1.If sport is primarily about escape, it is about familiarity too. The rules of a game provide the structure and there is comfort in escaping in this orderly fashion.
We make it all part of the ceremony. We call what takes place beforehand pre-match rituals, marking them out as observances that prepare us for what is coming next.
PA Wire / Press Association Images
PA Wire / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
And then we incorporate them into the rhythms of our own life, creating a shape beyond the game which sometimes takes on as profound a meaning.
For some, it will because we did these things as children. We went to the match with our father or mother holding our hand, which in itself provided another layer of comfort and safety, another sense that this is a place where we can escape and belong simultaneously. Sometimes we try and preserve these rituals when we go alone or without the people who at one time we thought would be a constant in our lives.
When Offaly won the All-Ireland for the first time in 1981, my uncle Jimmy turned to my mother and me and, with tears in his eyes, said, “I have to go now.”
2. Soon there were flattering articles in national newspapers – as well as substantial amounts raised for charity – while his book, Marathon Man, was published in April. In it Young explained that he had learnt to block out pain after enduring horrific abuse from his father as a child, including having a nail hammered through his foot and being zipped in a suitcase and pushed down the stairs.
EMPICS Sport
EMPICS Sport
There was another painful chapter to come. In May Young began his greatest feat yet: an attempt on the Trans America record. To succeed he had to run around 60 miles a day for 46 days. But 34 days and 2,000 miles later his adventure ended in an emergency room in Indianapolis. He was exhausted, had a fractured toe and was suffering from cellulitis, a painful bacteria skin infection. But his torture was not over.
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During his record attempt Young had been accused of cheating.
Robert Young’s attempted ultra-running accomplishments generated headlines across America, but as The Guardian’s Sean Ingle tells, his sponsors set a rare example as claims of cheating surfaced.
3.International football was faced with a unique set of circumstances, which had sparked a heated debate that went much deeper. It became a matter of nationality, identity and belonging, while asking important questions about the refugee experience: Who are you, and who do you truly belong to?
Bunjaki had been in the centre of this political maelstrom, and yet even he’d had no idea what his team would be until the very last moment, nor how they would play. The first time he saw them all train together was a few days before the Finland match.
AP / Press Association Images
AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
They were ranked as one of the worst teams in the world by FIFA. Would they be the whipping boys of the group, or would they become more than the sum of their parts, driven by something bigger even than the World Cup, hosted in a country that still refuses to recognise them?
The referee blew his whistle. Bunjaki and the rest of the world were about to find out.
James Montague from Bleacher Report looks at the hurdles the self-declared independent nation Kosovo had to overcome to become a Fifa member.
4.Goalkeeping is primarily a mental game, fuelled by confidence and polished by game time. Any player feeds off that same template of preparation but goalkeeping is not any position.
The word was that the decision was only made late in the week, that Hennelly was told on Thursday that he was starting. Players have often flourished on the big stage after being told much closer to the throw-in but in a trade often defined by milliseconds, a goalkeeper needs more time than most to mentally prepare for what’s coming.
Hennelly was being warmed up late in the drawn game but that seemed to be for a potential long-range free.
That is a whole different mentality from being pitched into the main battle. Just think of the mental strength required of Hennelly?
Without game time, he could not have been feeling as sharp as he would have liked. Consequently, his confidence would not have been at the same high level Hennelly would have wanted. The pressure was ramped up even more given how well David Clarke was playing.
Robbie Hennelly faced an enormous task in the All-Ireland final replay, according to Christy O’Connor of The Times, but he believes the goalkeeper will bounce back.
5.There is a strange thing we do in America, and while the phenomenon has repeatedly been explained away with peppy-yet-cliched responses, a legitimate reasoning seems hard to come by.
Namely: What’s the deal with our irrational loathing of professional athletes?
If one considers it from a base level, the whole thing makes little sense. These are not (generally) people who have committed murder, or embezzlement, or armed robbery. They have not made your dough vanish in some Ponzi scheme, or insulted your mother’s breath on social media, or spit in your pumpkin spice latte, or clogged your toilet.
AP / Press Association Images
AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
No, a professional athlete is merely a man or woman with advanced physical skills who performs on a high level while wearing glorified pajamas. He or she is paid a substantial amount of money to utilize those talents in front of large crowds in a region that (with rare exception) has little connection to their upbringing or development.
Jeff Pearlman from Bleacher Report provides five reasons reasons why you really hate NFL quarterback Tom Brady.
