 Do you like sport?

 What sport are you good at?

 Do you like watching sport on TV?
 Have you watched the Olympic coverage on
British TV or read about it in the Internet or in
the newspaper?
 Was it successful for your country?
 Do know how successful Britain has been in Rio?
 Yesterday I was given two British tabloids: Daily
Mirror and Daily Mail. I have looked through
them and noticed that the main topic was the
 Olympic Games in Rio which had finished on
early Monday morning. First I wanted to read the
articles and just report to you its gist but then I
have changed my mind and why you’ll find out in
a minute ;)
 I would like you to have a look at this medal
count, which comes from one of my tabloids and
tell me how successful Britain was during the
Olympic in Rio? How it has happened? What strucks
you? Is it a surprise for you?
 I have also taken one more photo from one of my
tabloids. It shows you a short history of how
Britain has done in the previous Olympics.
 Think for a while and write as many adjectives,
expressions, full sentences describing Britain’s
success in Rio.
My original plan was to compare and tell you how
the Olympic Games were described in each of the
newspaper but while making notes I was struck by
the amount of expressions describing the British
success in Rio.
In a minute I will give you a short background on
British success and later on I’ll show you a list of
expressions, describing it which I have found only in
3 or 4 articles in my tabloids. I wasn’t able to write
all of them down, but after reading those which I
managed to write you will understand how tabloids
can shape and affect your opinion on a particular
matter.
So while reading the texts I got to know that the
latest success was due to:
 special training schemes such as Sporting Giants
since 2007,
 massive investment of National Lottery since
1996, when GB team won only 15 medals – the
worst result in a modern history of the Olympics,
 £ 300 mln Lotto investment and other funding
since 2012,
 each medal has the worth of £4.1 million,
 streaming the money on stronger areas (like
taekwondo, fencing) and cutting down on
weaker ones,
 letting the athletes to train full time,
 great attention to details,
 excellent training schedules,
 special diets,
 long – strategic preparing approach (8-year cycle)
for those athletes who have great potential,
 medical and support staff (990 people helped 366
athletes to achieve good results),
 generating great sense of belonging within the
GB team,
 securing great accommodation in Rio: the
athletes were put next to their venues (no more
than 10 minutes journey),
 the training camp camp in Rio was worth 1.5
million pounds.
Expressions which mark the great
British success at the Rio Olympic
Games
(mostly taken only from up to 4 articles from “Daily Mail”)

1) “… historic pullout…”
2) “… best Olympic medal haul since 1908…”
3) “… boxer Joe Joyce completed our Olympic
masterpiece with silver last night.”
4) “… our golden Olympic…”
5) “… spectacular success…”
6) “… the nation’s greatest Olympic haul in the
living memory…”
7) “… making of Greater Britain…”
8) “… How team GB stunned the world with our
record medals haul? …”
9) “… dream GB…”
10) “… our golden Olympics”
11) “…Team GB finally the envy of the world…”
12) “…Great Britain’s Olympians surpassed the
great haul of China…”
13) “…A mind – baggling (*amazing) total of 27
golds and 67 medals represented team GB’s best
performance at a foreign Olympics…”
14) “… Thanks to cycling super – couple (*Jason
Kemy and Laura Trott) there were more gold
medals won by a single Cheshire household than by
the whole Canada, South Africa, India or
Argentina.”
15) “It is a historic triumph for Britain’s heavily
founded centre of sporting excellence”
16) “… a haul of fame as GB breaks records …”
17) “… Britain is undeniably back in the world’s
sporting ellite …”
18) “Team GB has outdone itself this time –
beating China and claiming the second place in
table”
19) “… the rate of acceleration of the medal haul is
remarkable, as the tables show…”
20) “GB now a superpower”
21) “We are marking sporting history – 67 medals,
nearly 130 medalists across 19 sports. Even sporting
superpowers haven’t done that in the past, but we
are one of those now.”
22) “… China with its population of 1.36 billion
managed fewer gold (26) and silver (18) medals
than Britain (27 and 23) with just 64 million to
choose from.”
23) “GB heroes bring home our biggest haul in 108
years”
24) “Team GB stunned the world by relegating
China into third…”
25) “Britain became the first country ever to
improve its medal tally after hosting the Games”
26) “The total was Britain’s highest since 1908
when events included deer shouting, tandem racing
and…”
27) “…I hope the nation feels proud of and united
by their team…”
28) “…Our high performance system … has now
delivered something unprecedented…”
29) “Following the British trail of glory this week
has been a delight. It has been a perfect storm and
long may it continue.”
30) “There are the first Games at which a nation
has exceeded its medal total in the Olympics after
hosting sport’s greatest show.”
31) “Across the board Britain was so competitive
that almost 35% of the team returns home with
medals. At times it felt more like a Commonwealth
games than an Olympics.”
32) “The underperformance of China, the starting
failure of Australia, […] this is the high water-mark
for Britain.”
33) “First Olympics Briatin won more than 50
medals away from home.”
34) “Golden lesson in how we can beat the world”
35) “What an astonishing triumph”
36) “Farewell Rio, it’s been a blast.”
37) “To finish second in the medals table, above
the mighty China, with a foreign – soil record of 27
golds is astonishing. […] It’s a feelgood story the
whole world has noticed.”
38) “Away from the British gold rush…”
39) “We’re proud of you Team GB, you put the
Great in Britain”
40) “Team GB were hailed as a sporting
superpower”
41) “… on the last day of a spectacular Olympic
Games for team GB. In their last performance for
108 years, our athletes beat China to finish record
in the medal table”
42) “How Britain turned into Olympic heavy
weights”.
43) …. to be continued… – maybe ;)