Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Reality Bites!

Talking to a few friends the other day they brought up the subject of the government and their system of "priority sport" status. The whole concept and way it works is asinine (to put it mildly).
They don't follow any logical benchmarks and criteria and they only look at medals in various events. So if you win a couple of medals here and there you get this status and supposedly a huge influx of funds. The fact that all the "priority" sports don't exactly dominate on the world circuit with maybe the exception of shooting. A good example being tennis, it is a priority sport and we only have 3 decent players. It gets me back to the whole point of how as a country we have no vision and are so stuck up in the present and mostly past.
Also it is not that the life of the athletes in "priority" sports is great altered and they get some unbelievable opportunities. So what is the point? I agree that funding should be incentive based and sports doing well in the international arena should get some breaks but hey is someone really watching and seeing what is really going on? My guess is they are not and just reading the box scores doesn't really give you the exact picture.
Another valid point being... shouldn't the sports where we are absolutely nowhere like a gymnastics, swimming etc etc get more money to actually develop the sport and make a start? Or should they also wait till they get one bright flash in the pan and ride his/her back to "priority status"????

Leave for Munich tomorrow night... have a jam packed schedule with shooting, facilities, more shooting and back...
I am sorry to subject the non shooting fans to more allusions since i am sure the next few entries will either directly relate to shooting or have shooting undertones.