I really enjoy Simon Barnes sports column in The Times, a very good read by someone obviously incredibly passionate about all sports, below is my favourite article by him from 4 and a bit years ago
Simon Barnes has travelled the world and witnessed some of the greatest sporting spectacles. Here he lists his top ten.
HI THERE, pop pickers. I have spent most of the time since I got back from Australia being asked whether the rugby World Cup was the greatest story ever told, or at least the greatest ever told by me.
How do you answer that? It was fabulous beyond price: a wonderful unfolding narrative with the sort of outrageous ending that only sport dares to give us.
But was it the greatest of the great? Maybe. Maybe not. So I started pondering a top ten. I included only events I had attended and events I had written about. Not necessarily the most beautiful, or the most dramatic. The most what, then? I pondered this and I am still not quite sure.
But these are the stories that affected me, that moved me, that stayed with me.
There is no objective way of listing great events any more than there is great literature. So here it is: a top ten of great sporting tales I have been privileged to tell. And remember, as D. H. Lawrence
said: "Never trust the teller. Trust the tale."
10
WEIGHTLIFTING. Super-heavyweight division, Olympic Games, Atlanta, 1996
THIS is a perfect event. It is shorn of all distractions. There is no beauty, neither in action nor in personnel -though there is an argument for saying that these gut-hanging giants are so ugly they become beautiful.
Ronny Weller, of Germany, came to his final lift. To win the gold medal, he had to break the world record. He went for it: another 2.5kg, he said. He picked up and in an explosion of bursting muscles, face brimming with pain and desire, he lifted the entire world above his head, flung down the weight and performed an elephantine jig of
celebration.
Enter Andrei Chemerkin, of Russia, to complete the formalities. He was lagging well behind. The only way he could win was to increase the weight: go up not one but two increments. Another five kilos, making the total just under 100kg more than his own colossal bodyweight.
An infinity-long pause with the weight at his massive chest. And then, with the will of the world behind him, he performed a miracle. Lifted it, controlled it. The thunder as it fell back to earth, the thunder of the voices in the hall, mine among them. Chemerkin said: "If someone had gone higher, I could have done more."
9
ENGLAND v ARGENTINA. World Cup, Sapporo, 2002.
THIS was an event not of sporting but of narrative perfection. It was an awful match, to tell the truth, unless you were involved. Involvement made it a game of desperate anxieties and unbearable tensions.
David Beckham had been sent off when England played Argentina in the World Cup four years earlier. He had been reviled, spat on, hanged in effigy: the nation's hate-object. But because of his own strength of mind, he turned this around to become a player of note and a man much loved.
But then the return. Argentina, unlike England, were among the favourites for the World Cup. England were not expected to win the game but, after a poor first match, they badly needed to. It all came down to a penalty. Beckham insisted on taking it. Awful penalty it was, too. But he scored.
It was nothing less than a moment of personal redemption and it felt like a moment of national redemption, such is sport's power over the imagination. The Times led the front page with the story beneath the headline "Beckham puts the world to rights".
8
SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS v CINCINNATI BENGALS. Super Bowl XXIII, Miami,
1989
THIS was the culmination of my love affair with American sport and it was a for-all-time lesson about the nature of allsport in everyplace. The 49ers were losing 16-13; three minutes and ten seconds left and they had 92 yards to go. It was all over.
All over bar the will of one man. One man, among the 90 in the two massive squads: Joe Montana, the 49ers quarterback. The more desperate things get, the better Montana plays. That is what separates the great from the very good. Americans have a phrase for it: "clutch players". In a series of meticulous, passionate plays, Montana led -almost drove -his side up the field to set up the winning touchdown with a final ten-yard pass: power, accuracy,
tactical certainty and clarity of mind. A sport of many, one man's will.
7
WOMEN'S SPRINGBOARD DIVING. Olympic Games 1992-2000
IN 1992, Fu Mingxia won the highboard diving at the Barcelona Olympics. You will remember the image: the little waif on the ten-metre board with the great cityscape behind her. Four years later, she won both the highboard and the springboard in Atlanta. And walked away from sport.
