When London last hosted the Olympics in 1948, the poor bomb-wrecked city could hardly feed its regular citizens let alone fuel its elite athletes.
So when the Australians docked at Southampton they were immediately swarmed upon by their shameless but emaciated British counterparts looking for free food.
Great Britain won three gold medals to Australia’s two – thanks to our generous donations of tinned braised steak and onions, and Golden Circle pineapple rings.
Sixty years later, the Brits came pilfering again.
Bereft of ideas, organisation, money and decent coaches, they adopted the institutionalised model of the AIS, that “shrine of sporting excellence” conceived by us way back in 1973 (of course, we sort of borrowed the idea from the Soviets and East Germans – minus the drugs, I hope) and with funds from the National Lottery went out and bought the best non-British, but mainly Australian, coaches and sports scientists.
“We’ve just been able to go out with lots of money and hire the absolute best people”, was the honest assessment of David Brailsford, cycling performance director of Team Britain, whose Australian head coach Shane Sutton was the engineer of seven gold medals in London.
Great Britain are currently third on the medals table with twenty six gold while Australia is ninth with just seven gold.
There is a real danger too that if we let our poached coaches stay over there too long they will become English with an English spouse, and heaven forbid, English children.
We had to watch England win the Ashes in 2005 partly thanks to their Australian bowling coach Troy Cooley and now another Aussie in David Saker is expected to continue our Ashes woes in 2013.
I always thought Australia, with its warm weather and wide open spaces (not a book in sight), provided the athletes while Britain’s cold climate supplied the ideas. The television, pneumatic tyre and telephone were invented by the Scots. Perhaps they should employ more of them and leave the Australians alone.
We could blame the traitrous and mercenary coaches of course for dressing in Team Britain outfits and hugging athletes draped in Union Jack flags. If the Olympics is the sporting equivalent of a world war, then working for a nation other than your own could be seen as an act of treason.
The Chinese, who are fearless when it comes to investing in foreign regions, have been employing a couple of Australian coaches Denis Cotterell and Ken Wood to oversee the development of their gold medal winning swimmers Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen.
The Chinese view the more carefree Western approach to training as important in the development of their athletes who have visited Australia. Considering the amount of money they’re forking out (four times the Australian rate plus huge medal bonuses) it’d be cheaper for them to find some Chinese coaches with a sense of humour.
Some people believe Cotterell should be strung up by his cotterels to the nearest tree for working with the Chinese and Australian swimmers.
Wood too was identified by some as a treacherous double agent in 2008 when his charge, world champion butterflyer Jessicah Schipper, realised he was sending training programs to a Chinese swimmer who subsequently beat her in Beijing. When confronted by Schipper’s father he said: “I’m a swimming coach, I coach swimmers, that’s what I do… of course I want Jess to win”.
It has been pointed out that Wood and Cottterell have worked tirelessly over many years for little reward and the money offered by the Chinese was too good to ignore.
The director of the AIS Matthew Favier is not sure what can be done to staunch the exodus of Australian coaches: “we need to look at a lot of things …but we must be very careful about panicking into paying too much”.
Watching the British celebrate winning all those gold medals with their Australian coaches made me a little annoyed but I realise it’s not really anyone’s fault.
I did console myself though with the thought that for years we have been telling them Jacobs Creek Chardonnay is a premium wine.
Nickyc
Guest
I'm reluctant to reply to this post because as far as I and most other Brits are concerned Team GB's success was a British success not that of the English, Scottish or any other constituent group. However, for what it's worth of GB's 29 gold medals 22.34 were won by England, 4.58 by Scotland, 1.50 by Wales, 0.33 by the Channel Islands and 0.25 by the Isle of Man. As for the total of 65 medals: England 52.20; Scotland 7.41; Wales 3.31; Northern Ireland 1.50; Channel Islands 0.33; Isle of Man 0.25. The decision to leave the UK is a matter for the Scots not you or I, but the latest poll showed that support for independence is only about 30% so I shouldn't put too much of your money on it if I were you.
al
Guest
Sure, but if you want to be petty, the Aussies will never win that many again either. Do you feel inferior to the Americans cos they won more? I dont; if you want the games to be truly representative of a nation, selection should be random like jury service, with one month to train. We would all be stuffed then, cos the Africans would win everything. I'd like to see how the yanks did.
frank spencer
Guest
Really Bill Larkin ? If I add up all the scottish golds(7) and take them away from team gb's 29 leaving 22 to the austrailian 7 . Maths must be done differently down under!
Blando
Roar Rookie
If that's your argument Bill, then I'm sure if I dug into it then a Team England would still have beaten Australia in the medal tables at this games...
