http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/lack-of-government-funding-blamed-for-poor-olympics-for-australia-8009289.html
so the USA athletes gets private funding for their training and win lot's of medals, yet a Australian member of the Olympic committees blames Australia getting less medals directly on less government funding and a lack of compulsory athletic participation.
I would prefer them not to spend money on things I don't value and subsequently not withhold my income when I earn below the tax free threshold. I prefer eating than Olympic medallions.
Firstly, there's heaps of taxpayer funding for athletes and stupid expensive sports grounds etc. Australia just didn't do nearly as well in gold medals as they have been up to now and so someone had the typical statist knee-jerk reaction: take someone else's money and throw it at the situation somehow. Anyway, in a lot of the events they were hoping to win they got SILVER medals, they came second!! It's not as if they were completely out of contention, it's just that they didn't get there on the day and had bad luck in multiple events. You can't always have people like Ian Thorpe around.
Every single Australian should be ASHAMED that THEY (really the athletes granted the proper authorization by the Australian Government to participate as representatives of Australia) haven't been winning gold medals of 1.34% purity and instead have become LOSERS. In fact that should be so ashamed that they (every single Australian) should WILLINGLY give their hard earned money to support their athletes. AND if the people of Australia are not so ashamed to provide some amount of cash to make some dude happy then they should be threatened with the loss of property, imprisionment or worse if they they don't fork it over.
Poor long term planning on the part of the Australian government. Without war conditioning the masses might become uppity and start thinking critically.
God I have always hated compulsory athletic partecipation. My high school drafted me (unwillingly) to partecipate at a shot put event at a silly inter-school competition. To protest I purposedly did so poorly at the eliminations I was immediately kicked out, much to my relief. I then proceeded to sneak out and have the rest of the day off.
If I remember correctly the Fascists were big on compulsory athletic partecipation, their rationale being good athletes would make good soldiers. How their plan worked out can be gauged by how the Italian army performed in WWII.
And about funding: the main difference between US athletes and athletes from such countries as Italy, China etc (all countries were sports are generously subsidized) is this. US athletes are more or less entrepreneurs selling their services to the highest bidder. The better they perform, the more cash they earn in prizes, sponsorship deals etc. Chinese and Italian athletes are paid by State (often quite handsomely) to train and win as as many medals as possible for the "glory of the State". That's the reason some countries do so well in obscure sports you are unlikely to hear until the Olympics: their governments spend insane amounts of money to win those medals. In a more perfect world those sports would be left to amateurs since there would be no incentive for athletes to turn pro in those disciplines.
And about funding: the main difference between US athletes and athletes from such countries as Italy, China etc (all countries were sports are generously subsidized) is this. US athletes are more or less entrepreneurs selling their services to the highest bidder. The better they perform, the more cash they earn in prizes, sponsorship deals etc.
While that's true, even athletics in the states is highly subsidized, on both the professional and "amateur" levels. Whether in state funded schools that spend heavily on sports programs, or in arenas and stadiums that are funded by taxpayers. In the latter case one would have to assume that athletes would not be able to command such high salaries if the costs of owning a sports franchise (including real estate) were fully borne by the owners of the teams, and not externalized to the taxpayers. I have to think that sporting events would not be nearly as popular as they are if the price of admission fully reflected these costs.