A product of the disturbing Chinese hothouse system, she had shown talent and ferocious dedication to the task of victory. She was now a student, though, free to make her own decisions. She did student stuff, put on weight, and was asked if she had really ever been an Olympic diver. Nettled, she got back into training and thought, as people such as Fu think: might as well go for it, then. She won her fourth gold medal in three Olympics. She won as a pawn, she won as a queen. A personification of Hemingway's definition of courage: grace under pressure.
6
WEST INDIES v ENGLAND. Barbados, 1990
A LESSON in the art of devastation. England went into this match 1-0 up in the series with two to play. It was the point at which the wave of West Indian might broke and began to roll back. But the onset of decline was delayed by one of the most magnificent displays of pure ferocity ever seen on a cricket field. The match was about one man's rage against the dying of the light of West Indies cricket. It was about Curtly Ambrose. In England's second
innings he took eight for 45. It was beautiful, it was terrible, it was ferocious, it was the stuff of desperation.
Ambrose: the most devastating bowler ever to play cricket.
5
AUSTRALIA v ENGLAND. Rugby World Cup final Sydney, 2003
I THINK that No 5 is about right. Corporate resolve, coupled with corporate bloody-mindedness. A side written off and roundly abused by the so-called hosts. And not, let us be frank, playing frightfully well. England allowed Australia back into the match when they could and should have been put away. But then the priceless dramatics of extra time: the cool nerve of Jonny Wilkinson's 47-yard penalty, the equaliser and the outrageous conclusion. Hell, a sporting event would have to be pretty bloody good to beat that one.
Trust me.
4
MEN'S SINGLES FINAL. Wimbledon, 1999
ANDRE AGASSI played brilliantly that day. He was at the peak of his powers. He has never played better. Pete Sampras won 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. Agassi never had a chance.
"I don't know how I do it, to be honest with you," Sampras said afterwards. "I really don't." This was one of those matches that doesn't have a huge appeal to the floating voters of sport. But if you spend your life watching sport,
you occasionally see what it is you are looking for. Not drama. A certain physical and mental should I add spiritual? -perfection. It wasn't much fun, like the 2001 final that Goran Ivanisevic won after all those double faults on match point. No, Sampras closed the match with a second-serve ace and claimed: "There was absolutely nothing
going through my mind at the time." Zen master.
3
PRIX DE L'ARC DE TRIOMPHE. Paris, 1986
SPORTING beauty, sporting perfection. A wall of horses, any one of four could win. And then came the French horse, Bering, a brilliant late surge. Briefly he ran head-to-head with the English Derby winner, Shahrastani, but Bering was too good. He went away from them all: a great horse -who was but preparing the way for a horse still greater.
Like the swiftest arrow whizzing from a bow came Dancing Brave. Perhaps the greatest turn of foot ever seen on a racecourse and probably the coolest waiting race ever ridden, the jockey being Pat Eddery.
The best of the best was beaten by one still greater; the ace of trumps was trumped and all in an explosion of blinding beauty. Human and equine will in union.
2
MEN'S 100 METRES FINAL. Olympic Games, Seoul, 1988
YES, that one. Great sport isn't always nice, but it is always compelling. And this race would be up here even if Ben Johnson had passed his drugs test, even if he was wholly innocent. That's because this was the most dramatic demonstration of human power and will ever seen on the field of sport.
He burst out faster than a man had run before, he looked as if he was going beyond the speed that a human body could tolerate: so much so that I almost expected him to disintegrate halfway down the track. Had he not paused to celebrate over the last couple of strides, how fast would he have gone? The race has only gathered drama as the years passed. It was the end of the age of innocence, the end of the age of hypocrisy. It was the perfect revelation of what we want from our athletes. We demand the superhuman. Johnson met that demand.
1
MEN'S ROWING COXLESS FOURS FINAL. Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000
WHY didn't Sir Steve Redgrave get a parade through London? Why didn't he get five of them, one every four years from 1984, as he came home with yet another gold medal? Each medal was a great work, but the fifth was his -and everyone else's - masterpiece. Redgrave was a man addicted to victory and he was prepared to give everything
victory required. Sport can be many things: dramatic, beautiful, charming, sexy, enthralling, wonderful, depressing, angst-making, hilarious –and always, you don't know what happens next. But it all comes down to a single thing in the end, and that is the lesson that Redgrave taught us over 16 years of Olympic mastery.
