24 May 29, 2022The Sunday Times
Sport
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[email protected]. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail [email protected]David
Walsh
While there are usually
better places to look for
real heroics than
sport, Oleksandr
Zinchenko and
Steve Kerr gave us
valuable lessons
in perspective
last week
And I thought to myself, ‘OK, I’ve got
to bail Michael out again.’ ”
On Tuesday, hours after the 18-
year-old gunman Salvador Ramos
had shot dead 19 pupils and two
teachers at Robb Elementary School
in Texas, Kerr was due to hold an NBA
press conference at which he would
discuss his team’s chances of
clinching a place in the play-off finals.
Kerr started by saying all questions
about basketball were irrelevant.
Instead he talked movingly and
passionately about the tragedy in
Texas. “When are we going to do
something?” he said, slamming his
fists on the table. “I’m tired. I am so
tired of getting up here and offering
condolences to the devastated
families that are out there. I am tired
of the moments of silence. Enough!”
He talked about HR8, a bill that
would tighten background checks on
those seeking to buy firearms. The
bill passed in the US House of
Representatives in early 2021 but has
never reached the Senate floor.
“There’s a reason why they won’t
vote on it,” Kerr said. “[It is] to hold
on to power. I ask you: are you going
to put your own desire for power
ahead of the lives of our children and
our elderly and our churchgoers?
Because that’s what it looks like.”
Before getting up and leaving, Kerr
said: “I’m fed up. I’ve had enough.
We can’t get numb to this. We can’t sit
here and just read about it and go,
well, let’s have a moment of silence.”
Kerr was 18 when his father, Malcolm,
then president of the American
University of Beirut, was assassinated
by a gunman in 1984. He has long
been an outspoken advocate for
better gun controls in the US.
In their different ways, Zinchenko
and Kerr reminded us of what is
important.Silence speaks
volumes...
ECB is on a
sticky wicket
with Brailsford
There’s a man who works for Ineos
Grenadiers. We’ve known each
other for ten years, first during his
time with Team Sky and then with
Ineos. He had a view that was worth
hearing and, though he was old
school, I liked the way he saw the
riders as human beings. And he was
reliable. Whenever you called or
messaged, he responded.
That ended this year. Phone calls
and text messages drew a blank.
The last message asked what was
up, why the radio silence? Again,
nothing. I get it. His boss is Sir Dave
Brailsford and there is a price to be
paid for publicly asking how Sir
Andrew Strauss, chairman of the
ECB’s cricket committee, could
think it OK to invite Brailsford to sit
on an advisory panel that will help
to shape the future of the game in
England and Wales.
The silence from my old mate
followed on from a column I’d
written about Brailsford’s potential
involvement with cricket.
It is just wrong. Brailsford was
boss of Team Sky and Team GB
when the lead doctor, Richard
Freeman, appointed by Brailsford,
ordered testosterone sachets to be
delivered to the national cycling
centre in Manchester. Five years
ago I was told by Dr Steve Peters,
then the head of medical at Team
Sky and Team GB, that Brailsford
didn’t know about the testosterone
and he, Peters, then didn’t tell him
when it came to light.
Really?
That’s only one question. There
was also the team decision to seek
therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs)
that allowed Bradley Wiggins to be
injected with a powerful
corticosteroid before the Tour de
France in 2011 and 2012 and the
2013 Giro d’Italia. Before Sky,
Wiggins had ridden for the Garmin
team. Their doctor, Prentice
Steffen, said they never considered
applying for a TUE for Wiggins,
presumably because they didn’t see
the therapeutic need.
Neither has Brailsford ever
satisfactorily explained the mystery
of the Jiffy bag delivered to
Dr Freeman at the 2011 Critérium
du Dauphiné. Why were so many
untruths uttered before the team
finally remembered that it was just
fluimucil, an over-the-counter
medication? I would like to believe
that Strauss grilled Brailsford on all
these questions and received
answers that were far more
convincing than what we’ve already
heard. But I doubt it.
Dr Freeman was struck off by the
General Medical Council and he
remains the only person held to
account for many wrongs. That is
just plain wrong.
But good luck to cricket with its
new signing.I
have never been one for sporting
heroes. People born with a gift
for smacking a football into the
top corner bring joy to our lives
but what they do is not heroic.
