Viewpoint: The bright side of sport

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. 

Sporting Heroes

In the poems of Homer a hero was a warrior chieftain of special strength, courage or ability.  Today the greats of sport walk among their peers as Homeric heroes, as godlike beings, seemingly unbeatable, and their very greatness transcends, not just their sport, not just sport, but the world as a whole; great sportsmen and athletes like, Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Michael Johnson, Usain Bolt and Roger Federer. These are those who inspire the youth and through their very presence and their own immense achievements leave their sports and the events they touch, a real and lasting legacy. 

For my part, I remember the first time I saw elite men's sabre fencing.  It was at Brentwood School, and I must have been about nine years old.  James Williams, who coached my Prep School class, an Olympian in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, showed us a video of him fencing.  I remember the speed, the aggression, the atmosphere and the intensity.  I was just getting in to fencing at the time and I thought, 'I would like to do that', from then on I was hooked. 

However, it is perhaps sporting greats in other disciplines that inspire me most.  It may sound almost cliched, if that shows the level of unanimous respect these athletes command, but three of my sporting heroes are Redgrave (Sports Personality of the Year 2000), Pinsent (2nd Sports Personality of the Year 2004) and Hoy (Sports Personality of the Year 2008).  Three great British men, who between them have won 13 Olympic Gold Medals and whose career achievements truly are, astounding.  

Simon Barnes, my favourite sportswriter, waxes lyrical about Redgrave in his book 'The Meaning of Sport'.  He says, 'Redgrave is not only a person. Redgrave is also a quality...Redgrave is the ability to go beyond yourself. It is the ability to go the full distance, Johnson-like and more. It is the ability to commit day after day, to the one goal of winning. It is the ability to achieve the ultimate goal: and to be unsatisfied. To want more. To demand more, to seek more and to get more.'    

Barnes was also in Athens and saw Pinsent win his fourth consecutive Olympic Gold.  He describes Pinsent's journey that Olympiad as an echo of the Odyssey, the story of a ship cursed by the gods.  Pinsent's boat had been a pair, which won everything until inexplicably coming fourth at the 2003 World Championships.  The boat was made into a four, which didn't work.  A man was dropped.  Another injured, and eight weeks before the Games, Alex Partridge suffered a collapsed lung and dropped out.  The crew had just seven weeks to prepare as opposed to four years.  The race was neck and neck and was won only in the last ten strokes.  Won by 0.08 seconds.  In the words of Barnes, 'Pinsent took the crew over the line by means of a massive outpouring of the self.  He refused to accept the plain and obvious fact of defeat and remade reality in front of us'.  Pinsent seized the time to succeed and came through, giving everything to the effort.  Pinsent bared his soul and his emotions overcame the body he had moulded as a machine through his years of rowing.  

And then, Chris Hoy, the fastest man over 1000m, winning Olympic Gold in Athens.  He had to deal with adversity a different way.  His event was dropped from the programme in Beijing, forcing him to look elsewhere to satisfy his insatiable hunger for success.  He returned from Beijing with three gold medals.  

These men, heroes to me, perhaps not so much because of their success but because of the quality that Simon Barnes describes as 'Redgrave' alive in them.  The ability to bend events to their will, and the ability to triumph in the battle of wills.  Barnes describes 'Redgrave' as 'not the quintessence of sport, but the quintessence of victory'.

I remember watching BBC Sports Personality of the Year at Christmas and feeling inspired. I felt that I wanted to win, I wanted to prove myself, I wanted to give reign to the 'Redgrave' in me. At the weekend I discovered that I have been nominated for Essex Sports Personality of the Year.  It was a complete surprise and was very touching. I'd like to think that perhaps I too could be a role model for young people finding their way into sport just as Redgrave, Pinsent and Hoy and perhaps one day might be able to join that pantheon of champions.   

On a different note, I would like to mention the news that Beazley, the specialist Lloyd's insurer, have entered into a five year partnership with British Fencing, as principal sponsor.  More details can be found at http://www.beazleybritishfencing.com/   This is great news for the sport in this country and will hopefully make a massive difference, and I just wanted to thank Beazley for their investment in our dreams.