So, the surly young Scot Andy Murray managed to achieve a tortuous and agonising victory (hats off to the Belfast Telegraph for that headline) - and here we go again, another deeply unlikeable, charisma-bypassed 'great British hopeful' grinding his way to the quarter finals (at best) before being, er, blown away in his turn. Just when we'd got shot of the annual agony inflicted on us by Timbo Henman, along comes this ghastly overgrown teenager with his hideous, joyless triumphalist antics. When I saw him roll up his sleeve and show off his biceps at the end of last night's game, I instantly wished him a straights-set humiliation at the hands of the gentlemanly Nadal. It's probably what he'll get anyway.
This is my idea of a sportsman, though sadly he seems not to have bothered with tennis.
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Exactly Nige, these people employ specialists including "sports psycologists" (nutter fixers in trainers), production line sports operatives, totally boring. My own particular sporting heroes are Giusto Gervasutti, quiet, unassuming, tremendous mountaineer. The other is Reinhard Messner, the greatest mountaineer of all time, his achievements make all other extreme sportsmen look like wallflowers, he has climbed all fourteen eight thousand meter peaks, many without oxygen and in Alpine style (fast, lightweight, small parties) The mindset required to achieve that is beyond comprehension. I have seen some really hard men in action, in particular some of the Poles who died in the 1987 K2 disaster, Messner is way beyond them all.
ReplyDeleteNige...spot on.
ReplyDeleteI'd like a little good old fashioned sporting behaviour. Somehow we've ended up with sportsmen a bit like our politicians. In fact If Gordon Brown was a sportsman I suspect he'd be exactly like Andy Murray. Grinding out a result at all costs and doing it in that joyless fashion.
Money does funny stuff to people....