My latest whinge...

Tamyka Bell said:

Now, this is something that has really bugged me for a while... so now I
have to say something about it...

Funding for elite athletes.

[snippage]

Quoted message said:

Given that obesity levels in Australia are pretty appalling, and getting
worse, does anyone else think that, instead of the govt spending money
so much money on elite athletes, we should probably focus on encouraging
EVERYONE to play sport?

Fsck yeah.

When I was at school, I seriously objected to the philosophy of "You
shall participate in Saturday sport." This was especially given that the
emphasis, from my limited perspective, was on winning, not on
participating: those who won, were held up as Shining Examples To Us
All, whilst those who didn't win were quietly ignored by the school as a
whole.

Combine that with the fact that I didn't really have much aptitude for
sports in general, and the motivation wasn't really there.

It's only after I left university and realised that my health wasn't
what it needs to be[1] that I started sporadic attempts to get fit.
Maybe this time I'll get it right; I'm already down a kilo or so in two
weeks, most of it fat (based upon the fat percentage having dropped a
little last time I weighed in, compared with two weeks ago.)

There needs to be more emphasis on the *joy of playing*, not on the joy
of winning. For every winner, there must be a loser, and given that the
point of regular sport is fitness, that's not the way it should be spun.

[1] Family history of heart disease: my father's father died in his
fifties (before I was born) of his second heart attack; my father
*would* have died in his fifties of *his* second heart attack if he'd
left it another minute to call the ambulance.

I have a very good reason to stay in good shape, in other words.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@ to usenet".

Terry Collins said:

You mispelt punative!

Did you mean punitive?

Quoted message said:

Here is a practical problem; deskjobs; are you supposed to spend two
hours each evening working out at the gym to keep fit?

I had a desk job. It was the fittest I've ever been, thanks to riding an
hour each way to get there. (uphill in the snow of course...)

Quoted message said:

Actually, 24hr races are not encouraging people to get off their butt.
they all seem headed for elite idiots who make great TV. If these sort
of events want to encourage "active involvement" they need to cater more
for the fun rider, e.g no single track, multiple bridges, different
grades, etc.

Um, no singletrack? That's the fun bit! Terry, I suggest you try one of
these events before you pass judgement. Some of the courses are quite
challenging, but most of them are only tricky if you're going fast.

If you want participation events that are easier, look at the Woodford to
Glenbrook classic, the Sydney to the Gong, and the RTA Cycle Sydney and
Big Ride. For real beginner cyclists offroad events mightn't be
appropriate. I know some who've loved it, but on road is easier to find
your cycling legs (In Centennial Park or similar, not on Parramatta Rd!).

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs." -- Robert Firth

I have always been of the opinion that anybody who receives funding in their junior years and goes onto to become a big money earner, should have to pay money back into the system.

But how do you regulate it ?? Its the old I earn't this much, but all the money miraculously disappears somewhere else.

I guess its called a democracy and the people willing to put in enough of the hard yards to make it, deserve I guess.

lets face it, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

Stuart Lamble said:

Tamyka Bell said:

Now, this is something that has really bugged me for a while... so now I
have to say something about it...

Funding for elite athletes.

[snippage]

Quoted message said:

Given that obesity levels in Australia are pretty appalling, and getting
worse, does anyone else think that, instead of the govt spending money
so much money on elite athletes, we should probably focus on encouraging
EVERYONE to play sport?

Fsck yeah.

When I was at school, I seriously objected to the philosophy of "You
shall participate in Saturday sport." This was especially given that the
emphasis, from my limited perspective, was on winning, not on
participating: those who won, were held up as Shining Examples To Us
All, whilst those who didn't win were quietly ignored by the school as a
whole.

Combine that with the fact that I didn't really have much aptitude for
sports in general, and the motivation wasn't really there.

It's only after I left university and realised that my health wasn't
what it needs to be[1] that I started sporadic attempts to get fit.
Maybe this time I'll get it right; I'm already down a kilo or so in two
weeks, most of it fat (based upon the fat percentage having dropped a
little last time I weighed in, compared with two weeks ago.)

