Why are some sports given a far more time in the spotlight than others? Why are only a handful of sports regarded as popular?
By Tom Jamison
Sports Personality Of the Year (SPOTY) is a fix. Well, alright, that might be a bit strong but there is a popular rumour that at best, it’s a fudge. So time for a quick sports quiz: what’s the most popular sport in the UK? Football? No, actually, by participation, the figures I saw suggested that it was swimming (with football being the most popular ‘team sport’ by participation – because of its popularity amongst children).
The other sleeping giant is angling/fishing. Yes, those quiet individuals patiently sitting by canal-sides all weekend are a veritable sporting army, ready to take over the establishment and change the way we think about sports.
Overlooked Heroes
The word is that every year thousands of votes are cast for angler, John Wilson, who was once voted by readers of the Angling Times publication as ‘The Greatest Angler Of All Time’ and yet he has never even achieved a podium finish – although he was awarded an MBE in 2009. Anyway, it isn’t as if he’s the only sportsperson to have been overlooked by SPOTY. The great names of minority sports rarely, if ever, even get a slice of the programme devoted to them. Feel free to write (to somebody else) suggesting others that should be on the following (non exhaustive) list: Phil Taylor (darts) – 40 different World titles under his belt, Carl Fogarty (superbike) – four World Championships or even Nick Matthew (squash) current world number two and winner of this year’s squash world championship and a member of England’s WSF World Team Championship side. (No, honestly, I’d never heard of Nick Matthew either.)
If there was a dream answer to the question: ‘Who owns sport?’ it would be, of course, ‘all of us’, but realistically, that just isn’t true. Tennis, for example is on telly for two weeks a year, to cover Wimbledon. After Andy Murray won the competition is 2013 he surely went on to scoop SPOTY. It’s clear that certain sports have a much stronger pulling power than others.
Big Names
The fact is that sport rests amidst the other pillars of our pop culture. Is it also a coincidence that I haven’t yet mentioned a black sportsperson, a women or a parasports athlete? The fact is that although we live in a so-called equal society, we don’t always see prejudices as they appear in front of us. My last point about SPOTY would be that in 2012 the competition was won by cyclist Bradley Wiggins with Jessica Ennis and Andy Murray coming second and third respectively. Each of them had won one Olympic gold medal yet other nominees, Sarah Storey (cycling) and David Weir (wheelchair racing) both won four Paralympic medals and weren’t even placed. (In fact, you have to go as far back as 2000 to find a disabled person on the podium: wheelchair racer, Tanni Grey-Thompson.)
In order to be culturally significant and to be taken seriously, it does seem that sports have to conform to either the prevailing fashion or to a reflection of the values that define us. Both boxing and National Hunt horse racing, for example, have of late been out of vogue because of their reputation as brutal sports where people are either seriously injured or where horses are ‘put out of their misery’ also due to the rigours of the sport. This year, the Women’s World Cup was won by England after they’d appeared in the final six times in the last seven competitions. Begrudgingly, it seems that coverage was finally granted, although the actual final wasn’t shown on television. Was this because rugby union doesn’t fit in with our traditional notions of femininity?
Disability sport also has difficulties in terms of perception regarding how it actually works. Simple sports make for easy viewing. Football is a game that anyone can understand and therefore has a universal appeal. It’s a world away from the complications of Paralympic classification that can take in different athletes with seemingly very different states of ability.
What is Elite Sport?
Perhaps the critical difference between parasport and other sports is a suspicion among the public that elite sports should be exactly that and not shared with people that are not of our traditional image of the perfect human specimen. (I have news for those people – perfect specimens don’t exist – although illegal or illicit drugs can get athletes pretty close!)
In other words, lots of people still have a misunderstanding of the nature of disability sport or put another way, why should people who are disabled have their own elite sporting opportunities? After all, the other strands of diversity do not have their own specific sporting events.
The fact is that disabled athletes still have tremendous strength and skill. Although female athletes are usually unable to reach the results of their male peers nobody would allow female sports to be eradicated.
The Case for Parasports
The case for disability sport is compelling, assuming we are open-minded enough to view it differently. Technology is absorbed by all facets of human endeavour and not least in sport. Illegal or performance enhancing drugs aside, food, vitamins and other mineral supplements are now part of mainstream sport and have been for years. In this framework a simple banana becomes a shot of pure energy and similarly we need to accept that other, more mechanical marvels are here to stay. More has been written about the advent of athletic ‘blades’ than can ever be read. Blades, as worn by Jonnie Peacock or Alain Oliveira, both Paralympic medallists, are incredible but are no replacement for human biological miracles – known as legs. If Usain Bolt wants to run faster he won’t be switching to blades any time soon.
The technology within parasport is fascinating but only to the extent that it is in motor racing, where teams tinker with cars all season long to get every last drop of precious efficiency from them. Even our simple game of football moves inevitably with the times, not just goalline technology but also boots with blades rather than studs – and it has been some time since a real pig’s bladder was used at Wembley.
If this summer has taught us anything it’s that we still love the things we’ve always got from sport: an underdog, a role model, a champion. British parasport provides all of that and more although the notion of an ‘inspiring tale’ is becoming a bit redundant these days.
What this summer also showed (several times) was that parasport keeps filling stadiums, and if it fills stadiums, it’ll do nicely on television – and if it gets on the telly; well that’s the real end game. With mainstream sports pricing fans out of their more traditional Saturday afternoon escapes, perhaps there’ll be a drift towards new sports and a rise of new sporting heroes.
