Ben Johnson

Marion Jones

I began writing this article as a light-hearted reflection on the ‘virtues of sportsmanship’, so frequently praised but never really practised, when I came across the best illustration of my argument drawn from the national sport of [what else?] Elections. The UPFA won both the NCP and Sabaragamuva Provincial Council elections and is loudly cheering themselves while metaphorically hooting at the losers. As inevitable, in this sports crazy country, both the UNP and JVP shout "Hora Umpire", impute ‘dirty tricks’ to the winners while expressing convoluted arguments to say they never really lost!

Their leaders, one from a [the?] top Colombo school and the other from the land of Rudyard Kipling - that high priest of sportsmanship - have never learnt to be "good losers". Nobody ever does in this land of serendipity, although our pseudo ‘Public Schools’ dinned into their boys the "English virtue" of "sportsmanship" versified by Kipling, Henry Newbolt and others of the ilk resounding with such stirring phrases as "play up, play up and play the game", "play a straight bat’, "keep a stiff upper lip" and defeat like a gentleman"

Let me, at the outset," come out of the closet" to proclaim (confess?) my firmly held my conviction that there is no such virtue as "sportsmanship" in sports. The seeds of my disbelief probably date back to antiquity and my participation in the Crab Race while in the Kindergarten at Nalanda Vidyalaya. I remember painfully crawling sideways to reach the Finishing Line ahead of my fellow crabs. I was sure I had won. But I had not – according to the judges who awarded the winner’s box of chocolates to my class teacher’s son who had come second.

Sadly, the same scenario was repeated thirty years later when a teacher’s son was given the winner’s prize in a race my son had clearly pipped him to the finish.

To be perfectly honest, sports never really interested me. The convoluted rules and arcane terms governing various games were beyond my comprehension. Camouflaging my lack of knowledge, I accompanied my schoolmates at Dharmaraja to cricket and football matches and loyally cheered whenever they applauded some stroke or footwork whose significance was beyond me. All I wanted to know was whether ‘our side’ won so that we could whoop in victory instead of slinking away in ignominy

My spectacles provided me an excellent alibi from being conscripted into any sport– after all, I claimed, I couldn’t risk getting blinded if a leather ball smashed into them. My sole foray into ball games was some desultory tennis at the beginners’ nursery of the ‘jungle courts’, at the University in Thurstan Road, where my opponents’ limp serves, which barely ever cleared the net, or their sky-high returns [over the garden wall into India House] never endangered my spectacles.

In the evening of a life quite devoid of participation in any sport [even carrom and draughts] I derive much pleasure from perusing the sports pages of the newspapers – not only for the skimpily sexy kit of women athletes and tennis players – but also for the frequent jibes of sports writers on poor performers and the sleazy shenanigans of those in power [or dying to get in] in the various Boards and Clubs that govern/control such popular sports as cricket, netball, tennis, badminton etc. Capturing power at the Cricket

Board turned out to be a blood-sport in itself – with never a whiff of "sportsmanship" in the no-holds-barred battles. Our politicians, too, wangle to head these organizations as they just cannot keep their fingers out of the honey-pots of the foreign trips and funds at their disposal. It is rumoured that a planeload of this breed flew to the Beijing Olympics to cheer our sad little team, who could have easily fitted into a couple of 3-wheelers!

There is no doubt that this myth of sportsmanship had its origins in the playing fields of Eton and the muddy grounds of Rugby, and was exported [imposed?] by their ‘old boys’ to the lesser breeds they ruled over in that Empire over which the sun never set. It seems to me that these later acolytes of English games now act whiter than their white forbears. Who else than our home-grown ‘kalu suddas’ would pig-headedly proclaim [in Letters to the Editor] that no cricketer should dare to ‘wield the willow’ until he speaks the Queen’s English?

As far as sports are concerned, the ‘doctrine’ that prevails is not the genteel myth of "sportsmanship" but the brutal reality of ‘one-upmanship". To win at all costs is what every sportsman/woman strives to do. Defeat is never accepted with good grace and judges invariably challenged, abused ["Patel fined for abusive language"] or even assaulted ["Cuban athlete banned for kicking ref."] Hence the tragic failures of dope-fuelled Ben Johnson, Marion Jones and some of our own women athletes corrupted by their ambitious coaches. Alas, doping has now invaded animals in sport as well ["Four Olympic jumping horses suspended for doping"]

The jaundiced eye I cast on the Sports Pages, from which I have given these examples, confirms the universality of this phenomenon –though with country and sport specific variations. Chinese gymnasts at the Olympics were suspected of fielding underage girls while Sri Lankan schools are, pretty often, suspected of spicing their rugby and cricket teams with overage boys. Political interference in school sports may be a Sri Lankan specialty. A recent news item apropos the Under 15 Cricket Tournament reads "With the Ministry of Education coming to the ‘aid’ of Royal College, several schools who had served bans earlier are crying foul."

I see no need to belabour my ‘thesis’ any more. The only aim in sports is victory, by hook or by crook – by sheer muscle [Usain Bolt], by drugs [Marion Jones], by gold [African footballers and athletes in Europe and the Gulf States and, now, Fijian ruggerites in Malaysia], by partisan umpires [Australia] and by fudging birthdates of schoolboy cricketers and ruggerites in Sri Lanka These are but a few examples to illustrate a universal phenomenon.

"Sportsmanship" is just a mantra that nobody in sports either believes in or practices.