There needs to be more emphasis on the *joy of playing*, not on the joy
of winning. For every winner, there must be a loser, and given that the
point of regular sport is fitness, that's not the way it should be spun.

The way I look at it is that a bike race is not a zero sum game (or in
the case of bike racing, less than zero sum!). You "win" in a race
when you achieve what you set out to achieve, and that's not
necessarily first over the line. How you set your goals is a key.

On 2006-05-11, Tamyka Bell (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Given that obesity levels in Australia are pretty appalling, and getting
worse, does anyone else think that, instead of the govt spending money
so much money on elite athletes, we should probably focus on encouraging
EVERYONE to play sport?

God no, that's what high school was for. I hated compulsory PE
classes. I was plenty fit already, and PE classes were a complete
waste of time, performing at sports that I neither cared for, nor was
any good at. I merely had to be there to make up the bloody numbers.

At that stage, I wouldn't have known that I was going to like cycling
-- in fact, I probably wouldn't have then, unless they actually taught
me the things I came to learn later (and there wasn't that much
teaching go along, believe me -- can you catch a ball? No, then you
suck). In the last two years of high school, I ended up just sitting
on the side of the court being anti-social, listening to heavy metal.
Heh. Nothing's changed 🙂

Not that Coonabarabran high school would have offered cycling as a
choice. For one, it's not idiotball. And if they did, they would
have found a way to ruin it for the rest of my life.

Sport is not for everyone. Not everyone is super competitive, and
sometimes we think testosteroned idiots on the football team are just
idiots. I like cycling partly because I don't think it is a sport 🙂
(OK, so I have raced in 5 or so crits to date).

Of course, maybe it's my bias having been to so many tiny schools.
Could you imagine making some kind of sport compulsory in a school of
68 children and 4 teachers? Don't like the choice of 1) dodgeball, 2)
badminton? Too bad, that's all we have teachers for.

Quoted message said:

In summer, I was the queen of the pool, but I had no interest in
swimming squad, so I never did it, I just swam for fun. Mum was
wonderful and never made me go to a swimming squad either. So I did

Goddamn, I hated the yearly swimming competitions. We all *had* to
take part, whether we could swim the width of the pool or not. I can
still remeber the laughter when I had to compete against one other
person.

The only time I ever wagged school was a yearly athletics day. A full
bloody day! A day much better spent smoking dope next to the creek.

Quoted message said:

go, but the other kids would laugh at me. I would be the last kid picked
for sport.

Heh. Remember how the two team leaders would go back and forth with
their selection. And the first 10 people selected were always
selected with such enthusiasm? And the last 10 were "aww, do we have
to have him?" (or her, in perhaps your situation 🙂

Quoted message said:

I'd avoid any competition, anything where I had to line up against
others. I especially hated team sports because I felt like such a waste
of space, like I was letting the team down. I would practise catching at
home, bouncing the ball off the wall, but no one thought to practise

You were much more keen than me 🙂

Quoted message said:

with me at school. The PE teachers didn't want anything to do with unco
kids. Sport was for those who were good at it - the rest of us should
just go back to the classroom.

Except that we weren't allowed, even when we wanted to.

Quoted message said:

Eventually I noticed I was a bit fat

Pffft.

Quoted message said:

So I guess I feel like there is a serious lack of funding into promoting
sport participation for everyone, and that's bad enough. But it seems
even worse that there is a continual push for elite funding, spreading
the message that sport is only for people who are really good at it.

Hmmm, I'm wondering whether I agree with you now.

Sport would suck for me no matter what, if I had to have done it with
the rest of the yobs from school. I don't think any amount of funding
to us mere mortals would change the fact that the rest of the yobs
would all still be involved.

