Just as an aside, I was listening to the comedian, Paul Sinha on Radio 4 (I say comedian, and while he is funny, I've only heard him on Radio 4). He made an interesting point. The media (and particularly the press) always seem to complain about our apparent lack of success in sports, but, over pretty much every single summer olympics we have consistently been in the top 10 of countries for numbers of gold models.
In fact, if you count the total number of golds won in all the Olympic games events, Team GB is fourth..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/...olympic-powers
Not bad for a tiny island with a relatively small population and chronically underfunded sports facilities.
It's the same with Football. The press is often critical of our national teams, but we normally end up with at least one team doing well in a given championship, and have won the World Cup on the odd occasion.
Maybe it's about time the Press concentrated a little less on our losses and pointed out our victories? I am not speaking specifically about the Olympics here (the Press have been good on this occasion), more about reporting on international sports events in general.