Game on but why is the British olympic team called Team GB and not Team UK? (regular, government)

[4rummer]

Team GB

I asked this question in a recent post in blog and realized that not many people know the difference between the UK, Great Britain and Britain! Even a regular Brit finds this confusing, so I heard!

Would love your take on this, especially from fellow British forummers.

[MetalLord]

When I passed through there, I noticed all the EU-issue license plates said "GB" and not "UK." Also, where I live in Europe you get a lot of products (such as juice cartons) that have writing in as many as a dozen languages. The Serbian language section has "SB" next to it, the Italian language section "I", the German section "D", and the English section always has "GB" and not "UK."

[Jaggy001]

Think about it.

The full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

United Kingdom merely denotes the type of government. The actual geographical area covered is Great Britain and Northern Ireland. For convenience sake, that is shortened to Great Britain (also, Northern Ireland could be confused with the Republic of Ireland which is commonly called just Ireland).

[WIHS2006]

Do Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, etc have their own Olympics teams?

More confusingly, why do British Overseas Territories have their own Olympics teams and also send contestants participate as part of the British Olympics team?

[Kenneth-Kaunda]

I guess it's all down to the history of the sport.

if we look at football (aka: soccer) , we have 4 UK based teams: England, Scotland, NI and Wales.

but with the Olympics , it's just the one.

[ovcatto]

Great Britain is the name assigned to the United Kingdom by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).