Friday, August 8, 2008

Shouldn't Team GB be Team UK?

Okay. Maybe someone can answer this puzzling question: Why is the British team in the Olympics called Team GB and not Team UK? Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team and since the United Kingdom consists of Great Britain* and Northern Ireland, why is it not called Team UK? Doesn't Team GB imply that Northern Ireland is not included? Does the name bother you at all or am I missing something? *Great Britain consists of England, Wales and Scotland.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, it probably should be, but Great Britain is widely accepted by most British people (including Northern Irish) as basically a synonym for 'Britain' as a whole (the nation rather the island) so I don't think there's many people that bothered with it. Though I wish the Scottish FA had accepted having a combined British football team for the Olympics (now it's just English players). Probably something to do with that annoying bloke from the SNP... :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Daniel, thanks for your comment. I'm surprised to hear that most Northern Irish don't mind but you must be right since the Team GB site states that, "Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team." I can't believe they would name it Team GB without the consent of the Northern Irish.

    It's a shame about the Scottish FA but that's what they wanted (or rather didn't want).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Its Partly Because The Northern Irish Athletes Are able to compete as Irish Athletes or British Athletes Depending on preference and As most [But not All] northern Irish athletes choose to compete under the ireland flag that Calling It Team GB is more appropriate [Plus As a name it is slightly better sounding!]

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very interesting - thank you for the information!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.