Olympics Teams question

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MercFanUk

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Does anyone know why we operate one team under the GB flag, rather than separate teams for England, Scotland and Wales?

My only guess would be that we have a greater chance at getting a decent amount of sports people with all three countries combined - where as if we all went individually we might not be quite as strong.

Who even decides these things?
 
It's to give the welsh a chance to say that they've won something.

Maybe.
 
Does anyone know why we operate one team under the GB flag, rather than separate teams for England, Scotland and Wales?

It's actually "Team GB and Northern Ireland", but no-one seems to quote the NI part. It's effectively a brand name for the British Olympic Association, which was formed in 1905 and also represents the Crown Dependencies and other off-shore British territories. (Thats why it's not called Team UK, incidentally.)

My only guess would be that we have a greater chance at getting a decent amount of sports people with all three countries combined - where as if we all went individually we might not be quite as strong.

The truth is that we probably couldn't even field a team at all in some disciplines if we were to treat each country separately. But the UK is a single sovereign state, so it's quite legitimate to do field a single team (at least until the Scots go their own way). I believe this is known as the Belmont Principle, in recognition of Vauxhall's renaming the Belmont as the Astra saloon in order to boost the Astra's position in the sales charts...
 
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