TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLANDthe times | Saturday December 18 2021 1GS 23
Sport
Walkden was on course for a shot at a gold medal when a last-second head kick by Lee left her
in despair on the floor, inset. The Briton’s response was impressive, refusing to seek sympathyDignity in
defeat wins
Bianca my
2021 award
Owen Slot
Chief Sports Writer
(EHF), in its wisdom, declared the
shorts as “improper clothing” and
issued a four-figure fine.
Thankfully the rebels won. The
support they received went global as
was the criticism levelled at the EHF,
who eventually changed the dress
code. One small step for womankind
and all that.International Personality
Shohei Ohtani
On a Sports Illustrated cover shot in
October, Shohei Ohtani was hailed
with the following: “He’s not the new
Babe Ruth. He’s more amazing than
that.” Ohtani is a Japanese baseball
player with the Los Angeles Angels.
He is extraordinary because he can
hit and he can pitch — in other
words, he is like Ben Stokes, but he
plays in a sport that encourages either
one skillset or the other, not both.
He is breaking records and
baseball’s commissioner, Rob
Manfred, described him as
“historically significant.” Sports
Illustrated, however, plumped for Tom
Brady as its Sportsperson of the Year.
Many saw this as a three-way contest
between Brady, Ohtani and Giannis
Antetokounmpo, the Greek basketball
player who led the Milwaukee Bucks
to their first NBA title in 50 years —
in other words a popularity contest
between a Japanese, a Greek and an
all-American hero. Perhaps an easy
decision if you are selling magazines
but, at a a time of rising nationalism,
we should celebrate a very
international superstar.W
hen the BBC Sports
Personality of the
Year show gets its
annual outing
tomorrow night, the
most predictable element of it is that
at some point, the media will be
ripping into it. Social media will go
first, of course, because social media
can’t wait to unzip itself and urinate
upon a new unsuspecting victim.
I’ll just declare it here: I like it. I like
highlights, I like feelgood, I don’t
mind too much schmaltz and I don’t
mind too much that we don’t always
get the winner right because surely
we understand that these popularity
contests shouldn’t be taken too
seriously and the outcome always
tells a story in itself — how come
Chris Froome (four-times Tour de
France winner) never once made the
top three? Why does that British
squash champ not get more air-
time? How come Greg Rusedski is
a winner and Jessica Ennis-
Hill never? And wouldn’t
it have been wonderful
if the 1982 runner-up
Alex Higgins had won
it? (Daley Thompson
did).
It’s not even a
particularly British
thing to declare an
end-of-year
winner and then
have everyone pile on. Time
magazine announced its
own Athlete of the Year last
week and, given that the
winner was an Olympian
who didn’t actually win
gold — Simone
Biles — it
triggered an
instantly divided
response. Like they
didn’t see that
coming.
In the US, Sports
Illustrated’s Sportsperson of
the Year is generally
regarded as the ultimate
end-of-year recognition.
This is not supposed to be
eligible solely to Americans
but, given that the
magazine sells almost
entirely in the United
States, would you believe it
is almost always an
American who wins it. Usain Bolt has
never won. The last non-American to
win it outright was Wayne Gretzky
(1982); you have to go back to 1954 for
the only British winner, Sir Roger
Bannister.
So fully understanding that these
things are all about entertainment,
viewing figures, magazine circulations
etc, here are my contenders that are
almost certainly not going to be
contending on Spoty tomorrow.
And they don’t include any
British squash champions
because it’s Egypt that
cleans up at squash these
days.Sports Personality
of the Year
Bianca Walkden
The way Time
magazine sees it,
you don’t have
to be a winner
to be a winner.
That’s a debate to be
had, for starters. It also
sounds like a
stereotypically British
take on success: the
nation apparently
prefers Lewis
Hamilton when he
finishes second, and
we voted Rusedski as
Spoty winner when he
was a tennis major
runner-up (US Open
1997). Yet it does allow
the rewarding of
behaviours that don’t
necessarily lead to gold
medals.
In the special Time
category of winners who
didn’t win, my nomination is
Bianca Walkden, a Tokyo
taekwondo bronze-medallist.
Walkden already had a bronze
from Rio, she is also a three-times
world champion and she arrived at
Tokyo ranked No 1, so this seemed as
if it would be her crowning moment.
She was leading her semi-final by
two points until the last second.
Literally the last second. That was
when Lee Da-bin, of South Korea,
flicked out a left foot which
connected with the side of Walkden’s
headguard to record a three-point hit.
Walkden lay face down in the
arena, absorbing her defeat. She didn’t
want to come back out for the
bronze-medal match (she did, she
won it) but explained later that shehad just wanted
to hold her head
high. Even with
bronze, she said “I feel a
bit dead inside; it’s killing me.” Yet she
didn’t seek sympathy: “I got another
Olympic medal. I might paint it when
I get home, no one has to know.” And
then she started talking about making
amends at the next Olympics.
Everything about the way she
conducted herself was impressive. A
significant triumph, indeed, whatever
the medal.Runner-up
Mark Bright
Bright is a 43-year-old rugby player
and plays No 8 for Richmond. In
other words, he is three years older
than the oldest player ever to have
played in the Premiership. He doesn’t
avoid the heavy-duty work because
he is a ball-carrier, and it is not as if
he is just about hanging in there
because he is the top-scorer in the
Greene King IPA Championship. He
manages to avoid the worst collisions
because he still has dainty footwork
and he somehow reinvents himself as
a sevens player in the summer.
OK, this is an inside job. Bright is at
my club. But the pandemic
underscored everything that we
missed and that he is about: a sheer
undying love of the game.Team of the Year
Lewes FC
Four years ago, Lewes announced
gender equality in the club where thewomen’s team players would be paid
as much as the men, plus equal
resources going on coaching, match
preparation, the lot.
People said it wouldn’t work. It
does. Early whingers questioned
whether equal funding meant robbing
the men to level up the women (yup,
like that’s wrong) but the adjustment
just opened up new revenue streams
and both sides are now better funded,
and performing well on the pitch.
You might have thought that other
clubs would follow but in four years,
only nearby Hastings have matched
them. This year, Lewes signed their
biggest ever endorsement, a six-figure
deal with Lyle & Scott, and still no
one follows.
Lewes do not see their role as
finger-wagging evangelists but if the
progress of their two teams isn’t the
crowning glory of their 2021, their
latest advertising campaign is. It
shows the club’s three ethical pillars:
equal pay across men and women,
100 per cent fan ownership and no
betting advertising. To each pledge,
the message, loud and clear, is: “It’s
about bloody time.”Runner-up
Norway’s women’s beach
handball team
This sounds like a story dug up from
the archives but, genuinely, last
summer, it was considered a
rebellious move when this team
turned out wearing tight shorts rather
than regulation bikini bottoms. The
European Handball Federationdmorrow.
ny
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alsoallyBritishhhad ju
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bbbbronze, she sai
bitdeadinside;it’skillingmOhtani is breaking records
in baseball with his ability
as a pitcher and a hitter *