The building blocks of our culture stop us seeing the famous as people. That is not the function we have assigned themNaomi Osaka gave a press conference on Friday night. She’s started doing them again, by the way; I mention this only because after opting out of media duties during the French Open this year, lots of people immediately decided that she was weaponising her own mental health as a sly ruse to evade media scrutiny. Still, a lot of red-faced talk-show hosts and newspaper columnists got to lecture a 23-year-old woman on her personal choices, so maybe that was the most important thing.It was a tough watch. Osaka had just lost in tempestuous circumstances against Leylah Fernandez at the...
The world’s oldest Olympic champion survived the Holocaust and the Soviet clampdown on Hungary – and fizzes with energyIf a Hollywood scriptwriter had come up with the extraordinary story of Agnes Keleti – the world’s oldest Olympic champion, who celebrated her 100th birthday on Saturday – as a piece of fiction, they surely would have been told to rein it in. Fleeing the Nazis, surviving the Holocaust with a false ID, and later escaping the Soviet clampdown on Hungary? Competing in a first Olympic Games aged 31 before going on to win more medals than anyone else in Melbourne four years later? And then, just for good measure, passing her century bursting with a rare energy and unquenchable zest for...
This week’s roundup also features a goal-of-the-season contender, Sun Yang and the science behind curling1) Cheltenham week is almost upon us, so let’s get in the mood with some memorable Festival moments from down the years. Here’s the celebrated Arkle, kicking clear in 1964 to win the first of three consecutive Gold Cups. Here are the other two. Dawn Run lit up a gloomy day in 1986 to win the same trophy in a thrilling finale. And kick back and enjoy two of the most popular horses in Cheltenham history, Desert Orchid winning a classic in 1989, and Best Mate storming home in 2004. In other races, here’s every grammar pedant’s favourite, Big Buck’s, taking the World Hurdle for a...
For all its help in straightening out rugby union and its recent assistance to Eliud Kipchoge, what effect will green-line technology have on the off-the-cuff spontaneity of live sport?While the glorious phenomenon that is Simone Biles was winning a fifth all‑around world gymnastics title last week with routines that included a triple-twisting double backflip during the floor exercise and a two‑flips‑two-twists dismount from the beam, she was doing things that the human eye could barely take in. But there were no worries that what she was doing might be missed.Her every movement, and those of her 546 rivals, was being captured by three-dimensional laser sensors hidden inside boxes placed around the floor of the Stuttgart arena. Developed by Fujitsu, the...
After the Larry Nassar saga USA Gymnastics should not exist but Biles continues to bring her sport dignity – and moneyOn Sunday night Simone Biles, on her way to securing her sixth US gymnastics title, performed a triple-double in her floor routine, one of two moves she executed during the contest that had never been accomplished before in women’s competition gymnastics. Have you seen it? You honestly have to see it, and then see it again in slow motion. I haven’t spoken to any physicists on the matter but, as someone who watched the move multiple times on my phone while eating a packet of crisps, I can assure you: she defied gravity. Biles finished an astonishing 4.95 points ahead...