Oh, Adam Scott. So near, yet so far.
Or as the Herald Sun put it after Scott seized defeat from the jaws of victory at the British Open:
“WORST CHOKE IN HISTORY?”
(Today’s fadeout rocketed to No. 3 with a bullet on the Hun‘s hastily-cobbled-together “10 WORST BALLS-UPS” list.)
We don’t normally tackle sport here at Crikey HQ. But we’re concerned about the nation’s sportspeople and those who report on them.
The Olympic cauldron will be lit in London later this week where for two weeks Australian athletes will inevitably disappoint us. They’ll trip, miss, drop, fall and fail under the bleary-eyed glare of a sports-loving public each day of competition, where there’s no ribbons for effort — just humiliating headlines from cruel subeditors back home.
Our hacks will no doubt be inspired by the patriotic preaching on Fleet Street. But we’re calling for a kinder, gentler polity on Australia’s sports pages. Our athletes deserve to fail with the modicum of quiet dignity enjoyed by the rest of us armchair slobs.
Many of us fair-weather sports fans have much more in common personally with speed-skater Steven Bradbury than Cathy Freeman. We’re not the best, we’re not the fastest, but you just never know when all the people in front of you will fall over. So let’s celebrate our inner Steven Bradburies. Lets allow our athletes to hang in there for their Steven Bradbury moment. Let’s not bring them down when they fail on the way.
Remember: we pay for the therapy after the Games, too. So let the well-mannered Games begin.
What a ridiculous sentiment, at least as far as the Bradbury example goes. He won as last man standing. We don’t ridicule the winner in a boxing match because his opponent got knocked out. We didn’t knock the winners when Sally laid her oars down at a previous games. Frankly, the writer of this editorial is just as bad as the ‘sport writers’ he is knocking. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was perfect…not!!!
Remember, we laud the winners, not those who could have been if things has been different.
The press articles on Adam Scott are sensationalist and ridiculous, and illustrate zero understanding of golf, or of what happened yesterday afternoon. The guy is a champion; he was unlucky on the final holes, but wasn’t choking at all. Among the top players heading into yesterday’s final round (which was VERY windy, for the first time all tournament), only two had rounds below par. Tiger Woods hit +3, Scott +5, Snedeker +4, McDowell +5… These were hardly benign conditions, and brilliant golfers struggled.
Ernie Els was brilliant; the weather suited his golf, and his temperament. Celebrate Adam Scott’s excellent performance.
Adam Scott may have choked at golf, but he is now a certainty to get drafted for Richmond in the AFL.
@ZJONN: ‘Remember, we laud the winners, not those who could have been if things has been different.’
We laud them until later (often years afterwards) when their use of performance enhancing drugs is exposed and explains their medal win.
The terminology generally used in sport reporting is hackneyed, sensationalist, war-based jingoism… from journos who would be hard pressed to win a casual game of pool at the local pub.
I remember Steven Bradbury’s performance at the Winter Olympics a few years ago. He was the one upright on his skates sliding through the finish line while all of the other competitors were sliding around on their backsides crashing into walls. Looked like a fair and square win to me!