Winner’s circle [updated]

This is what a golden group of NZers looks like on their day off.

After a hell of a good Games for NZ, for a 16th place on the overall medals table and a fourth place on the “medals per capita” table.

Damn good.

And never mind the talk about throwing more taxpayer money at local sportsmen and women; if truckloads of taxpayers’ money at people were a guarantee of success, Australia’s sports trough would be full of gold. But it’s not.  Australia’s medal cost taxpayers $A10,000,000 each. Meanwhile, Britain’s medals cost their taxpayers under ten pence per medal .

So it’s not primarily about money. It’s about what’s going on people like that golden crowd above.

It’s what’s going on behind those smiles.

UPDATE: Oops. That’ll teach me to dash off a post without checking it first. British medals cost British taxpayers ten pence each—i.e. ten pence per taxpayer. So with 65 medals at £264 million of OPM (Other People’s Money) that’s a total of £4 million per medal.  Turns out nationalism is expensive after all.