--
TimC
If I sit here and stare at nothing long enough, people might think
I'm an engineer working on something.
-- S.R. McElroy

In aus.bicycle on Thu, 11 May 2006 06:33:40 GMT

Andrew Price said:

Quoted message said:

These were sports that I was never going to be brilliant at, but I
enjoyed them. Improving myself was enough. I felt no need to judge
myself against others.

This is absolutely the key point - getting dissapointed at a competitive
result is a real downer - but having a great time and doing something for
your self esteem (not to mention getting a big dose of the good old
endorphins) is what gets us out there on a regular basis - and to be of
value the activity has to be consistently undertaken at least at an aerobic
level. This is what will do really good things for the community.

I find that with fencing. I love fencing, I enjoy teaching fencing
and so watching others get better (and I have been beaten many times
by people I've taught) but I don't like competition.

So I'd rather hop along to practice every week, fence whoever wants to
play, and teach whoever wants to learn. I get more fencing, I have
more fun, and I am not being put off by not winning.

Plenty of people get inspired by competition, I'm not one of them. I
fence for fun, and the fun is what keeps me fencing. If I pull off a
really good move, then that is rewarding even if I get skewered a
minute later.

I ride the bent because it's fun, and I use it to go to work so I get
on it and get fit. I don't ride it because some bods go fast on 'em
but to help with my fitness for fencing.... you don't get fit fencing,
you just get motivated to get fit some other way!

Cycling in the open air is way more fun than "Cardio Studios" after
all.

Zebee

Random Data said:

Terry Collins said:

You mispelt punative!

Did you mean punitive?

woops.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Here is a practical problem; deskjobs; are you supposed to spend two
hours each evening working out at the gym to keep fit?

I had a desk job. It was the fittest I've ever been, thanks to riding an
hour each way to get there. (uphill in the snow of course...)

Unfortunatively that isn't a widespread solution. {:-(.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Actually, 24hr races are not encouraging people to get off their butt.
they all seem headed for elite idiots who make great TV. If these sort
of events want to encourage "active involvement" they need to cater more
for the fun rider, e.g no single track, multiple bridges, different
grades, etc.

Um, no singletrack? That's the fun bit! Terry, I suggest you try one of
these events before you pass judgement. Some of the courses are quite
challenging, but most of them are only tricky if you're going fast.

If you want participation events that are easier, look at the Woodford to
Glenbrook classic, the Sydney to the Gong, and the RTA Cycle Sydney and
Big Ride.

Erk, these are worse, unless the numbers have droped greatly. Frankly,
whilst people will go on these, very few encourage people to bicycle
regularly which is what we want.

err, isn't the woodford to glenbrook a race, rather than a ride?

Quoted message said:

For real beginner cyclists offroad events mightn't be appropriate.

I wasn't talking about beginners events. If you truely want to encourage
competitive activities, then you need to grow the sport by catering for
the less than elite. The more you have participating at lower levels,
the better the competition at higher levels.

Quoted message said:

I know some who've loved it, but on road is easier to find
your cycling legs (In Centennial Park or similar, not on Parramatta Rd!).

erk, So far, the M7 bicycle path doesn't have the Centennial Park
problems and is far longer. (other comparisons might not be so fortunate
{:-(.

Quoted message said:

Zebee Johnstone said:

I find that with fencing. I love fencing, I enjoy teaching fencing
and so watching others get better (and I have been beaten many times
by people I've taught) but I don't like competition.

err Zeeeb, you are supposed to give them the heavier crowbar and wonky
shovel[1]

[1] sorry, can never resist that one. blame it on working at Sport & Rec
camps before "badges" came in.

TimC said:

On 2006-05-11, Tamyka Bell (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Given that obesity levels in Australia are pretty appalling, and getting
worse, does anyone else think that, instead of the govt spending money
so much money on elite athletes, we should probably focus on encouraging
EVERYONE to play sport?

God no, that's what high school was for. I hated compulsory PE
classes. I was plenty fit already, and PE classes were a complete
waste of time, performing at sports that I neither cared for, nor was
any good at. I merely had to be there to make up the bloody numbers.

