Tuesday 31 October 2017

PARALYMPICS CHEATING : WHAT A SURPRISE !

I have never had any time for the notion of 'disability sports' and particularly for the ludicrous nonsense that is the 'Paralympics', though without ever decrying the efforts of those who have suffered from either birth defects or accidental and life changing injuries. Now, it seems, the principle reason for my scepticism is to be considered by Members of Parliament.

An investigation by the BBC (of all organisations !) has 'discovered' that there could be systematic cheating by manipulating the classification process that is involved in determining which athletes get to compete against which other athletes. A House of Commons committee is to discuss these claims and it's been suggested that the evidence they will hear will be 'explosive'.

There are times when I wonder just how stupid some people can be. Of course the classification system is open to abuse and is abused; any such system will always be abused by cheats in exactly the same way as many take illicit drugs to enhance their performances. Cheating is endemic in much modern sport because winning is all; the days of amateurism are long gone and winning is now all about vast prestige, wealth and honours that can be gained.

Footballers 'dive' to win penalties, cricketers claim catches falsely and what goes on in a rugby scrum is nobody's business. Only in sports which are closely monitored by television cameras is cheating not an issue; golfers and snooker players in televised tournaments rarely, if ever, come up short; major rugby union matches, with replays of every doubtful incident, are so well policed that players know they cannot get away with very much.

But how do you police a classification system which attempts to match competitors with differing disabilities ? Quite simply, the whole notion is ridiculous, shockingly open to abuse and largely pointless. By all means, encourage those with disabilities to enjoy full lives and, where they wish, to engage in sports to the best of their abilities, but for heaven's sake stop this nonsense of the 'Paralympics' and all that goes with it.

Monday 30 October 2017

LEWIS HAMILTON : NOT THE GREATEST BY MILES.

Lewis Hamilton is obviously a good driver but is he really up there with the 'greatest' ?

Hamilton drives in an era obsessed with safety and at a time when technological advances have made racing cars completely different to those of past days. When Fangio and Moss, Brabham, Clark and Stewart were racing, they truly had to drive their cars; today, the driver has so much information and technological assistance that to even try to begin to compare modern drivers with those of 30, 40 or 50 years ago is a pointless exercise.

In terms of outright bravery, those of the 1950s and 1960s will always be superior; many died and others were severely injured while driving vehicles at breakneck speeds around dangerous circuits. Today, even crashing at 200 miles per hour is likely to result in little more than a few bruises; years ago, it would have meant certain, and often horrible, injuries and death, and yet the drivers still pushed their cars to the absolute limit and beyond.

For any sportsman to be considered 'great' they also have to pass one simple test, that of being magnanimous in defeat. On this measure, Hamilton fails miserably. When he wins, it's all smiles and great joy, but when he loses it's recriminations and sullenness. He looks for someone to blame or some conspiracy against him. Last year it was all about the desire of his German team to help his German team mate, Nico Rosberg; yesterday we heard him suggesting that Sebastian Vettel had deliberately crashed into him, a ludicrous notion as Vettel's only hope of winning the championship for himself was to win the race.

Hamilton is a fast driver but the silly suggestions that he's a great, even 'the greatest' are simply not supported by the facts. He's actually a classic example of a spoilt child who found success at too young an age and now sees it as his right, throwing tantrums whenever he doesn't get his way. One wonders what he'll do next year if Ferrari, Red Bull and even McLaren start beating him regularly. My bet is that he'd chuck his toys out of the pram, quit the sport altogether and go off in pursuit of some other arena in which he can be the centre of attention with no one to challenge him.

Sad.