27% of Brits think they could qualify for the LA Olympics in 2028

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Nicholls595 15 Aug 3:05pm, 15 Aug 2024 32,048 posts	0 Nicholls595 There have been similar initiatives in women's rugby. Shaunagh Brown got fast tracked from a Hammer Thrower to Harlequin's and the England team.
paulcook 15 Aug 3:06pm, 15 Aug 2024 6,209 posts	0 paulcook SPR wrote:Small country would still need to meet qualifying standard unless you get a universality place in a sport. On the flipside, according to a Steve Magness tweet, Kenny Rooks wouldn't have met the qualifying mark for GB then ended up with a silver medal.
SPR 15 Aug 3:09pm, 15 Aug 2024 45,705 posts	0 SPR paulcook wrote:On the flipside, according to a Steve Magness tweet, Kenny Rooks wouldn't have met the qualifying mark for GB then ended up with a silver medal. To be clear that's GB being idiots. He'd have qualified in the same way Norman qualified, GB would just have rejected it.
paulcook 15 Aug 3:14pm, 15 Aug 2024 6,210 posts	0 paulcook Haha. Nice phrasing! Imagine doing C2O (Couch 2 Olympics) in 4 years and then being told you haven't met the extra GB criteria though!
Mazlin 15 Aug 3:26pm, 15 Aug 2024 12,568 posts	0 Mazlin Does anyone else remember Vanessa Mae (British born classical violinist. Not an athlete.) Competing for Thailand in downhill skiing at the Winter Olympics?
larkim 15 Aug 3:33pm, 15 Aug 2024 25,354 posts	0 larkim en.wikipedia.org Some quite interesting shenanigans after her qualifying setup!
Cerrertonia 15 Aug 4:06pm, 15 Aug 2024 21,620 posts	0 Cerrertonia Nicholls595 wrote:Wasn't there an initiative from British Sport to recruit people with the right physical attributes to try out various sports with a view to fast tracking them towards the Olympics? Sure rowing was one of them. Might have been on the build up to 2012? or I might have dreamt it? Yes, one of my friends did this. He is approx 2 metres tall, solid muscle (well at the time anyway), a natural athlete and as a swimmer competing in national championships etc, was used to getting up for several hours before work to exercise. He was approached a few years before London 2012 with a view to becoming a rower. He was assigned a coach, given a boat and a rowing machine, assigned several hours per day of weights etc. to do, a diet to follow, regular testing and so forth, and basically devoted his life to it for several years. He represented England in various competitions and won stuff, but didn't quite make the Olympics.
Ocelot Spleens 15 Aug 4:40pm, 15 Aug 2024 39,480 posts	0 Ocelot Spleens Skeleton was another if memory serves me right, Williams and Yarnold. Williams was a very good sprinter, and Yarnold a multi eventer. Both very, very good indeed but not Olympic standard, and were pointed towards Skeleton. Mind you the Chinese do similar stuff and look at weak events across the board and aim athletes at them.
jda 15 Aug 5:39pm, 15 Aug 2024 17,648 posts	0 jda Aussie marathon runner Sinead Diver appears to have taken up running aged 33 with no significant prior history in sport. Quickly reached elite level in a year or two. And she was still competing aged 47 in the Paris Olympics! en.m.wikipedia.org
Dvorak 15 Aug 6:07pm, 15 Aug 2024 27,984 posts	0 Dvorak The problem with handball is that it's actually quite popular in lots of places which aren't Britain. So even if a pretty decent squad was assembled, there's already quite a few really good countries and a lot of fairly good ones.