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Sport: The Australian Disease - sportingaustralia.com

War minus the shooting?

March 2nd 2010 01:02
Cricket in India
Australia, India, security: they’re three words that have been mentioned in the same sentence a lot recently.

If Indian students aren’t being attacked on the streets of Melbourne, Australian athletes are wondering aloud if they ought to compete in India. One could also mention Tennis Australia’s decision to forfeit a Davis Cup tie in Chennai last year, and even the ongoing debate about whether or not it’s safe for Australia to sell uranium to India.


At the moment, the Kookaburras find themselves in New Delhi, having overcome their fears about participating in the Hockey World Cup. Concurrently, Australia’s elite cricketers are weighing up the pros and cons of playing in the upcoming Indian Premier League, in light of threats from the 313 Brigade. As for several hundred other elite athletes, they have a stressful few months ahead of them, because if Delhi actually gets around to building some venues, that’s where the 19th Commonwealth Games will be held.

So should the Australian Cricketers’ Association give its blessing to the IPL, which is scheduled for March 12 to April 25? And should the Australian Commonwealth Games Association do likewise for the Games, which will run from October 3-14?


In answering those questions, two important points need to be made. Firstly, sport and politics should be kept separate. If last year’s attack in Lahore on the Sri Lankan cricket team demonstrated anything, it is that one cannot allow independent security assessments to be airily dismissed by self-interested parties. Australia’s cricketers would remember facing a similar dilemma in 2008, when they ultimately agreed, on the basis of such advice, not to travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy. The Pakistanis reacted angrily, unsubtly suggesting that Ricky Ponting’s men were a bunch of racist cowards, while blithely assuring the world that their security plans were perfect, and that in any case terrorists would never target athletes. Sadly, the Sri Lankans soon learned the hard way that this was vainglorious nonsense.

But that leads on to the second point: if there’s one thing that can be guaranteed, it’s that sport and politics will not be kept separate. The Subcontinental nations are sensitive about race at the best of times, and with the violence emanating out of Melbourne and the politicking over the uranium issue, these are hardly the best of times. Many Indians – even those who abhor the threats made by Bal Thackeray and Shiv Sena – will now be looking suspiciously at Australia, and be unwilling to give it the benefit of the doubt. Certainly, IPL Chairman Lalit Modi has taken news of a possible spurning of his competition badly, questioning Ponting’s integrity, threatening dissenters with omission from future tournaments and, in a familiar routine, insisting on the effectiveness of security plans.

Decisions about security must always be made calmly and rationally, but with so much emotion invested in the issue, that is easier said than done. On the one hand, the ACA would be appalled by the thought of terrorists dictating when and where matches can be played, not to mention anxious about keeping the ever more powerful Indians on side. Yet on the other, they would be cognisant of the duty of care they have to their members, while mindful of the legal implications that could result from placing them in harm’s way.

The solution, it seems, is the same as that advocated by Sport: The Australian Disease over the Champions Trophy: to clearly explain the risks and to advise (if necessary) withdrawal, “while leaving the door open to any player who may wish to take part. If [the ACA] advises its players to stay away from [India], it would seem to be ethically and legally absolved of responsibility should any of them ignore the advice and subsequently get hurt.”

And one should not be surprised if exactly that happens. Over the last decade and a half, Australian cricket has exhibited wariness of the Subcontinent, opting out of an important World Cup fixture in Sri Lanka in 1996 as well as several post-September 11 tours of Pakistan. Reports suggest that the ACA is leaning that way again. But this time, the situation would be different, as it would be offering security assessments not to a united group of national representatives, but to a collection of individuals spread across a collection of foreign franchises, some of whom are internationals, some of whom have never been internationals, and some of whom have retired from the international game. Consequently, the urge to solidarity would not be the same, which means that some players may opt to collect their hefty paycheques and damn the risks. But whatever ends up happening, ultimately the IPL is a relatively minor affair, given that it is essentially a commercial transaction between a collection of local individuals and foreign businesses.

The Commonwealth Games, though, is a far more sensitive matter, concerning as it does nation-states. This is not about Ricky Ponting and Lalit Modi; it is about Australia and India, the same two countries that have had some testy discussions of late over Melbourne and uranium. For the ACGA to even consider withdrawing its squad would constitute a serious diplomatic affront to the hosts. The Australian government would be praying that the security situation doesn’t deteriorate, because it would be loathe to have to endorse the shunning of a country that has increasing political clout and with which it has growing economic ties.

Nevertheless, it is incumbent on the ACGA to present its security advice clearly and soberly, before making it clear to all potential participants that they are free to make whatever decision they wish. Without the lure of prize money, and with the understanding that many of them have Olympic and world championship competitions to look forward to, the Commonwealth athletes might be more inclined to staying at home than their cricketing cousins. While that would be disappointing, they should be allowed to make up their minds without being pressured by their association, their government or India’s. Sport and politics should be kept separate.

