~~Tokyo Olympics 2020/21~~



Safc_Number10 said:
Yeah that would be good. What would you try to go and see?
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In London it was a matter of getting a ticket for anything I could. Got basketball, water polo, beach volleyball and the football ball then a few more for the Paralympics. Otherwise it's just a great experience to hang out in an Olympic city.
 
Darlo1973 said:
In London it was a matter of getting a ticket for anything I could. Got basketball, water polo, beach volleyball and the football ball then a few more for the Paralympics. Otherwise it's just a great experience to hang out in an Olympic city.
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I was lucky enough to get to the 100m final in 2012 - it was only £50 per ticket too.
 
Arkle said:
I suspect that sports like equestrianism and sailing will sort themselves out but rowing is only really a minority sport because of the size you need to be (the odd lightweight race excepted). You've only got to look at how Helen Glover's story to realise that. I'm not sure rowing is necessarily something that's available to kids, whereas swimming, athletics and cycling are.

As far as the number of countries competing, are there significantly less than there are when it comes to elite cycling or swimming? Track cycling, in particular, mostly has entries from the same few countries (mostly those involved in rowing) again and again.
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Rowing is a very accessible sport for kids, provided you live near an appropriate stretch of water with an active club. So many people are effectively excluded by simple geography but then that's the case with loads of sports. My son wanted to start rowing (fuck knows where that came from, but hey) at about 13, so we went down to our local club and got him into their kids introductory programme. 8 years later and he's a bit of a monster and rows at stroke in a senior men's eight. It's a big part of his life now and has done so much for him in so many ways
Sorry, pressed the wrang button & never finished off what I was saying...
 
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I caught the 800m men's freestyle last night and the finish with Finke coming from 5th to 1st in the last 100m that he smashed through in 26 seconds was incredible
 
The problem with rowing is the opposite of what people are saying here - there already is very little money put into the sport, apart from at the level of the elite GB squads. So as in any sports these days the kids are identified for the national elite development squads at a fairly young age, and the reality is that the vast majority of kids who have started to row & compete regularly at a young enough age are those at (mostly) private schools with a rowing tradition. Straight away they are selecting from a very small pool. My lad competed at the british junior championships when he was 17 but by then the reality is that no one is going to break into any of the GB squads that have already been established for years except in very exceptional cases. But the "grass roots" of the sport is full of young people from "ordinary" backgrounds competing every week (in normal times) for clubs that get little or no central funding.
 

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