Why “Team GB”?
I have no interest in the Olympics – we don’t have an English team and there are many, many more things that those billions could be spent on, like cancer treatments and housing homeless people.
I do have to wonder, though, why the UK’s Olympic body insists on calling its team “Great Britain”.
Great Britain is a geographical term referring to the big island that England shares with Scotland and Wales but the GB Olympic team includes Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, none of which are on Great Britain.
As an Olympic team name, it’s pretty rubbish as it leaves out nearly 2% of the population. That’s hardly representative of the Olympics values. Perhaps it’ll be renamed for the 2012 Olympics to Team British Nations, Regions, Provinces and Crown Dependencies located in the British Isles. Team BNRPCDLBI doesn’t roll off the tongue like Team GB, I’ll grant you, but at least it doesn’t leave anybody out.
Technorati Tags: Olympics
This entry was posted
by wonkotsane on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 8:36 am and is filed under Sport and is .
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Good point. But the athletes have done well.
At least is shows that some people from this country with a little hard work can be successful.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:05 amMaybe it is all about FCs policy of Britishness is Brilliant? Maybe they think, that it is too complex to ask people to be british and to ask them to support Team UK?
August 18th, 2008 at 5:49 pm“there are many, many more things that those billions could be spent on, like cancer treatments and housing homeless people.”
Sounds like a militant far left anarchist agenda, wonko. Are you feeling alright?
August 19th, 2008 at 1:05 amCharlie
No, I think he meant the application of Neutron Bombs to Glasgow, the ‘cancer treatment’ will kill 87% of the population in 26 hours hence solving the homeless problem too, as there will be lots of intestate people whose ex homes will be sold to the survivors
August 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pmHe would be inclined to call de Vries’s mutation theory, figuratively, the quantum theory of biology. ,
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm[...] is no Team GB or Team UK or Team British Nations, Regions, Provinces and Crown Dependencies located in the British Isles in the world cup. In fact, until the Brits force a Team GB football team on us for the 2012 [...]
June 27th, 2010 at 1:34 pm