Sport - Sports : General   

In celebration of the masters

By Nirmal Shekar

MICHAEL Schumacher is anti-sport. Michael Schumacher is a spoilsport. Michael Schumacher is a sport-wrecker. You can go on and on. But let me stop here and explain.

The best of sport is about competition. It is about comparisons. The most enjoyable of sport is about the sort of high drama touched off by equals — individuals or teams — on the field of play.

Sport is also about variety. And its timeless charm lies in its unpredictability. You don't know what is going to happen. You don't know who is going to win.

Or, so we thought until Schumacher came along; so we believed until the German turned Formula One into two distinct sports — the one that matters, the one in which he is the hero, villain and everything else in between, a sort of one actor-play and the other, which does not matter, the one in which ordinary mortals competed for second place and third place and every single place thereafter.

Competition? You must be kidding! Comparisons? Forget it. Variety and unpredictability? You must be joking. Try the Kentucky Derby or the Epsom Derby instead. Forget Formula One.

Is there anything quite as readily yawn-inducing as Schumacher's 1-2-3-4 over four seasons, a feat that saw him become the first man to win six Formula One drivers' titles last Sunday at Suzuka in Japan?

Of course, this season, after the climax was played out little after the mid-season intermission last year, Kimi Raikkonen came pretty close; as close as Schumacher wanted him to, that is. So we waited with bated breath (!) until the last race of the season. And it turned out that the great one did not even have to bother making the podium to get what he wanted, to tighten his grip on what is his and his alone — and will continue to be his until he himself decides otherwise!

All this reminds me of an old friend who had this habit of asking me each June before my departure to Wimbledon: "So, who do you think will win the women's title?''

For a long time, I believed he was a big fan of the women's game. The truth, as it emerged eventually, was that he did not bother to ask about my choice for the men's championship until last June because he knew who was going to win — a certain Mr. Pete Sampras.

Talk of certainties! Michael Schumacher in Formula One. Pete Sampras at Wimbledon. The Australian cricket team anywhere, anytime... barring perhaps when V.V.S. Laxman is in the mood to rewrite a few Indian batting records. We know what is going to happen. We know who is going to win.

The feeling was perfectly summed up last year by the former Formula One driver Gerhard Berger. After just five races in the 2002 season, Berger, then Motorsport Director of BMW, whose engines powered the cars used by Michael Schumacher's Williams challengers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, when asked who can challenge Michael, simply said: "Forget the drivers' championship. There is no chance.''

Berger, a pragmatic man, understood futility. Something that men such as David Coultard, the dapper Scot, Rubens Barrichello and a string of others would perfectly understand too. They are just unlucky to be racing in the era of Michael Schumacher.

The same can be said of men such as Pat Rafter — who lost two Wimbledon finals — and Goran Ivanisevic, who finally won one after Sampras was beaten by Roger Federer in the fourth round in 2001, in the context of Wimbledon. Rafter would have surely won if he had played anyone other than the great man in the 2000 final. Ivanisevic himself would have had three or four trophies in his showcase, instead of one, had he played in any other era.

In his own way, Sourav Ganguly too would know the feeling experienced by the Coultards and Rafters. In the last World Cup in South Africa, India was on a roll and would have surely beaten any team in the world but one in the final. Unfortunately it happened to face that team — Australia.

The point about such dominant players/teams is that often matches/races are won and lost before the engine is started, a serve is hit or a ball is bowled. Trying to stop Michael Schumacher in the last race of the season? Attempting to beat Pete Sampras in a Wimbledon final? Fancy your chances against Australia in the World Cup cricket final?

The attitude, mostly, even among opponents is this: They are going to win but we will try our best. For, the psychological battle before the battle has already been won and lost, given the track records.

This is precisely why Zaheer Khan gave away as much as he did — perhaps the final itself — in the first over against Australia in the World Cup. He knew he was up against it. And Steve Waugh's men knew that Zaheer knew he was up against it. The result was hardly surprising.

Yet, to get to the point, does all this make for boring stuff? Can a true connoisseur of sport call the sort of excellence displayed by Schumacher and Sampras and the Australian cricketers boring?

Of course, sport is thrilling when the little man triumphs. There is something about the rise of the underdog, something about the flight of the obscure, earth-bound creature that's suddenly taken wings, something about the metamorphosis of midget into a giant that we find at once soul-lifting and morale-boosting.

Yet, for all the breathtakingly beautiful moments brought on by the little mortals, to me sport is at its most exalted level when the Schumachers and Samprases and Steve Waugh's Australians are at their best. Long after they are gone we will continue to wonder what it took to maintain their stratospheric levels of achievement.

Competition, drama, variety, unpredictability — all these are readily available in sport most of the time. But excellence of the brand symbolised by the Schumachers and Samprases will be sighted once in a century, twice perhaps if we are very lucky. Give me unsurpassed excellence any day, predictability and all!

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

Cricket

• All the talk is on Mohali pitch now
• BCCI decides to bear the possible extra expenditure
• Kapil speaks from the heart, as usual
  
  Tennis
  
• Auckland makes Harsh sweat
  
  Athletics
  
• Ghosh, Saraswati sprint champs; Jincy, Rai among winners
  
  Badminton
  
• Abhinav, Vaidehi enter semifinals
  
  Chess
  
• Three upsets mark day's proceedings
• Sasikiran crashes to defeat
  
  Sports : General
  
• Coming together after 50 years...
• In celebration of the masters
  
  Squash
  
• Maharashtra boys bag double
  
  

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu