yeah mate, I agree. I find it funny all the stupid nationalistic chest beating at Olympics etc - if you think about the kind of suffering that went on in the Eastern Bloc countries, where none of the normal people had access to sporting facilities, but they kept producing champions via a kind of production line. Truly appalling. Much better IMHO to have people of all ages and sexes actually doing sport - and just let the elite look after itself.

As far as rugby is concerned, my club here in Auckland has a couple of All Blacks, but it basically is good for nothing but prestige. They never get to play for us, and we get no money from it. But the union uses them to sell this big global product. And every season those big games sell out to people who would never dream of coming down to a rugby club to help out. Makes me sick to be honest. That's what I like about triathlon - because it is mostly amatuer for AGrs, it still has a soul.

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kiwipat

per ardua ad astra

A couple of things - I e-mailed Fox Sports to find out if they're broadcasting any games, and the answer is 'no, we don't have the rights'. That's a pissoff, as they did a great job with the Tri-Nations.

As to the creeping (OK, arrived) professionalism in rugby, we've come to the point where as a product, its players are in the same boat as soccer, (US) football, basketball etc etc. The players are totally isolated from the roots of the sport and are cosseted and allowed to believe they can do anything they want, which brings the entire sport into disrepute, tarring amateurs and club players with that same brush (not that playing hard and partying hard aren't true to the traditions of the game, mind you! :-). As you say, kiwipat, I think in NZ the AB players are on club teams, but to what end? I do wonder if they do anything for the team or their fellow team members.

My own promotion of triathlon as a cool sport has always been that there are few (if any) other sports where Joe Sixpack can toe exactly the same line as the giants of the sport, at the same time and same place, and while not competing at their level, are in that fundamental way, competing with the best in the sport. Try that on the golf course, soccer field or most other participant sports venues - there's a segregation there that doesn't exist to any great extent in triathlon.

Cheers

Barry

I can't think of many sports where you get to line up with Olympic athletes as a matter of course. In my first Tri three years ago Hamish Carter turns up and wins it. He had finished before I had gotten off the bike.

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