Sporting life – 2

In the afterglow of Emma Raducanu’s thrillingly successful and unprecedented title campaign at the US Tennis Open last week I promised that I would take a quick canter through the various sporting events that took place throughout the summer, as it now winds down into the Fall.

In the normal run of things I would certainly have posted little vignettes on the events that interested us as they came and went – as a normal part of the rich tapestry of life – by way of illustrating that which keeps us oldies chugging along as opposed to just slumping into an armchair and gazing, dead-eyed, out of the window.

I am, therefore, slightly worried that we have gone through this brief season – watching coverage here and there, rejoicing when sports that we love have shown signs of recovering from the pandemic – only for very little of it to have moved us as it would normally have done.

Is this somehow down to the events themselves – or is it just us?

This was, of course, a belated Olympic and Paralympic year (confusingly maintaining the conceit that it was still 2020 in Tokyo rather than 2021). We enjoyed a fair amount of the coverage and the Brits and Canadians performed pretty much in line with expectation, but though the empty expanses of the spectator-free stadia did not prove quite the dampener that they might have there was still something about the event that prevented it from quite hitting the high notes. As a Brit I was also somewhat worried that in events in which we were but recently world-beaters (rowing and cycling come to mind) we seem to have fallen off the radar. True we won medals in some of the new events (skateboarding, BMX!) but I am not sure what to make of those.

For those of us who are Rugby enthusiasts and who hail from the UK, the quadrennial tours by the British and Irish Lions to the southern hemisphere are virtually on a level with the World Cup when it comes to representing the pinnacle of the sport. We were all thus agog with excitement this summer at the promise of the Lions twelve-yearly trip to South Africa.

You may have gathered from the overall tone of this post that the outcome was a disappointment – and not just because of the results. The tour – beset as it was by the now familiar COVID troubles – had a sadly sour note to it. This was very much not helped by the frankly bizarre behaviour of some of the South African backroom staff – including some who should very much have known better – but it also did not help that the rugby itself was fairly grim. World champions they may be but I for one do not care for the Springbok style of play and the fact that the Lions chose to try to fight fire with fire proved sadly to be the wrong approach on the part of the Lions manager – the otherwise estimable Warren Gatland.

There was one a brief passage in the third and deciding test when the contest suddenly sparked into life; when Scottish fly half Finn Russell finally made it onto the pitch. Sadly it was too little too late – though maybe lessons will be learned (again) for the future.

Having been given a drubbing in India during the winter the English mens’ cricket team faced a busy summer hosting the return series against the Indians as well as the Kiwis – who now hold the Test Championship title. In spite of Joe Root’s repeated heroics the inconsistent form of many of the squad and the lack of match readiness resulting from the introduction during the height of the summer season of an idiotic new short format of the game, resulted in a completely unpredictable sequence of results.

Some of those were down to the Indians, who suffered their own strange lapses without which the England results would have been even poorer. As it was the final test of the summer would have given the English an opportunity to come from behind to tie the series – had it not been postponed indefinitely at the last minute as a result of positive COVID tests in the Indian backroom team. This sad ending seemed about par for 2021.

There was also – I believe – some sort of footie tournament during the summer, but regular readers would not expect me to know anything about that – and nor I do!