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Reasons to hate Tom Brady, Kosovo's troubles and all the week's best sportswriting
1. If sport is primarily about escape, it is about familiarity too. The rules of a game provide the structure and there is comfort in escaping in this orderly fashion.
We make it all part of the ceremony. We call what takes place beforehand pre-match rituals, marking them out as observances that prepare us for what is coming next.
And then we incorporate them into the rhythms of our own life, creating a shape beyond the game which sometimes takes on as profound a meaning.
For some, it will because we did these things as children. We went to the match with our father or mother holding our hand, which in itself provided another layer of comfort and safety, another sense that this is a place where we can escape and belong simultaneously. Sometimes we try and preserve these rituals when we go alone or without the people who at one time we thought would be a constant in our lives.
When Offaly won the All-Ireland for the first time in 1981, my uncle Jimmy turned to my mother and me and, with tears in his eyes, said, “I have to go now.”
SportsJoe’s Dion Fanning reflects on what he has learned from a summer covering GAA.
2. Soon there were flattering articles in national newspapers – as well as substantial amounts raised for charity – while his book, Marathon Man, was published in April. In it Young explained that he had learnt to block out pain after enduring horrific abuse from his father as a child, including having a nail hammered through his foot and being zipped in a suitcase and pushed down the stairs.
There was another painful chapter to come. In May Young began his greatest feat yet: an attempt on the Trans America record. To succeed he had to run around 60 miles a day for 46 days. But 34 days and 2,000 miles later his adventure ended in an emergency room in Indianapolis. He was exhausted, had a fractured toe and was suffering from cellulitis, a painful bacteria skin infection. But his torture was not over.
During his record attempt Young had been accused of cheating.
Robert Young’s attempted ultra-running accomplishments generated headlines across America, but as The Guardian’s Sean Ingle tells, his sponsors set a rare example as claims of cheating surfaced.
3. International football was faced with a unique set of circumstances, which had sparked a heated debate that went much deeper. It became a matter of nationality, identity and belonging, while asking important questions about the refugee experience: Who are you, and who do you truly belong to?
Bunjaki had been in the centre of this political maelstrom, and yet even he’d had no idea what his team would be until the very last moment, nor how they would play. The first time he saw them all train together was a few days before the Finland match.
They were ranked as one of the worst teams in the world by FIFA. Would they be the whipping boys of the group, or would they become more than the sum of their parts, driven by something bigger even than the World Cup, hosted in a country that still refuses to recognise them?
The referee blew his whistle. Bunjaki and the rest of the world were about to find out.
James Montague from Bleacher Report looks at the hurdles the self-declared independent nation Kosovo had to overcome to become a Fifa member.
4. Goalkeeping is primarily a mental game, fuelled by confidence and polished by game time. Any player feeds off that same template of preparation but goalkeeping is not any position.
The word was that the decision was only made late in the week, that Hennelly was told on Thursday that he was starting. Players have often flourished on the big stage after being told much closer to the throw-in but in a trade often defined by milliseconds, a goalkeeper needs more time than most to mentally prepare for what’s coming.
Hennelly was being warmed up late in the drawn game but that seemed to be for a potential long-range free.
That is a whole different mentality from being pitched into the main battle. Just think of the mental strength required of Hennelly?
Without game time, he could not have been feeling as sharp as he would have liked. Consequently, his confidence would not have been at the same high level Hennelly would have wanted. The pressure was ramped up even more given how well David Clarke was playing.
Robbie Hennelly faced an enormous task in the All-Ireland final replay, according to Christy O’Connor of The Times, but he believes the goalkeeper will bounce back.
5. There is a strange thing we do in America, and while the phenomenon has repeatedly been explained away with peppy-yet-cliched responses, a legitimate reasoning seems hard to come by.
Namely: What’s the deal with our irrational loathing of professional athletes?
If one considers it from a base level, the whole thing makes little sense. These are not (generally) people who have committed murder, or embezzlement, or armed robbery. They have not made your dough vanish in some Ponzi scheme, or insulted your mother’s breath on social media, or spit in your pumpkin spice latte, or clogged your toilet.
No, a professional athlete is merely a man or woman with advanced physical skills who performs on a high level while wearing glorified pajamas. He or she is paid a substantial amount of money to utilize those talents in front of large crowds in a region that (with rare exception) has little connection to their upbringing or development.
Jeff Pearlman from Bleacher Report provides five reasons reasons why you really hate NFL quarterback Tom Brady.
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
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