As per the funding here in Spain, it’s also done with public money (ADO plan) and some investment from private corporations, which seems similar to what you say about the UK, so either the amount of money is different, or someone is spending badly the money here, because the difference between UK and Spain in these latest Olympics has been enormous, and the UK improvement from Atlanta 1996 (I remember those Olympics because I was living in the UK then, it was 8 or 9 medals IIRC, less than Spain, who had 16/17) is just amazing. But at the end, to keep having medals in all olympics, you really need to have good local (and European and world-level) competitions, like the Spanish and European basketball leagues, they’re so good and competitive that in the last 10 years, nothing but good players come out of them to the NBA, so funding just elite athletes doesn’t work really for some sports. You really need to have first lots of medium-level athletes, so that some top-level ones come out of that. Not sure what would happen in the UK after 2012, but in Spain, money was reduced a lot after Barcelona 1992, and some sports don’t get any more money since then. Fortunately since then medal count is always around 20, much better than in the pre-1992 era, where the record was, IIRC, 5 medals.

And yes, already read your post

What the UK Sport seem to have finally realised is that if they are to be measured on medals won, then funding will need to be directed at elite athletes, and that total amounts of money will be dependent upon performance. This has clearly worked in the case of cycling, sailing, and rowing. (Or as the Aussies put it, sports that involve a lot of sitting down)

These Olympics would seem to prove that medal table position will largely be determined by money and population available. Statistically China should have more elite capable athletes than other countries, they just need the systems in place to locate and train them. As compared to, say, India…

Can you really be surprised that Spanish TV would concentrate on Spanish athletes? I must admit to missing the BBC coverage, although I did fully enjoy being in a host venue. If you’re suitably interested you can read my Olympic blog entry to see how our experiences compared.

Djordjevic is, btw, one of my favorite players, he was many years playing in Spain

Sad thing for me though, as I’m from Lithuania

very useful:
Prejudice goes hand in hand with ignorance.
Old prejudices die hard.
Don’t let your prejudice take over.

But…

As far as the best European team in basketball, I’d still keep that to the Serbian (then Yugoslavia, but only of Serbia and Montenegro) team of Djordjevic, Danilovic, Bodiroga, Paspalj and Divac era (including guys like Zoran Savic, Sasa Obradovic, Zeljko Rebraca and Dejan Tomasevic).

If Yugoslavia didn’t break up, and if there were not unfortunate cases like the death of Drazen Petrovic, a team combined from Croatia (Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja as prime examples, apart from Petrovic) and Serbia would be one which might even be a match for the NBA Dream Team in 1992 (Croatia did play the final against them, just like Serbia & Montenegro did in Atlanta 1996 against a different “Dream Team” after we were allowed to participate again in competitions in 1995, and they both did a good job for at least one half of the game, with Serbia leading for the entire first half).

For example, Divac was already a well respected center in NBA in 1992 (in Lakers), Petrovic easily had 20ppg in NBA, just like Danilovic did a few years later. We all know that Kukoc was an important part to Michael Jordan-Pippen Bulls, and Djordjevic was one of the fastest playmakers in the world. And this has been a Yugoslavian team until 1991, when the final break up happened. I would have loved to have seen that team matched up against the real Dream Team.

The Serbia & Montenegro teams that won the two world championships (1998 and 2002) are not nearly a match for the 1995-1997 team (which basically descends from the 1992 Euroleague champion Partizan, with Djordjevic scoring a last-second three-pointer over Joventut in the final for the win .