Sport, you played sport in PE. We had to listen to lectures on health
way and moral turpitude (what is that?). Maybe we played a few games.

Although it was interesting later in life remebering old George Sherman
going on about how penicillin saved his life in the war. (you can
imagine what we thought about penicillin {:-(.

Quoted message said:

In the last two years of high school, I ended up just sitting
on the side of the court being anti-social, listening to heavy metal.
Heh. Nothing's changed 🙂

lol, I spent those two years doing "home study". Was relegated to "house
soccer" and since no one turned up to mark the roll and we faced a long
walk to where we were supposed to play, then longer to get home, I'd
just wander off the other direction and over the hills to home. Lots of
bushland, tracks, etc.

Arrh, listening to federal parliament. That was probably what corrupted
me actually.

Bleve said:

The way I look at it is that a bike race is not a zero sum game (or in
the case of bike racing, less than zero sum!). You "win" in a race
when you achieve what you set out to achieve, and that's not
necessarily first over the line. How you set your goals is a key.

Paging Tam.

Enduro events rock for this kind of thing. I've seen people who haven't
ridden a bike in 10+ years go out for their first lap *in the dark* and
come back grinning. At 3 am everyone looks ready to start listening to
Placebo, then dawn comes and it's grins all round again. Then comes the
finish, beer and pizza. And collapsing in a heap somewhere close, because
you did try driving 3 hours home once, and swore never to do it again.

Events need to be personal challenges and social events. Even solo 24s are
social - before and after obviously, but out on the track can have a great
vibe, and it's nice to just chat and encourage people. I love being able
to tell people who are struggling on their second lap when I've done 10+
that they're doing a great job, because they are. I'm starting a hell of a
long way up the fitness climb, so those 10 laps for me are more or less a
warm up, while they've come back knackered after one lap and then gone out
again.

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
"We have the concentration span of 10 year old ADD children who have
just eaten a tube of toothpaste." - Dr Chris

Terry Collins said:

err Zeeeb, you are supposed to give them the heavier crowbar and wonky
shovel[1]

Everyone knows that swordfighting has nothing to do with the waving shiny
things around. It's all in the repartee.

And trying to remember any of the lines, I found this....
http://www.scummbar.com/community/games/swordfighting/index.php

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
"When all you've got is a nailgun, every problem looks like a messiah..."
- Iain Chalmers

Terry Collins said:

err, isn't the woodford to glenbrook a race, rather than a ride?

Bit of both. It's advertised as a race, and there's a race element, but
it's as much an achievement thing as a race for the back markers. I've
been told by some relatively unfit friends that being overtaken by the
joggers is quite an encouragement. Same with the 'gong ride. The half
event of that (68km) was a real challenge when I first did it, now 100km
on road is a relatively easy effort.

I've also found wearing a tutu in the competitive section of W2G really
gives the wannabe racers the [censored]. Tee hee.

To be honest I can't think of any offroad events that dont have a race
element, but even the 4 hour enduros have quite a social aspect.

Quoted message said:

erk, So far, the M7 bicycle path doesn't have the Centennial Park
problems and is far longer. (other comparisons might not be so fortunate
{:-(.

Yeah, that'd be another good one. Somewhere where there are no cars,
an easy surface, and no pressure, but long enough to be able to actually
ride. A lap of CP is only around 4-6 km depending on route, so you have to
do a few laps to get a sense of achievement.

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
- Dr. Who

Random Data said:

I've also found wearing a tutu in the competitive section of W2G really
gives the wannabe racers the [censored]. Tee hee.

But not the organisers, you made it onto the entry form.

http://www.careflight.org/client_images/46449.pdf

Care to monkey it up this year?

Parbs

Parbs said:

But not the organisers, you made it onto the entry form.

Huzzah!

Quoted message said:

Care to monkey it up this year?

