The following is a little different from the usual fare you will find on this site. I am writing this blog is response to a recently published article on the BBC Sport website titled: Viewpoint: the dark side of sport. Dominic Hobson asks whether over-competitiveness and professionalism in sport has ruined the experience for both fans and players. My response argues that this is not the case.
Let me start where Hobson starts. He says: "sport is full of failure". That much is true; a sportsman will fail more than he will succeed, that is the nature of sport. There can only be one winner in any given field but it is the way in which we fall, and the way in which we meet that challenge which is perhaps the most important thing. Legendary American Football coach Vince Lombardi said 'the greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after we fall'. Sport truly is then, a test of character, a challenge of mind and body, and about learning how to get up. So sport is not "a zero-sum game" as Hobson alleges. What the one gains does not equate to what the other loses, both competitors must delve within themselves and for the champion that feeling of victory reigns supreme, while the defeated will give his heart and soul for that pursuit of greatness. What is there more than that?
Sport, as we know it, originated in antiquity as a practice for war. Events at the first Olympic Games included: boxing, wrestling, chariot racing, spear throwing, and running races in full armour. Thus sport is about war as Orwell wrote in 1945; competitors play to win. The ancient Greeks awarded prizes not just to the winner, but it was the Olympian victor who was champion of men and treated as a demi-god winning great glory, kleos, for himself and his city. Even then sport was competitive and professional; each city in Greece wanted to rival the other. Sport is a practice of war. Thus when was it ever non-competitive and amateur? In fact sport even precedes the ancient Greeks, fighting games, hunting games, rough and tumbling games, are clearly sport as metaphorical versions of the real thing. Games played by all mammals, not just humans, as games of stalking, pouncing and scragging become for the lion not just sport but survival skills. 'Sport goes deeper than the mere human in us' says Simon Barnes, 'it goes to the heart of our mammalian selves'. How then can over-competitiveness ruin the experience for fans and players? It was never just a game, it was always more important than that.
In his book The Meaning of Sport, Simon Barnes, a keen ornithologer, likens sport to a pursuit of flight. Gymnastics is about flying, diving is about controlling your passage through the air, if you cannot fly yourself there is joy in making other things fly: the javelin, discus, shot. What benefit do we get from yearning to fly? Ultimately it is something that is inescapably human; a reaching beyond. A reaching beyond that compelled the Wright Brothers to build a flying machine, a reaching beyond that compelled man to look to landing a man on the moon, during the space race. Sport pushes us further. The unofficial mantra of the British Olympic Association is 'faster, higher, stronger'. Sport is the pushing of boundaries: physical, mental, scientific - all in the pursuit of excellence. What can be more aspirational or in fact integral to humankind? Competition breeds success, professionalism brings focus.
Sport can be beautiful, "the kinetic has its aesthetic" as Hobson notes. One only has to witness Federer, in his prime, who Hobson cites, or Barcelona playing 'the beautiful game'. Yet neither Federer nor Barcelona set out explicitly to entertain; they set out to win, but it so happens that their methods create the illusion of art to the spectator, while aiming to destroy their opponent. All spectators, whether fans or not, acknowledge that both these two examples mesmerise and enthral, and yet this enjoyment would not be possible without the hours of practice and the absolute dedication, or professionalism, to the task at hand, accounting for fitness, technique, diet, sleep and every possible contributory factor. Sport takes us to new heights and to new Ithakas.
Sport is not all about winning beautifully but fundamentally about winning. Sometimes there is great satisfaction in eking out a result. Sometimes there are unsavoury scenes in sport, but the stakes are high. The reason athletes seek to win is the same primeval urge that drives us all on in life, business and sport, the desire to succeed, to reach greater heights and to push boundaries to see what we can achieve. Sport unites and it differentiates. Sport elevates some while others fall. But sport is more than a metaphor of life. It is a part of life that is emotive, that challenges us and that causes us to reach beyond.
