Student loans and Olympic Athletes

[Chris_Sleeps]

You can't take money off of athletes without agreeing so in the conditions before they accepted the money. If Britain wants to do well at the Olympics, we have to fund athletics. You can't fund athletics and then take private money from an individual because they've given you the thing you were paying them for. It's a fine for success, essentially.

 

If there was some type of "athletic loan" scheme, then that'd have to operate under the conditions where the athletes knew what they were agreeing to. That they were borrowing money now on the chance of being successful in the future and paying that money back.

[truman]

You can't take money off of athletes without agreeing so in the conditions before they accepted the money. If Britain wants to do well at the Olympics, we have to fund athletics. You can't fund athletics and then take private money from an individual because they've given you the thing you were paying them for. It's a fine for success, essentially.

 

If there was some type of "athletic loan" scheme, then that'd have to operate under the conditions where the athletes knew what they were agreeing to. That they were borrowing money now on the chance of being successful in the future and paying that money back.

 

Yes I realise that..it's just a discussion....do you see any difference between paying for an athlete's training or paying for a student's degree course?

[llamatron]

the idea of student loans works because the majority of those getting a good degree will have a lifetime increase in earnings. In the case of athletes the statistics must be massively against them ever getting to the olympics, even then if they lose they won't make much and they will probably only have a couple of high profile attempts.

 

If we were more exclusive on who we allowed to do a degree we could easily afford to fully fund them. If everyone wanted the chance to be an olympian we would need some kind of loan scheme.

[truman]

the idea of student loans works because the majority of those getting a good degree will have a lifetime increase in earnings. In the case of athletes the statistics must be massively against them ever getting to the olympics, even then if they lose they won't make much and they will probably only have a couple of high profile attempts.

 

Are you saying we're throwing our money away?

[Chris_Sleeps]

do you see any difference between paying for an athlete's training or paying for a student's degree course?

No. They both should be free. That's a seperate debate though.

 

While the government value gold medals so highly, I can see no reason to take money off of succesful athletes. They've only delivered what was asked of them.

[pb1977]

While cavendish doesn't pay for his bikes, he also doesn't personally get loads of cash from the government.

 

The bike he uses is a piece of equipment he needs to do his job and will only ride it when he's representing or in training for team gb or do you expect him to pay for the equipment personally himself when riding in the colours of team gb.

[willman]

Athletes are paid a personal "grant",when they start to earn sponsorship above a certain level they loose the sponsorship £ for £. So basically its just like dole money or tax credits for super athletes.

Athletes at the early stages of development may only get £7500 - to pay all personal and housing costs,food etc

[pb1977]

Cavendish will be paid a large sum to ride the sponsor bike now

Is all about the people before they are famous

who pays his & his trainers house/spending money before he was famous?

 

Cav does gets paid a small fortune to ride for his pro trade team. Not sure of he gets paid for riding for team gb.

 

Not sure, without doing some research I'm not sure if Cav was a product of the British Cycling development program or he made his was through the ranks via a different program.

 

If he came through the ranks via British Cycling, Cav still isn't getting loads of cash. British Cycling maybe getting loads of cash to spend how they see fit but Cav directly won't be.

[dvp82]

Regarding the issue of Mark Cavendish. I seem to remember reading an interview he gave saying he started off racing mountain bikes after been bought one as a kid.

 

After leaving school he got a regular job saving as much cash as he could to help support himself as a full time cyclist.

 

He did spend a short period of time riding for the Team GB track squad before joining the feeder team for the T-Mobile professional cycling team. Then onwards to the full professional T-Mobile squad and it's reincarnations under the names of Team Highroad, Team Columbia and Team HTC Columbia before joining Team Sky this year.

 

Judging by that, I would say Mark Cavendish has had little if any direct funding from the UK government.

[Mecky]

theres your problem. It doesn't have to be repaid. If you earn below the threshold (£22k or something like that) you will never pay it. It is only paid for during times you are earning above that. Its a graduate tax really.

 

Not so as already pointed out and I know of former students who are paying their loan and the they amount they pay, or can't afford to pay, isn't even covering the interest. So they are struggling to pay something but their debt keeps going up.