Thursday, November 19, 2009

Bloody bloody

I’ve heard a lot about Olympic Funding this week so I’m going to buy in and rant. John Coates this week argued against withdrawing funding for Olympic sports, indeed he pushed for more. Lots of people have argued that Olympic success is necessary for creating national pride, in turn motivating Australian’s to get out there and get involved in sport. Apparently funding for the Olympics trickles all the way down to the grassroots and supports kids on the way up. Blah blah blah.

I think it is shocking that we give so much money to the Olympics program. Not because it’s only every four years, or even because we’re funding numerous obscure sports, it’s because we have a nation of fat kids who aren’t healthy. We need to make kids healthy, so why not make them all play sport. I don’t care if you don’t like it now, every kid should play sport so that they have an active upbringing. I’m not talking just about rugby or cricket, sport is anything from running, to dancing, to lawn bowls – kids need to be outdoors and active, or indoors and active. They need to be active. There is no correlation between Olympic success and increasing participation in sport in the community. I would think though that there is some correlation between a lack of funding in regional and rural areas for sport and lowering participation rates. The answer is simple, fund the grass roots.

So there. Not a really coherent rant, but right. LIKE HEAPS

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