 if you took away our swimming ones in comparison). Australia have 22 medals, 10 of them from swimming. Japan have 24 medals, 12 of them from judo. So these countries are relying on one sport to give them around half of their medals so far.

Eh? & once more in English?

Nice of team GB to win many of its medals in UK viewing time. Had some good evenings in front of the TV this last well

Maybe the BBC is admired the world over....the Brazilian hen do that gate crashed the live BBC 4 coverage last night seemed to be impressed www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/37077188 Could be in for a promising night. Max Whitlock already has one gold and has his better event still to come. Justin Rose leading the golf by 1 with a few holes left. Andy Murray to play and more track cycling.

Maybe the BBC is admired the world over....the Brazilian hen do that gate crashed the live BBC 4 coverage last night seemed to be impressed www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/37077188 Could be in for a promising night. Max Whitlock already has one gold and has his better event still to come. Justin Rose leading the golf by 1 with a few holes left. Andy Murray to play and more track cycling.

Do you know, I do believe there are more BBC personnel in Rio than there are spectators at most events. It seems that local populations have a general disinterest of things Olympics, whereas Auntie Beeb assures us that it is still the greatest sporting spectacle possible. Have presenters commented on how poorly-attended the vast majority of events have been? Do they not think that this is a reflection of lack of interest in many "sports"/the Olympic concept?

Obsequious Inverdale ejaculating at every RU & rowing nuance, Blue Peter-inspired Skelton/"the black guy in the square" giving us "awesome" 11-year-old insights, Chapman desperate to appear interesting, the guy on the beach under the illusion that he's a comedy genius, Balding trying to appear worth £500,000/year of licence-payers' money, Irvine convinced that she's a knowledgeable sports presenter & not a morning-TV style airhead.

The GB participants in the rowing & equestrian events filled me with pride, evidencing GB's approach of including athletes from all geographical, cultural, educational & ethnic backgrounds in all sports.

Wherever would golf, tennis, RU, football, basketball be without the Olympics? It must be their lifeblood.

With regards to the attendances I think that says more about Brazil and it's organising of the event and apparently pricing hasn't been cheap.

London was a success in terms of attendance and I imagine Toyko, Japan in 2020 will do very well also.

You certainly seem to have got your monies worth out of the BBC's coverage considering your obvious familiarity with it.

Purely for research purposes old boy!

Besides, I pay my £145.50 per year, just like you. I might as well try & salvage some value from that. However, as per my comments, I have failed miserably. Hey ho.

As I'm off work for a couple of weeks the wall to wall sport is a bonus for me. It allows me to watch a wide range of sports I wouldn't usually watch. In teems of quality of entertainment, its certainly better than bargain hunt and homes under the hammer that would usually be on

Exactly how I see it. And I know some people have mentioned the late time of some events with having stay up until 2/3am but with the next one being Toyko I want to make sure I catch as much of this one as possible.

Looking like one of GB best ever days in Olympic history. Whitlock has already 2 golds with Smith a silver in gymnastics. Justin Rose held off Stenson in a great last day battle in the golf. Silver in the sailing, we're guaranteed a gold too but it can't be confirmed until Tuesday. Murray is guaranteed a medal in the tennis. Guaranteed medals in the cycling with Kenny and Skinner in the final so another gold and silver.

We're definitely going to have 4/5 golds today. 3/4 silvers. Into 2nd place on the medal table above China....that's some going, and to think we had a few near misses of 4th in the pool.

Like the Leeds pack and halves I am struggling to keep up. Has the very nice posh lady and her dancing oss been on yet?

We need to temper this olympic success with a touch of realism.

Yes its great to see GB doing so well but it should - the budgets provided by the lottery are huge in comparison to the majority of other countries. All our competitors are virtually all FT.

If you look at the sports where we win multiple medals/dominate: Cycling, Rowing, Sailing these are sports where the number of countries competing is significantly lower than say Athletics.

It could be argued that given the monies thrown at some of these sports: Athletics being one, the return is pitiful for the sums invested.

It is a great spectacle - and one big win is the cross pollination of sports scientists and the excellence we are now achieving in this country

Nah.

I take the point about the Athletics but generally i think its great that our Olympic sports people are backed to the full and the returns in general is there for all to see now. I remember the days we were lucky to win a gold or two, between 1992 and 2004 the return was pitiful.

I agree its superb to watch British athletes in any sport doing great things - I think it needs to be brought into context.

Its like SKY in the cycling big budgets bring big results, its no wonder the teams with the most money in soccer are the teams that generally contest the PL title. As a country we spend huge amounts of lottery cash on elite sport so we shouldn't be surprised when they win loads of medals its the least you would expect for the investment involved.