Sport is a Cruel Bastard
I've noticed a trend in my televisual indulgences recently. I mean, I don't have cable, so I'm not at the mercy of TV peoples who decide what my choices are before I further filter them down. I rely on my interwebs for entertainment (mind out of the gutter, folks). I've signed up to Netflix, for example, as one source of TV programming. And the recent viewing category there tells it's own story. I like my comedies. More than that, I love my comedies. To the exclusion of almost all other genres. What's mine is blatantly obvious to see - Top Gear, Red Dwarf, Family Guy, My Name is Earl to name just a few. My trip to Ireland last year yielded 4 DVDs that I bought myself - three seasons of the Inbetweeners and the classic British comedy, Withnail and I.
You see, I don't usually go in for Dramas. Sure, I'll sit through an episode of something if Leigh-Ann wants to give it a go, but unless it grabs my interest quickly - Sherlock, Deadwood, Justified, Rome - I generally leave the rest to her. And the reason I don't go in for dramas was made abundantly clear to me this weekend. It's because of sports. I've spent a large chunk of the last 10 days absorbing what Olympic action I can, and to be perfectly truthful, there is more genuine human emotion and drama revealed through sport than there is in years upon years of whatever convoluted mess of a TV Drama is concocted in a scriptwriter's basement.
Take today for instance, Day 10 of the London Olympiad. I woke up early (by my standards, admittedly) to watch a sailing race. Sailing! I never even considered it a sport in the last 29 years of my existence, yet last night I set an alarm to watch it. The reason was that Ireland had a girl in the running for an Olympic Gold. They don't come along often in our country's sporting history, and young Annalise Murphy had come from the blindside of the national consciousness to being the talking point of the first week of Ireland's Olympics. The gold medal race was a 4-way affair, though. And as is so often the case, the most inexperienced contender was on the outside looking in. Murphy, who led the overall standings practically all week, was left empty handed at the final turn. Her tear filled interview afterwards couldn't help but tug at your heart-strings. Someone tweeted the cold hard truth of the moment: Sport is a cruel bastard.
And just as I was getting over that, I had to go changing the internet feed - Katie Taylor stepped into the boxing ring. To the uninitiated, Taylor is to Women's Boxing what Ali is to Men's. Okay, that may be an overstatement, except depending who you ask, it isn't. She is a 4 time World Champion, and 5 time European Champion. She is Ireland's Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis, Michael Phelps. This was her games, her moment, at least in our eyes. But as is always the way with the Irish psyche, we were nervous - her opponent was a British boxer, and while it would be unfair to British boxing to suggest they have got some easy decisions in the ring this week, we were afraid of a hometown decision robbing Katie of her destiny. We needn't have. In a fight that was every bit as entertaining as anything the men have served up this week, if not more so, before a packed and raucous boxing arena, Katie put on a display that justified every superlative used to describe her. Any nerves that were evident existed solely on the couch in my living room. The first 2 rounds were closer than I would have liked, but she showed her class in the end, overpowering a very good Natasha Jonas, who but for the luck of the draw, would have been well worth a medal. The relief was palpable, the world over.
It was barely 10am, and I'd already been put through both ends of the emotional wringer. I had to lie down. When you add in a game of the quality of the Women's Soccer Semi-Final between Canada and the USA, there really is only so much excitement the human heart can take. That game was a classic, by the way. It can rightfully take it's place alongside any soccer match that has ever graced the Old Trafford turf. There was no quarter asked for or given. And in the end, it took stoppage time after 120 minutes of football to separate the two teams. But to suggest that these were the only highlights would be an utter fallacy. These last 10 days, I've been enthralled by all kinds of sports that I never normally give the light of day to. Athletics, Fencing, Table Tennis, Swimming, Beach Volleyball, Show Jumping and countless others, they've all served up edge of your seat stuff at some point over the last 10 days.
Tell me you didn't sit enthralled as Chad le Clos pipped the incomparable Michael Phelps in the 200m Butterfly by 0.05 of a second. That you didn't tune in to see the greatest Men's 100m field of all time, and to see Usain Bolt demolish them all. That you weren't on the edge of your seat as Mo Farah kicked for home on the final lap of the 10000m. Tell me all of this, and I will tell you what you're missing.