Will.
My favourite is number 6, brilliant bit of writing
Simon Barnes has travelled the world and witnessed some of the greatest sporting spectacles. Here he lists his top ten.
HI THERE, pop pickers. I have spent most of the time since I got back from Australia being asked whether the rugby World Cup was the greatest story ever told, or at least the greatest ever told by me.
How do you answer that? It was fabulous beyond price: a wonderful unfolding narrative with the sort of outrageous ending that only sport dares to give us.
But was it the greatest of the great? Maybe. Maybe not. So I started pondering a top ten. I included only events I had attended and events I had written about. Not necessarily the most beautiful, or the most dramatic. The most what, then? I pondered this and I am still not quite sure.
But these are the stories that affected me, that moved me, that stayed with me.
There is no objective way of listing great events any more than there is great literature. So here it is: a top ten of great sporting tales I have been privileged to tell. And remember, as D. H. Lawrence
said: "Never trust the teller. Trust the tale."
10
WEIGHTLIFTING. Super-heavyweight division, Olympic Games, Atlanta, 1996
THIS is a perfect event. It is shorn of all distractions. There is no beauty, neither in action nor in personnel -though there is an argument for saying that these gut-hanging giants are so ugly they become beautiful.
Ronny Weller, of Germany, came to his final lift. To win the gold medal, he had to break the world record. He went for it: another 2.5kg, he said. He picked up and in an explosion of bursting muscles, face brimming with pain and desire, he lifted the entire world above his head, flung down the weight and performed an elephantine jig of
celebration.
Enter Andrei Chemerkin, of Russia, to complete the formalities. He was lagging well behind. The only way he could win was to increase the weight: go up not one but two increments. Another five kilos, making the total just under 100kg more than his own colossal bodyweight.
An infinity-long pause with the weight at his massive chest. And then, with the will of the world behind him, he performed a miracle. Lifted it, controlled it. The thunder as it fell back to earth, the thunder of the voices in the hall, mine among them. Chemerkin said: "If someone had gone higher, I could have done more."
9
ENGLAND v ARGENTINA. World Cup, Sapporo, 2002.
THIS was an event not of sporting but of narrative perfection. It was an awful match, to tell the truth, unless you were involved. Involvement made it a game of desperate anxieties and unbearable tensions.
David Beckham had been sent off when England played Argentina in the World Cup four years earlier. He had been reviled, spat on, hanged in effigy: the nation's hate-object. But because of his own strength of mind, he turned this around to become a player of note and a man much loved.
But then the return. Argentina, unlike England, were among the favourites for the World Cup. England were not expected to win the game but, after a poor first match, they badly needed to. It all came down to a penalty. Beckham insisted on taking it. Awful penalty it was, too. But he scored.
It was nothing less than a moment of personal redemption and it felt like a moment of national redemption, such is sport's power over the imagination. The Times led the front page with the story beneath the headline "Beckham puts the world to rights".
8
SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS v CINCINNATI BENGALS. Super Bowl XXIII, Miami,
1989
THIS was the culmination of my love affair with American sport and it was a for-all-time lesson about the nature of allsport in everyplace. The 49ers were losing 16-13; three minutes and ten seconds left and they had 92 yards to go. It was all over.
All over bar the will of one man. One man, among the 90 in the two massive squads: Joe Montana, the 49ers quarterback. The more desperate things get, the better Montana plays. That is what separates the great from the very good. Americans have a phrase for it: "clutch players". In a series of meticulous, passionate plays, Montana led -almost drove -his side up the field to set up the winning touchdown with a final ten-yard pass: power, accuracy,
tactical certainty and clarity of mind. A sport of many, one man's will.
7
WOMEN'S SPRINGBOARD DIVING. Olympic Games 1992-2000
IN 1992, Fu Mingxia won the highboard diving at the Barcelona Olympics. You will remember the image: the little waif on the ten-metre board with the great cityscape behind her. Four years later, she won both the highboard and the springboard in Atlanta. And walked away from sport.
A product of the disturbing Chinese hothouse system, she had shown talent and ferocious dedication to the task of victory. She was now a student, though, free to make her own decisions. She did student stuff, put on weight, and was asked if she had really ever been an Olympic diver. Nettled, she got back into training and thought, as people such as Fu think: might as well go for it, then. She won her fourth gold medal in three Olympics. She won as a pawn, she won as a queen. A personification of Hemingway's definition of courage: grace under pressure.
