The Winter Olympics

Team GB will probably end the Winter Olympics with it's best medal achievement since 1936. It's no shame on Team GB who would be far better placed to win gold in "Carrying the Rolled Umbrella" or "Orderly Queuing", but it's hardly surprising that we're way down the medals board, considering that a regular fall of snow is rather helpful when you're trying to ski.

More helpful, of course, is a good funding source; the Lottery fund, via UK Sport, has helped considerably in lifting the standards of sporting prowess and over £13.5 million was earmarked for Sochi and it is surely pretty certain that there is a direct correlation between this and the increase in medals. However, put this £13.5 million alongside the pay packet that has just been awarded to Wayne Rooney and you get a sense of imbalance. Rooney, who kicks a ball about on a couple of days a week, will earn £300,000 per week for the next 5 years, a total amounting to £85 million.

Now, it's probably fair to say that I'm not football's greatest admirer, but by any standards, there has to be something wrong when this sort of money is awarded to any player; actually, it's more than wrong, it's downright obscene. For that sort of money, I would expect him to find the Holy Grail, discover a universal cure for cancer, solve the world's energy crisis and make Mugabe and Kim Jong-un disappear. I don't think I'd mind so much if I felt he was a great ambassador and role model, but anyone who would want their children growing up like Mr R deserves a visit from the nearest Social Services Dept.

I agree that it's obscene, and the same thing was said in this house yesterday when it was announced, but very clever of him (or rather his agent) to get it. My OH is a great football fan, but even he agrees that the Premier League in the U.K. appear to be out of control regarding salaries for players, especially when the clubs finances are, on the whole, in such perilous conditions. Any private company with loses of the magnitude of most Premier football clubs would be declared bankrupt and closed down without another thought; how they survive I don't understand.

With regard to the funding from UK Sport I find it strange that the track and field athletes seem to continue, time and time, again to get funding, yet frequently produce very little in the way of medals, whilst other sports struggle for money but come home with the prizes.

For the Winter Olympics I would guess that the bobsleigh teams are mostly from the army (as they have traditionally been in the past) whilst the skiers go abroad but the wonderful Lizzie Yarnold, and before her, Amy Williams, both practiced at Bath University and Jenny Jones uses a dry ski slope. It's amazing what determination and the will to win can achieve!