Does Sports really have glory?

It has always been the place where we push ourselves to the limit and try doing our best and making our country proud. Yes there is an element of national pride involved. Preparation, breakthrough in sports sciences and equipments and even the cordial interview just like the before the bout weigh in. Sports are more commercialised. There’s more money involved with all the dealings and sponsorships. There has also been the opening up in mentality that sport can be a job and that it can be a bread winner. More kids are getting pushed in that direction.

But even though there has been development, there is still the ugly side of it. There is doping, cheating, clubs being held ransom, players being tapped up. But there is also selfishness.

Usain Bolt achieved something that has either been never done or not done in 2 decades. He is the first man to have successfully won the 2 sprint events of the 100m and 200m dash at a single Olympics event since Carl Lewis. He is the first man to have won both sprint events in world record time. The problem? Michael Johnson.

He held the 200m world record that Usain Bolt broke last night. What were his thoughts on the best sprint athlete probably ever before the race? “He [Usain Bolt] will never be able to break my record”. Now honestly that’s not very nice now is it? How can a man who has held the record for more than a decade and gone through similar training that is gruelling and punishing just to see himself do well say something to someone who has done the same?

Records are meant to be broken. Athletes of yesteryear are meant to reminisce on their achievements and records and always rejoice when the younger ones do one better. Carl Lewis was all praise for the man who gave it his all just so that he could prove he was the best sprint athlete. Carl Spitz was absolutely happy to know that his demigod like record was under attack by a particularly talented swimmer from Baltimore by the name of Phelps. There have been other greats like Asafa powell, Ian Thorpe, Van Den Hoogendband and even they credit the new juggernauts of the sporting world.

So how can a great like Michael Johnson, from whom nobody can take his accolade from, say something that is so reminiscent of a schoolboy not willing to give his toy up and is pulling on it to prevent so. Sports was never about bragging ones achievements pass a certain time and to have someone say that he will never be beaten is idealistically what the sportsman should say. But seriously speaking, we are humans more than we are sportsmen. It has always been this humanity that has always put sports as the precision equipment to bring out the best in us.

Nevertheless, there is a new sprint king around and lightning bolts do hit the same place twice.