Should Team GB be renamed Team UK?

MY THANKS to Dominic Lawson for recognising how upset some people are at the name Team GB (Mail). I’ve been telling friends and family for years that the use in sport of Team GB, and before that GBR, are both misnomers. As Dominic says, Team GB excludes the Northern Ireland competitors — the correct name is Team UK. It really is high time this was used to represent us all. I wonder if this was an unspoken reason why Rory McIlroy, had he taken part in the golf, opted to represent the Republic of Ireland and not the UK. My wife is Irish, she moved to Britain at the age of three and now considers herself British — but she still has strong ties with Northern Ireland.

ED SPENCER, Hayling Island, Hants. UNFORTUNATELY, those who complain about the use of the name Team GB (Mail) are displaying a lack of understanding of history. We’re told our athletes shouldn’t be known as Team GB but by the ‘proper’ name. What is being suggested? Anyone born in the Crown dependencies (Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey etc) or the former Crown colonies (including Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, the Pitcairn Islands, Bermuda etc, now known as British Overseas Territories) is eligible to represent us in the Olympic Games. The name Team GB is simply historic — it has no political connotations at all. I agree it’s appalling that Tom Daley’s diving partner Daniel Goodfellow was largely ignored in the media but that has nothing to do with the team name — more reporters’ ignorance. There is simply no other name for it, certainly not Team UK. Unless you want to call it: ‘Team GB and the Former Crown Colonies and Crown Dependencies’? Er, no. MALCOLM WEATHERHEAD, Hungerford, Berks.