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Gold medal recession (Good News Week 23/2/09: What’s the Story?)

The study by the Australian Olympic Committee, strongly recommends an 80 to 100 million dollars extra per year. For Australian Olympians. Now there’s a surprise. / Well, I wouldn’t have expected them to ask for less. / But they’ll make do with a billion. / Now that’s impartial.

An Australian Olympic Committee study says that unless there is a dramatic increase in funding, Australia is headed for a 20 year sporting recession. That’s right. Swimmers will be forced to panhandle just to get the entry fee to the pool.

If the sports recession gets any worse, we’re going to see people willing to swim for free.

If the sports recession gets any worse, we’ll see athletes standing on street corners with signs saying “will breaststroke for food”. / “will high jump for food”. / “will hop step and jump for food”.

A sporting recession! Before you know it, our elite swimmers will be retrenched and sitting on the couch sucking down bongs. Mind you, that worked for Michael Phelps…

How many billion dollars will it take before we realise – it actually doesn’t matter.

Here’s an idea, maybe the athletes can contribute some of their millions of dollars of product endorsements. No?

Unless taxpayers find another 100 million dollars a year, several athletes won’t become millionaires. And that’s just tragic.

And if we ask the athletes to contribute some of their own money to their own training, it’s just not fair. Because then, they’d be just like us.

Of course, we could ask our millionaire athletes to fund themselves, but then we couldn’t really take the credit when they win something.

But it’s worth the billions of dollars we spend on athletes just so we can continue to sit on the couch drinking beer and watching TV, but still be one of the most athletic nations on the planet. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!

But we need our world-class athletes! Otherwise, we might have to go out and do some sport ourselves! NOOOOOO!

The Government says there may be a global recession, bushfires and climate change, but since when were you able to be photographed with your arms around them?

The Government says that, yes, it’s very nice to have people who can run fast and swim well and so on, but right now they’ve got a world recession to deal with, hundreds dead in bushfires, entire towns leveled, numerous wars overseas to pay for, energy and resources crises and the usual schools and hospitals to fund, so shut the fuck up.

Deary me! We might have less medals! Lucky there’s nothing important going on in the world to worry about.

But don’t you know – those medals are our only chance against global warming!

But we need to spend those billions on sport. When the oil has all gone, and the ice caps have melted, the only way we’ll be able to get around is in special submarines pulled by Olympic swimmers! / is riding on the backs of Olympic swimmers!

But we need to spend those billions on sport. When the climate has changed and the ozone layer is all gone, only the fastest runners will survive!

We’re currently 6th on the medal tally. And quite frankly, being only the 6th fastest runners in the entire world makes me wanna puke my guts up.

We’re currently 6th on the medal tally. I’d rather be dead.

Of course, there are those unAustralian wowsers who say that we should spend those billions instead on helping house the homeless, feed the starving, and rebuild the lives of those ravaged by the bushfires. But those people are the same ones who killed Phar Lap!

Some people just don’t value a piece of metal strung on a ribbon. And those people are unAustralian!

Of course, it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. And to play it right you need BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. / Unless you’re losing.

First the tennis, then the cricket, now the Olympics. If this keeps up, Australia will be forced to get good at something useful.

The AOC President said Australia’s Beijing result was very good if you look at the pure funding comparison. But apparently the Aussie public don’t support lead medals as much as they used to.

France spent over two and a half times as much as Australia in the lead up to Beijing, but ended up 10th on the medal table. As opposed to Australia’s sixth. Proof we need more money!

France, Germany and Britain are all spending over twice as much as Australia on their Olympians. Although they do all have at least three times the population. But let’s not get into that whole “fair comparison” thing.

France and Germany would have done better in Beijing, but they don’t handle competing in Asia that well. All that rice, not enough pastry.

The AOC are afraid that the 2012 London Olympics will give a home advantage to not just Britain, but also European countries like France and Germany. So we either need more money, or to only play where we want to.

If France wins more Olympic medals than us, we’ll wish it was us slaughtered in the bushfires.

Come on, it’s more important than ever that we win gold! It’s not like we can afford to import it.

France and Germany would have done better in Beijing, but they don’t handle competing in Asia that well. They’re just too racist.

France and Germany would have done better in Beijing, but they don’t handle competing in Asia that well. There just aren’t enough flugelhorns. / Aryans.

France, Germany and Britain are all spending over twice as much as Australia on their Olympians. But they’re hardly spending anything on bushfire relief. Bastards.

But, last Olympics, we had 435 people in the team, so we need at least $200,000 per year – extra – for each one. If we just spend four thousand billion dollars we could all run a bit faster.

So that’ll be over 200 million bucks per year to pay for around 400 athletes. The other 21 million of us will just have to try harder.

Surely 200 billion bucks per year is a small price to pay to make 0.002% of the population slightly better at sport.

It’s a tragedy – but many of us have been in a gold medal recession all our lives. / have never won a gold medal.

It’s a tragedy. if this keeps up, soon some people will have to play sports because they enjoy it.

It really sends the wrong message to children. They’re going to grow up thinking sports is about fun and fitness, instead of medals and endorsements.

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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