Young Reporters - Talent that speaks for itself - Matthew Richardson

Sport has always been around. So has competition. As the anecdote goes sport is 10% physical and 90% mental. This means that nine tenths of the time when we play sport, we are thinking, processing and scheming.  Alongside this - we are competing.   Competition is a primal instinct that is has been ingrained in humans since the dawn of time, and something that is instilled in most of us from a very young age.  Where ever there is something at stake be it food, pride, money, territory or pretty much anything else to be gained, people and animals will compete against each other to be the best.  Today some of our baser instincts have been socialised out of us – so when mixed in with competition, sportsmanship runs in parallel to it and falls into the ‘90%’ categories.

In this article, I will look at competition in sport with a focus on sportsmanship within sports today and what pushes top sportsmen and women to cheat.

There are countless cases of misconduct in sport from Maradonna’s famous ‘Hand of God’ goal to Luis Suarez’s colourful cases of primal “mouth-led” violence and cheating. But what is it that drove them to do what they did? Footage from Luis Suarez’s red card in the quarter-final of the 2010 World Cup would suggest that it was desperation and impulse and even though he committed one of the worst sporting crimes that you can in sport he still had the audacity to celebrate after the penalty was missed. This when coupled with the circumstances (sending the only remaining African team out of a world cup hosted in their own country) and a variety of biting incidents, most recently on Italian defender Chiellini in the 2014 Brazil World Cup makes Luis Suarez the perfect sportsman to not model your conduct around.

As well as Football, a myriad of sports have had incidents of cheating and bad conduct such as cricket, weight lifting, Formula One Racing, rugby, boxing and (possibly the most well-known) Lance Armstrong’s doping fuelled cycling career.

Even the Olympics has succumbed to forms of cheating. The first recorded incident of cheating at the Olympics was in 1904 when an athlete died after a marathon.  After some investigation his coach discovered that he had been drinking a mixture of brandy and strychnine (a pesticide) throughout the marathon. This was used as a “performance enhancing drug” and from this the Olympic Committee began testing athletes.  Some research on the use of drugs across the history of the Olympics reveals details of athlete’s names, their countries, their events and what they were convicted for. This shows the lengths that people will go to in order to “be the best”, this includes breaching the Olympics terms of agreement which every athlete must sign before they compete, as well as negative long term health implications including death as a possibility as well.

As well as cheating, sportsmanship plays a crucial role in mentality. If you have talent and a big ego the likeliness is that you will make it to a certain point but no further – possibly causing trouble for yourself along the way. A perfect example of this is Kevin Pieterson who had a prodigious cricketing career and was regarded as one the top ten players of the game at his time however for some stupid comments among other things, he lost this all and now is fighting to get back into the England squad. As Michael Jordan once said “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships” this is evident in the success that he has had as well as the success that others with selfish mentalities have not acquired.  

Finally, for young aspiring sportsmen and women – most importantly - these people act as role models. By cheating and breaking the rules they convey a message to young people that one pathway in search of excellence and achievement lies in taking drugs that will make you the best.  

 

 

Matt Richardson-Young Reporter-Year 10- Halliford School