Sporty
This an enthralling week end for sports with the Open Championships, Tour de France and the Ashes, where England lead - lead! - Australia, who is down and out at 128 for five chasing a record-setting 522, now needing only another 209 runs to deny England her first Ashes victory at Lord's for over 75 years and strike a psychological blow so huge that Andrew Strauss's team would unlikely recover. Ever. But the real blow came when 59-year old Tom Watson failed to par on the 18th hole and so completing arguably the greatest victory achievement in sporting history. Ever ever. As far as my simple research shows, nobody has ever won a global sporting contest over age 50 - George Forman was 45 when he took the heavy weight belt in '94; Bobby Allison won the Indianapolis 500 at 49 in '87; Dara Torres 40 when she won her 15th national swimming title and set an American record in the 50-meter freestyle in 2007. Antoini Cichonczuk, 58 and from Poland, ran a 2:45 marathon to win the 2008 Malmo Marathon but whose ever heard of that? (pssst Sweden) Instead, Watson missed a 5-foot putt which he can do with his eyes closed (like MJ taking free-throws). The Open went into a four-hole tie-breaker with fellow American Stewart Cink, and Watson lost by six strokes. Tough break for him and all of us watching. And finally there is Lance, who is second to Alberto Contador in the Alpine stages, now heading into the final week of Le Tour. Armstrong is 38 to his rival's 26. The thing is, every summer there are one or two days when the entire country focused on their team or an athlete. Usually it is England football but other sports too - like athletics or golf. It unifies the nation somehow. The only time I have felt similar in the US was the '80 Olympics ice hockey where an amateur American team defeated the professional Russians during the Cold War. Now that was drama. So all of us arm-chair, beer drinking officiados read the Daily Mail or Sun with an extra close eye towards our neighbor's opinion. For today, sport trumps the weather as the national neutral awkward-silence-breaking conversation set piece. Amen, brother.
“A lot of guys who have never choked have never been in the position to do so.”
--Tom Watson (I love this quote)
