Letter: Praise our Olympians, not BBC coverage

Yorkshire Olympic athletes, l-r, Vicky Holland, Gordon Benson, Laura Weightman, Non Stanford, Tom Bosworth, Muhammed Ali and Qais Ashfaq poses with the British Airways crew after landing at Leeds Bradford Airport.

Photograph by Richard Walker/ www.imagenorth.net — Yorkshire Olympic athletes, l-r, Vicky Holland, Gordon Benson, Laura Weightman, Non Stanford, Tom Bosworth, Muhammed Ali and Qais Ashfaq poses with the British Airways crew after landing at Leeds Bradford Airport. Photograph by Richard Walker/ www.imagenorth.net

I do however have some reservations – the cost in terms of the £250million or more from Lottery funding. Is it really a justifiable use of lottery funds under the name of “good causes”? Would not funding even more research in finding cures or prevention for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons or the at present incurable cancers be more logical?I am also uneasy that we have been happy to use and fund some athletes, who have left their home countries to come here for a better life and have been granted British citizenship.The BBC’s wall to wall coverage was at best average, spoilt by the corporation using contracted BBC presenters who often had little, if any, knowledge of the sport they were covering. I half expected Mary Berry anchoring the Sumo Wrestling! The BBC seem to have an unlimited amounts to throw at tennis (BBC1 and BBC 2 at the same time for two weeks), not forgetting Radio 5 Live, half the main news broadcasts, and the Olympics almost 24-hour non-stop coverage, and yet can’t find any money for International English cricket or the Open Golf Championship (four days a year). Presumably we will have the star performers appearing on chat shows for the next six months or more. Perhaps the BBC could help us by doing something useful, by telling us how many times, during the coverage the word “incredible” or any derivation was used – I counted ten in one five minute interview.