The money we spend on our Olympic medal count is money well spent

The Olympics gives young athletes something to look forward to and aim for in life. The satisfaction of competing for your country and competing with the world cannot be a better accomplishment, and winning a gold medal for your country in the Olympics is considered one of the highest honours for anyone. Despite the medal count, the Olympics itself is worth the money. The government and older generations constantly talk of youths in trouble, with no future, and no career paths, but with Olympic funding, they have a path and a goal to achieve. Athletes can compete at all ages and this is money well spent if it gives people something to believe in. Some adolescents leave school not knowing what they would like to do and feel that they cannot excel at anything except from sport, so events such as the Olympics makes them feel as important if competing, as a barrister in a courtroom or an estate agent closing a deal.

Britain showed at the Olympics that we have a number of world-class athletes. We brought home 47 medals, 19 of them gold. But this kind of achievement requires a great deal of money, without which, some of the most talented people in the world would go through life without their greatest achievements. Perhaps we should change the way we spend on the Olympics: if it is true that athletes are wined, dined and paid to party, perhaps we should consider paying them to practise instead. But to take away the money spent on their development would be unfair.

The investments into sports by governments and corporate giants are beneficial to the society at large. We must appreciate the fact that all of us have varying abilities and interests, and that not everybody is born academically gifted, goes through university education and lands himself or herself a well-paying 9-to-5 job in the city. Some of us are more active physically and sports-inclined. With the right amount of government funding, these people do not have to go through the traditional route of getting a tertiary education which may probably work against them. Instead, they could enrol themselves in sporting institutes and become full time athletes. This will provide them with the right platform to develop their abilities further and excel in their chosen field. Subsequently, they can make a career of out sport by being a private coach, fitness instructor, professional trainer and even a professional footballer who earns £80,000 a week! Just as in academia where governments invest heavily in research and development activities, postgraduate funding and research facilities, governments should do the same to the sporting arena as this would create job opportunities for the people.

people who have hopes for being in the olympics useally get put down! vit also costs a lot of money which is one of the many reasons why the U.S is in debt!

Our society funds all kinds of things which not everybody likes.Taxpayers’ money is used every day for things which not everybody enjoys. Should the government stop giving funding to universities because less than half of the population will ever enjoy a university education? It’s not fair to say that everybody should have to benefit directly from something the government spends money on (although this would be everyone’s preferred choice!) because, thankfully, we live in a very diverse society. So long as the beneficiary(ies) is/are honourable, and the spending is transparent, it should not have to be spent exclusively on things that everybody enjoys – for one thing, there is almost nothing which everybody enjoys or needs.

The Olympics is not just about sport; it is an international event that brings prestige upon the host nation. Obviously plenty of funds need to be dedicated to the ‘hosting’ aspects of the games, as well as to supporting out sportsmen.

The medal count at the Beijing Olympics seems to suggest that Britain’s approach is working just fine. We do not treat our athletes like prize racehorses, training them up and isolating them from the real world; they have lives outside of sport and are thus happier, better rounded people. A career in sport is often a short one, and if you cannot get any media work in the aftermath, you don’t want to be left without options once you’re past your physical peak. Why should we follow the ‘hothousing’ methods of other nations, when we are achieving very respectable levels of success without putting our athletes under unnatural pressure.