Bill Larkin
Guest
The Brits will never win as many medals again as (apart no home ground advantage) there will be no "Team GB" next time around. There's a referundum on Scottish independance in two years time, and my money's on a yes vote. Without a combined team, we will be up against England and will pants them as we do in the Commonwealth Games.
Aljay
Guest
Understand that the article is tongue in cheek in nature, but it needs to be remembered that one of the first things the AIS did was import the best coaches we could find/afford. In the sports that we naturally excelled at we often produced the best coaches, but there were many sports such as gymnastics, diving, cycling were we benefitted from other nations' knowledge to build our own.
Australian Rules
Guest
Very well said sheek...
al
Guest
A wry and funny article, not peurile. I have been following the roar as a counterpoint to the breathless British press. Rest assured aussies, we are aware the success of our athletes does not make us better people, sport is never won, and there is always next time. Still, brit or not, who could not lament the divine ms Pendletons double relegation
Queensland's Game Is Rugby League
Guest
Troy Cooley set James Anderson's career back by a few years. Cooley had him use an action that didn't work for him. When he went back to using his old action he became the best bowler in the world.
Queensland's Game Is Rugby League
Guest
"Spending in excess of $170m a year (well according to media reports) on elite sports is NOT in any way putting money into the community." What about the $70,000,000 that is spent each month to house boatpeople in Queensland? They're not even Australian, yet they're receiving tax payers money! That money should be spent on healthcare, roads, public transport, the AOC and rugby league.
Matt
Guest
I don't think anyone believes Jacobs Creek is a premium wine. It's sold in Tesco and Sainsburys who are hardly considered to be pervayors of fine wines. In any case the joke is on us. Aussie wines are cheaper in the UK than in Aus.
Lolly
Guest
I think it did have another zero on it. How to turn down that sort of money? I couldnt do it.
Blando
Roar Rookie
By reading this article, as a British person, I feel that this article is a big complement to our developing success over the past two Olympic games upto this point. By the government setting up UK Sport and using lottery funding to supplement the money pool from which sporting governing bodies can run their operations, it has improved standards a lot. The use of foreign, and in particular Australian, coaches has been well documented. However, this is simply the case of using the best resources available to you in order to achieve certain goals. With £125 million of funding from the UK government being provided, they aren't going to accept failure and subsequently the best coaches in the world need to be employed in order to achieve these desired goals. I couldn't give a toss where they are from - if a coach fulfils their role and justifies the expenditure with medals then that's all that can be asked for. Even Troy Cooley is mentioned, but Duncan Fletcher was the head coach who took most of the plaudits. As with the current scenario, Andy Flower is the head coach and David Saker is the right hand man (a certain irony being that both right hand men were Australian and the head coaches being Zimbabwean). However, a world class coach has to enjoy the job or otherwise they'll pack it up and leave for pastures new - and therefore deny the chances of a long term programme to be developed. As I digress, the key is that international sport is a business, a political statement, a marketing tool and a way of demonstrating a nation's power through diplomatic means. Where there is money to be made, and a coach who has the knowledge to impart on world class athletes, then there will always be an international exchange of coaches - wherever that may take them. Britain is no different, and the investment appears to be paying off so far.
BigAl
Guest
jeez ! - give the kid a break, he just wanted to go to the Olympics - and not at our expense !
BigAl
Guest
Well ! a clear example of the pointlessness of it all...
Jocelyn McLennan
Roar Guru
I think the proliferation of how well everyone speaks English around the world since it is the international language of business is just one indication of the blurring the "national" lines....the spectors may belong to one nationality in the future but not so the athletes....while you can understand the immigration of some from developing countries to western economies to escape poverty and civil conflict...and Australia is one that has gained much from European and African immagration since 1945...but almost saw evidence of athletes almost going the other way....I saw some track athletes that were originally from oil rich Arabian nations that were now competing for European nations like Russia....that is what first prompted me to think of a draft and recruiting in future for the best athletes.....is going to make the lead up to the next Games VERY interesting....
JVGO
Guest
Interesting to sort the medals the old fashioned imperial way. The medal table would be something like; 1 Commonwealth 2 USSR 3 USA 4 China If we added up the Eurozone they would probably be number one though.
yewonk
Guest
"dual Australian/islander citizen" " then be able to compete for another country against us" he did not compete for another country he competed for his country, thus the term dual citizenship.
yewonk
Guest
we could, but the Ukrainians would be peed off.
Hansie
Guest
So we should hand back the sailing medals given that the coach of the Australian sailing team is Russian?