Why not? It could be amusing for everyone else, but I'll probably have
some fun. The climb after BMX hill looks to be the nastiest, or possibly
out of Redwire.

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
Congratulations. Astronomers have detected pressure waves whose frequency
is something like 57 octaves below middle C in the core of another
galaxy, but you've found a lower tone than that. - Steve VanDevender

TimC said:

Sport is not for everyone. Not everyone is super competitive, and
sometimes we think testosteroned idiots on the football team are just
idiots. I like cycling partly because I don't think it is a sport 🙂

You'll have to pay Hawthorn back their prizemoney, Tim 🙂
We were there, we *saw* you racing!

Quoted message said:

(OK, so I have raced in 5 or so crits to date).

Of course, maybe it's my bias having been to so many tiny schools.
Could you imagine making some kind of sport compulsory in a school of
68 children and 4 teachers? Don't like the choice of 1) dodgeball, 2)
badminton? Too bad, that's all we have teachers for.

Quoted message said:

In summer, I was the queen of the pool, but I had no interest in
swimming squad, so I never did it, I just swam for fun. Mum was
wonderful and never made me go to a swimming squad either. So I did

Goddamn, I hated the yearly swimming competitions. We all *had* to
take part, whether we could swim the width of the pool or not. I can
still remeber the laughter when I had to compete against one other
person.

The only time I ever wagged school was a yearly athletics day. A full
bloody day! A day much better spent smoking dope next to the creek.

Quoted message said:

go, but the other kids would laugh at me. I would be the last kid picked
for sport.

Heh. Remember how the two team leaders would go back and forth with
their selection. And the first 10 people selected were always
selected with such enthusiasm? And the last 10 were "aww, do we have
to have him?" (or her, in perhaps your situation 🙂

Quoted message said:

I'd avoid any competition, anything where I had to line up against
others. I especially hated team sports because I felt like such a waste
of space, like I was letting the team down. I would practise catching at
home, bouncing the ball off the wall, but no one thought to practise

You were much more keen than me 🙂

Quoted message said:

with me at school. The PE teachers didn't want anything to do with unco
kids. Sport was for those who were good at it - the rest of us should
just go back to the classroom.

Except that we weren't allowed, even when we wanted to.

Quoted message said:

Eventually I noticed I was a bit fat

Pffft.

Quoted message said:

So I guess I feel like there is a serious lack of funding into promoting
sport participation for everyone, and that's bad enough. But it seems
even worse that there is a continual push for elite funding, spreading
the message that sport is only for people who are really good at it.

Hmmm, I'm wondering whether I agree with you now.

Sport would suck for me no matter what, if I had to have done it with
the rest of the yobs from school. I don't think any amount of funding
to us mere mortals would change the fact that the rest of the yobs
would all still be involved.

Compulsory school sport is not "the" answer, but it's got to be part of
an overall strategy. Our school had wednesday afternoon "elective
sport" where we could do all manner of things - some of the kids played
golf (and aparently that's a sport?!), some football, soccer, table
tennis, 10 pin bowling, windsurfing, kayaking, rowing, running ..
*anything* as long as it was vaguely physical. That's not realistic
for onehorse country schools, but I'm sure a lot of other things
-could- be done in that context. The aim being to show kids what's
available, and let them try (and learn) as many as possible.

Of course, then the schools would be accused (again!) of not teaching
the basics, and spending too much time having fun! *sigh* And kids
being kids, some will kick up a fuss, wag etc, but schools can only do
what they can with what they have.

A lot of it (moreso than schools) has to fall at the feet of parents
*and* the kids themselves. We as a society should encourage physical
exercise in some form or other as much as we can, but this isn't Soviet
Russia, in Soviet Russia State Exercises YOU!
(then again, with Howard's beefed up KGB ....). First, wean them off
their damn cars and get them RIDING TO SCHOOL!