Because Sport is a cruel bastard. It makes no allowances for dues paid, or time served. It is, at it's greatest, clear cut and decisive, where the margin between victory and defeat is so fine that there is no room for sentiment or second chances. And it is that cruelty that brings true drama.
But not comedy. For that, you need the Mayor of London dangling from a zipwire. Sadly, Boris won't be around forever. So I still have to rely on TV for my laughs.
You see, I don't usually go in for Dramas. Sure, I'll sit through an episode of something if Leigh-Ann wants to give it a go, but unless it grabs my interest quickly - Sherlock, Deadwood, Justified, Rome - I generally leave the rest to her. And the reason I don't go in for dramas was made abundantly clear to me this weekend. It's because of sports. I've spent a large chunk of the last 10 days absorbing what Olympic action I can, and to be perfectly truthful, there is more genuine human emotion and drama revealed through sport than there is in years upon years of whatever convoluted mess of a TV Drama is concocted in a scriptwriter's basement.
Take today for instance, Day 10 of the London Olympiad. I woke up early (by my standards, admittedly) to watch a sailing race. Sailing! I never even considered it a sport in the last 29 years of my existence, yet last night I set an alarm to watch it. The reason was that Ireland had a girl in the running for an Olympic Gold. They don't come along often in our country's sporting history, and young Annalise Murphy had come from the blindside of the national consciousness to being the talking point of the first week of Ireland's Olympics. The gold medal race was a 4-way affair, though. And as is so often the case, the most inexperienced contender was on the outside looking in. Murphy, who led the overall standings practically all week, was left empty handed at the final turn. Her tear filled interview afterwards couldn't help but tug at your heart-strings. Someone tweeted the cold hard truth of the moment: Sport is a cruel bastard.
And just as I was getting over that, I had to go changing the internet feed - Katie Taylor stepped into the boxing ring. To the uninitiated, Taylor is to Women's Boxing what Ali is to Men's. Okay, that may be an overstatement, except depending who you ask, it isn't. She is a 4 time World Champion, and 5 time European Champion. She is Ireland's Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis, Michael Phelps. This was her games, her moment, at least in our eyes. But as is always the way with the Irish psyche, we were nervous - her opponent was a British boxer, and while it would be unfair to British boxing to suggest they have got some easy decisions in the ring this week, we were afraid of a hometown decision robbing Katie of her destiny. We needn't have. In a fight that was every bit as entertaining as anything the men have served up this week, if not more so, before a packed and raucous boxing arena, Katie put on a display that justified every superlative used to describe her. Any nerves that were evident existed solely on the couch in my living room. The first 2 rounds were closer than I would have liked, but she showed her class in the end, overpowering a very good Natasha Jonas, who but for the luck of the draw, would have been well worth a medal. The relief was palpable, the world over.
It was barely 10am, and I'd already been put through both ends of the emotional wringer. I had to lie down. When you add in a game of the quality of the Women's Soccer Semi-Final between Canada and the USA, there really is only so much excitement the human heart can take. That game was a classic, by the way. It can rightfully take it's place alongside any soccer match that has ever graced the Old Trafford turf. There was no quarter asked for or given. And in the end, it took stoppage time after 120 minutes of football to separate the two teams. But to suggest that these were the only highlights would be an utter fallacy. These last 10 days, I've been enthralled by all kinds of sports that I never normally give the light of day to. Athletics, Fencing, Table Tennis, Swimming, Beach Volleyball, Show Jumping and countless others, they've all served up edge of your seat stuff at some point over the last 10 days.
Tell me you didn't sit enthralled as Chad le Clos pipped the incomparable Michael Phelps in the 200m Butterfly by 0.05 of a second. That you didn't tune in to see the greatest Men's 100m field of all time, and to see Usain Bolt demolish them all. That you weren't on the edge of your seat as Mo Farah kicked for home on the final lap of the 10000m. Tell me all of this, and I will tell you what you're missing.
Because Sport is a cruel bastard. It makes no allowances for dues paid, or time served. It is, at it's greatest, clear cut and decisive, where the margin between victory and defeat is so fine that there is no room for sentiment or second chances. And it is that cruelty that brings true drama.
But not comedy. For that, you need the Mayor of London dangling from a zipwire. Sadly, Boris won't be around forever. So I still have to rely on TV for my laughs.
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