6
WEST INDIES v ENGLAND. Barbados, 1990
A LESSON in the art of devastation. England went into this match 1-0 up in the series with two to play. It was the point at which the wave of West Indian might broke and began to roll back. But the onset of decline was delayed by one of the most magnificent displays of pure ferocity ever seen on a cricket field. The match was about one man's rage against the dying of the light of West Indies cricket. It was about Curtly Ambrose. In England's second
innings he took eight for 45. It was beautiful, it was terrible, it was ferocious, it was the stuff of desperation.
Ambrose: the most devastating bowler ever to play cricket.
5
AUSTRALIA v ENGLAND. Rugby World Cup final Sydney, 2003
I THINK that No 5 is about right. Corporate resolve, coupled with corporate bloody-mindedness. A side written off and roundly abused by the so-called hosts. And not, let us be frank, playing frightfully well. England allowed Australia back into the match when they could and should have been put away. But then the priceless dramatics of extra time: the cool nerve of Jonny Wilkinson's 47-yard penalty, the equaliser and the outrageous conclusion. Hell, a sporting event would have to be pretty bloody good to beat that one.
Trust me.
4
MEN'S SINGLES FINAL. Wimbledon, 1999
ANDRE AGASSI played brilliantly that day. He was at the peak of his powers. He has never played better. Pete Sampras won 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. Agassi never had a chance.
"I don't know how I do it, to be honest with you," Sampras said afterwards. "I really don't." This was one of those matches that doesn't have a huge appeal to the floating voters of sport. But if you spend your life watching sport,
you occasionally see what it is you are looking for. Not drama. A certain physical and mental should I add spiritual? -perfection. It wasn't much fun, like the 2001 final that Goran Ivanisevic won after all those double faults on match point. No, Sampras closed the match with a second-serve ace and claimed: "There was absolutely nothing
going through my mind at the time." Zen master.
3
PRIX DE L'ARC DE TRIOMPHE. Paris, 1986
SPORTING beauty, sporting perfection. A wall of horses, any one of four could win. And then came the French horse, Bering, a brilliant late surge. Briefly he ran head-to-head with the English Derby winner, Shahrastani, but Bering was too good. He went away from them all: a great horse -who was but preparing the way for a horse still greater.
Like the swiftest arrow whizzing from a bow came Dancing Brave. Perhaps the greatest turn of foot ever seen on a racecourse and probably the coolest waiting race ever ridden, the jockey being Pat Eddery.
The best of the best was beaten by one still greater; the ace of trumps was trumped and all in an explosion of blinding beauty. Human and equine will in union.
2
MEN'S 100 METRES FINAL. Olympic Games, Seoul, 1988
YES, that one. Great sport isn't always nice, but it is always compelling. And this race would be up here even if Ben Johnson had passed his drugs test, even if he was wholly innocent. That's because this was the most dramatic demonstration of human power and will ever seen on the field of sport.
He burst out faster than a man had run before, he looked as if he was going beyond the speed that a human body could tolerate: so much so that I almost expected him to disintegrate halfway down the track. Had he not paused to celebrate over the last couple of strides, how fast would he have gone? The race has only gathered drama as the years passed. It was the end of the age of innocence, the end of the age of hypocrisy. It was the perfect revelation of what we want from our athletes. We demand the superhuman. Johnson met that demand.
1
MEN'S ROWING COXLESS FOURS FINAL. Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000
WHY didn't Sir Steve Redgrave get a parade through London? Why didn't he get five of them, one every four years from 1984, as he came home with yet another gold medal? Each medal was a great work, but the fifth was his -and everyone else's - masterpiece. Redgrave was a man addicted to victory and he was prepared to give everything
victory required. Sport can be many things: dramatic, beautiful, charming, sexy, enthralling, wonderful, depressing, angst-making, hilarious –and always, you don't know what happens next. But it all comes down to a single thing in the end, and that is the lesson that Redgrave taught us over 16 years of Olympic mastery.
Will.
My favourite is number 6, brilliant bit of writing
Fine by me!