We can admire the skill, the
discipline, the intelligence,
sometimes even the selflessness.
But for the heroic, there are better
places to look. Last weekend,
though, put this view to the test.
It began with Oleksandr
Zinchenko’s performance for
Manchester City, both on the pitch
and then in a post-match interview.
Zinchenko was sent on at the start of
the second half and just knew what
the team needed: more energy and
greater intensity. More than any
player in a sky blue shirt, Zinchenko
set the tone for the comeback that
would follow.
Through the first period he hadn’t
just sat on that bench, he’d analysed
the game and picked up on what the
team needed. Given the chance in the
second half, he went on and
delivered it. It was appropriate that
he should have provided the pass
that allowed Rodri to score City’s
second goal.
In the lead-up to the goal,
Zinchenko, faced by Emiliano
Buendía, did a lightning-quick
stepover and then left the Argentina
player for dead. Buen día, Emiliano!
It was a classy moment and then
matched by what followed in a post-
match interview. Out on the pitch,
among all the celebrating players,
someone had passed the Ukrainian
flag to the full back, who wrapped it
around his shoulders. Then his
shoulders shook and tears flowed.
Using the flag as a towel, he tried to
push them back.
One by one, City players came to
comfort him. Jack Grealish put anarm around him, Rúben Dias held the
back of his neck, Rodri kissed him on
the head, João Cancelo held his head.
When the tears had dried, Zinchenko
spoke with the Sky Sports
interviewer Geoff Shreeves. Their
chat was never going to be about
football.
“It’s unforgettable emotions for
me,” Zinchenko said, “for all
Ukrainians who are starving, [ just
about] surviving in my country
because of Russian aggression. I am
so proud to be Ukrainian and I would
love to one day bring this title to
Ukraine, for all Ukrainian people,
because they deserve it.”
Towards the end of the interview
Shreeves told Zinchenko that he had
done his country proud and then a
strange thing happened. The
footballer looked his interviewer in
the eye and said: “Thank you, thank
you so much.” People will have their
memories of that dramatic game:
Ilkay Gundogan’s goals, Raheem
Sterling’s cross, Kevin De Bruyne’s
cross. For me it will always be
Zinchenko’s game.
Another man went up in my
estimation last week. Steve Kerr. Now
the head coach of Golden State
Warriors in the NBA, Kerr was one of
the stars of Netflix’s outstanding
documentary The Last Dance, which
told the story of Michael Jordan’s
career with the Chicago Bulls. In the
mid-1990s, Kerr was one of Jordan’s
team-mates. At a training camp soon
after Kerr joined in 1995, he was
marking Jordan when things got out
of hand. “He’s talking all kinds of
trash,” Kerr said. “I have a lot of
patience but when I snap, I snap. I am
extremely competitive, just not really
good enough to back it up. I’m not
going to beat anybody but I will fight
every time. I knew I was the worstathlete on the floor and the only way I
could compete was to fight and scrap
and claw.”
Jordan recalled the moment thus:
“He hauls off and hits me on the
chest, and I haul off and hit him in the
f***ing eye and Phil [head coach,
Jackson] throws me out of practice.”
As you’d imagine, Kerr’s refusal to
back down earned Jordan’s respect
and it underpinned the defining
moment in Kerr’s career with the
Bulls. The team called a time-out 25
seconds from the end of the sixth
game against Utah Jazz at the 1997
NBA finals. Jordan knew he was going
to be closely marked and told Kerr he
would look for him. “I’ll be ready,”
Kerr replied.That’s how it played out. Double-
teamed by the Jazz, Jordan feigned to
shoot before passing back to the
unmarked Kerr. And the self-
confessed “worst athlete on the
team” made the basket.
I loved Kerr’s recollection of the
moment, recounted at the Bulls’
public celebration in Chicago. “A lot
of people have been asking about the
shot the other night because there are
a lot of misconceptions about it.
Coach Phil said, ‘Michael, I want you
to take the last shot,’ and Michael
said, ‘Phil, you know I don’t feel
comfortable in these situations.
Maybe we ought to go in another
direction. Why don’t we go to Steve?’Someone passed
the Ukrainian flag to
the full back. Then
his shoulders shook
and tears flowed
It seemed
appropriate
Zinchenko
laid on the
second goalTOM FLATHERS/GETTY IMAGES*