Although he was talking about something slightly different, George Orwell could have had Australia and India in mind when he famously declared sport to be “war minus the shooting”. Let us fervently hope that sport finds a way to triumph over politics and terrorism.
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Less than a month before the Olympics, Australian Story has shed new light on the ‘Lay Down Sally’ incident from the previous games.



Although Sally Robbins declined to be interviewed, the other members of the women’s eight crew who rowed in that infamous Athens final did air their views.

And how revealing those views were, bathing in grey an issue that for many observers had been either black or white. To some, Robbins had acted in an unequivocally gutless and selfish manner, leaving her courageous teammates in the lurch. Others, though, saw her as a little girl lost, who had been shamefully bullied by her supposed friends.

In an earlier article, Sport: The Australian Disease had leaned towards the latter position. Reproaching those who had attacked her- including “members of her crew, who were quick to ostracise the humiliated rower”- Robbins had been held up as “somebody who has always deserved understanding, and even praise.” Her “exceptional discipline and years of sacrifice” had been noted, and her “Olympic spirit” commended. “So when such a person tries their utmost to succeed in the intensely demanding environment of an Olympic final- only to fail- criticism is the last thing they deserve.”

Watching the Australian Story piece, Robbins still appeared to be an innocent victim (or at least a largely innocent victim). But so, too, did the rest of the crew. After all, they could also be credited with “exceptional discipline and years of sacrifice”. If Robbins had collapsed in that final “through no fault of her own”, then the other girls had seen their chances of a medal snatched from them, through no fault of their own. They had spent years and years straining towards, and dreaming of, this one glorious moment, only to watch it vanish in the most incomprehensible of circumstances. One could not help but sympathise with the anguish that they felt, and which most of them still feel. They deserved better.

If Robbins was an innocent victim, and if the rest of the crew were innocent victims, who, then, is to blame? This is where the story becomes complicated. A strong case could be made to put it all down to fate. All the crews competing in that final would have suffered “years of sacrifice”; none of them deserved to fail. But there can only be one winner. Success in sport- just like success in life- is determined by hard work and natural talent, but luck also plays a part. That day, while fate decreed that those three elements would come together for the Romanians, Americans and Dutch, who took out the medals, it deserted the Australians. Such is sport. Such is life.

Yet a strong case could also be made that it was not so much the Gods who were responsible for the ‘Lay Down Sally’ debacle as certain individuals. According to the interviewees on Australian Story, Robbins had suffered up to nine meltdowns in the years prior to Athens. And those meltdowns, it was said, were due not to her endurance or technique, both of which were exemplary, but her mind. For whatever reason, during the climax of several races, at the moment when the rowers had been required to dig deeper than ordinary humans ever have to dig, Robbins had been unable to do so. Her mind had shut down, and her body had followed. Through no fault of her own, she had failed to match her teammates. In the rowing fraternity it was known that when the pressure was at its most intense, Sally Robbins could not be counted on.

Questions therefore need to be asked as to why the coach, Harold Jahrling, and the officials of Rowing Australia chose to count on her. Robbins may have had no less talent than anybody else, Robbins may have worked no less hard than anybody else, Robbins may have made no fewer sacrifices than anybody else, but if she could not be counted on, then logically she shouldn’t have been selected. Rather, her place should have gone to one of the girls who could be counted on- girls who were no more morally entitled to the place, just better qualified.

When Robbins was confronted about her meltdowns, she explained that they were behind her, that next time everything would be fine. A harsh judge might condemn Robbins for these assurances, maintaining that she was putting her own interests ahead of her crew. But could she really have been expected to give an objective answer? For not only was her fortitude being called into question, but so was the very spirit that had made her an elite athlete. Nobody rises to the top of a sport unless they possess fierce self-confidence and an unquenchable sense of competitiveness. So who could be critical that when this particular elite athlete was challenged, she provided a self-confident and competitive response?

As Athens approached, Robbins’s teammates became increasingly nervous. They worried that she might fail- some even claimed that they just knew. However, it was now too late to make any changes. Thanks to a combination of Jahrling and Rowing Australia and Robbins, Australia’s women’s eight crew would be counting on somebody who couldn’t be counted on. They may have been responsible for the debacle that was about to occur, or it may have been fate- but as Australian Story made clear, it hardly mattered. All the sacrifices, all the hard work of that women’s eight crew were soon to come to naught. All of them were innocent victims.
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Do you have an opinion that you’re dying to share? Is there an issue that everybody needs to know about? Are you passionate about writing, and about Australian sport? If so, email Sport: The Australian Disease with your suggestion for an article, and you just might be able to publish it (under your own name) on the website!
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Earlier in the week, Sally Robbins fielded questions from the press, after learning that she had not been selected in the Australian rowing squad for the upcoming Olympic Games.

Predictably, though, the focus was on the dramatic events of four years earlier, when ‘Lay Down Sally’ abruptly stopped rowing towards the end of the women’s eights final at the Athens Olympics. How was it, the journalists wanted to know, that she had collapsed in such spectacular fashion


[ Click here to read more ]
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