Attitudes are changing, away from winning at all costs and a focus on medals, towards compassion and careInstead of more medals, more compassion. Instead of extraordinary superheroes, brilliant human beings. Instead of a chest-beating accompaniment to “the best ever” chant, simple expressions of pure joy. What a fascinating year of sport, where what happens on the pitch is now much more connected to what happens off it. And what incredible leadership from sportsmen and women across the world who have gone beyond the traditional boundaries of the sporting world to show us a better way to think, behave and connect.In the Euros Gareth Southgate demonstrated that compassion and care play a central role in high performance, on and off the...
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...
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...
The Olympic hero overcame a kidney stone and rare blunders at the world championships and still won a medal in every event. Her only competition is herselfWe observers have long since exhausted the well of superlatives when it comes to Simone Biles. The 4ft 8in, 105lb sprite from suburban Houston had emerged as a once-in-a-lifetime talent even before her star-making coronation at the Rio Olympics, where she fulfilled her long-held promise with four gold medals in seven unforgettable days. Turns of phrase, margins of victory, records broken: these languages are entirely ill-suited for translating her unique physical genius, which, truly, must be seen to be believed. That Biles is the best athlete in America today, which she is, feels like...