On 2006-05-11, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

TimC said:

Sport is not for everyone. Not everyone is super competitive, and
sometimes we think testosteroned idiots on the football team are just
idiots. I like cycling partly because I don't think it is a sport 🙂

You'll have to pay Hawthorn back their prizemoney, Tim 🙂
We were there, we *saw* you racing!

Ssssh!

Quoted message said:

A lot of it (moreso than schools) has to fall at the feet of parents
*and* the kids themselves. We as a society should encourage physical
exercise in some form or other as much as we can, but this isn't Soviet
Russia, in Soviet Russia State Exercises YOU!
(then again, with Howard's beefed up KGB ....). First, wean them off
their damn cars and get them RIDING TO SCHOOL!

I just remembered that I thought cycling was too nerdly EVEN FOR ME
(WTF?!), in the last couple of years of high school (perhaps I should
have just realised that the particular bike I had just sucked, and I
could have done with a less ugly stack hat), so instead of riding the
3km to school on the other side of a very small town, I should just
walk it. I dunno WHAT I was thinking. Was certainly interesting
walking in the depths of winter when the sun had only just risen.

But for the sake of my future moral highground in oil dependency
debates, I'm glad my mum didn't drive me. 🙂

At least I was smart enough to ride and not walk back from the
observatory, when it was 3am, and -7 degrees (why the hell did I get
rostered on on the night that broke local records, temperature wise?
And why did I then use the opportunity to look through the clearest
skies one could possibly imagine, until my eyelids could no longer
cope?)

--
TimC
I've told them and told them: Temporal anomalies are different from
spatial anomalies. But the kittens know better. They laugh at my
feeble attempts to fool them. -- barbara in ARK

Bleve said:

Of course, then the schools would be accused (again!) of not teaching
the basics,

Well, if parents accepted their responsibilities and educated their kids
in life skills properly, then school wouldn't have to waste time making
up for this lack and there would be plenty of time to teach the basics.

No I'm not a teacher, but I'm married to one (well casual now)

Quoted message said:

in Soviet Russia State Exercises YOU!

err, what is different to here exactly?

Bleve said:

All that does is raise the bar for everyone. It's like the first home
owners grant, it just makes everything $grant more expensive. I've
seen the sponsor's side of the fence, and sponsors treat sponsorship as
advertsing (as you'd expect) except for a few (rare!) enthusiasts.

That may be the case with the high-profile, spheroid-centred, team
sports, but for cycling, my impression is that the opposite is true.
Behind just about every bike team, there's a sponsoring company run by a
cycling fanatic, right from Frank Fortuna at FRF Couriers up to Marc
Coucke at Davitamon and, until recently Georgio Squinzi at Mapei. And
it's not just teams; I wonder if Patrick will continue to support the
Tasmanian Carnivals after Chris Corrigan takes his several hundred
million and goes home.

The exception that immediately springs to mind is Discovery - but one of
the team's owners, Tom Weisel, is an extremely well-connected merchant
banker and venture capitalist who co-founded Montgomery Securities, the
original sponsor. As the team has grown, Weisel has tapped into his
business network to find more money, and you can bet there are
reciprocal favours involved in many of these deals. Tailwind used to
tout for overseas parcel business for the US Postal Service, for example.

Yes, sponsorship is justified as advertising and marketing. But *what*
it gets spent on is usually a result of someone in the company's passion.

Terry Collins said:

err, what is different to here exactly?

In Korea, only old people propagate /. memes.

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
Why don't the voices ever remind me it's mum's birthday? It's
always die die die, kill kill kill - Flynny, mtb-oz

In aus.bicycle on Thu, 11 May 2006 19:20:51 +1000

Random Data said:

Terry Collins said:

err Zeeeb, you are supposed to give them the heavier crowbar and wonky
shovel[1]

Everyone knows that swordfighting has nothing to do with the waving shiny
things around. It's all in the repartee.

Absolutely!

"Well. It is now time to fight to the death. As hero and villain it
is expected of us. Do you want your duel with conversation or
without?"
"Oh with! Definitely with!"

Zebee
- slurp that robot then!