There’s No Such Thing as Master of None
The secret to becoming a sporting great is not to hone your body for sport, but to find the right sport for your body…
This is the introduction to September’s edition of the Off-Field newsletter, curating monthly tales from the fringes of sport and society. Read it here.
Extinguished but seared into memory, the Olympic flame was still smouldering in Paris when YovGov published a survey that revealed something remarkable about the British psyche. It turns out that 27% of us believe we would qualify for the 2028 LA Games if given four years to train for it.
Air rifle was the sport most of us reckoned we could reach Olympic standard in, no doubt influenced by the summer’s iconic image of Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikec, giving off casual dad vibes with his reading specs and hand in his pocket. If the middle-aged bloke who looks like he’s taking potshots at the rats raiding his bins can win a medal, surely we can too? It’s an understandable, if misguided, rationale.
But what about the 6% who said they could qualify for the 100m? Who in their right minds watched eight human cannonballs finish in under 10 seconds and thought, “Yeah, I might just manage that.”
Maybe every Olympic event should include a civilian entrant, plucked randomly from the electoral register as a jury service-style duty to compete against the elite. It might give those watching at home a better idea of the levels we’re witnessing.
“Noah Lyles is the Olympic 100m champion in 9.79 seconds. Crossing the line last, in 3 minutes and 20 seconds, is the Parisian plumber who received an unexpected call-up this morning. Can we get a medic for Jacques, please?”
It would be easy to come to two quick conclusions here. The British don’t play enough sport, nor watch enough of it live to appreciate that these athletes exist in a different realm to the rest of us. But maybe that’s too reductive and cynical. After all, it was the 18–24-year-olds who answered the poll most positively (39% of the self-confident buggers), and who am I to judge the hutzpah of youth.
When I was 24 and enjoying my first job in media, I shared an idea with my boss that would see me train with the San Marino football team, to gauge the standard of the lowest-ranked team in international football. My editor, a 40-something author of several sports books, laughed. Not because he wanted to discourage me, but because he’d had the same cocky thought when he was that age. Unsurprisingly, the San Marino Football Federation didn’t respond to my request, just as they’d ignored his over a decade earlier.
Sixteen years later, I cringe at the idea and wouldn’t dream of pitching something so conceited today. Especially given the much-maligned Sammarinese — having lost 196 of the 205 matches in their history — recorded their first-ever competitive win just weeks ago with a historic 1–0 victory over Liechtenstein, the goal scored by 19-year-old Nicko Sensoli. A lad half my age.
Turning 40 myself this month brought with it the thudding realisation that my physical peak was long behind me. For those who enjoy Parkrun every Saturday morning, it turns out this is the age we’re categorised as a “veteran”. Yeesh. Time to stop daydreaming about becoming an international sporting great, I suppose.
Or…
…I embrace the delusions of the 27% club and rediscover the positive mindset of my 24-year-old self. Sure, international football might be a stretch, and the Olympics too. But in the month where we’ve seen champions crowned in Subbuteo, stone skimming, and toe wrestling, perhaps the secret to becoming a sporting great is not to hone your body for sport, but to find the right sport for your body.
And, if Indian athlete Vallabhajosyula Sriramulu is anything to go by, maybe I still have time to figure out what that is. He won three gold medals at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Gothenburg this month, in javelin, discus, and shot put. He’s 101 years old.
Enjoy this month’s selection, which — incase you don’t believe they exist — includes stories on all the events referenced above.
This is an excerpt from the Off-Field newsletter. Subscribe, for free, here
