Asides

Steve Prefontaine: Work of art

“A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they’re capable of understanding.”

—Steve Prefontaine.

Sanjay Manjrekar: Tipping

“The strong tipping culture in America can be unsettling for outsiders, but you see the sense of it after a while. It really is a ‘performance incentive scheme’ for their staff. Basic salary is average; but if you serve your customers well, make them happy, you take home a good salary.”

—Sanjay Manjrekar.

Henry Blofeld: Cricket

“One-day cricket is an exhibition. Test cricket is an examination.”
—Henry Blofeld.

Sadiq Khan: Stick with it

“There is a calmness and focus running brings, and it’s not just beneficial for physical health, but mental health too. Stick with it and it can change your life.” – Sadiq Khan, runner and mayor of London.

Robert Pirsig: Equilibrium

“If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in a equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.” – Robert Pirsig, author and philosopher.

Dr. George Sheehan: Everyone’s an athlete

“Everyone’s an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not.”
—Dr. George Sheehan, physician, author, and runner.

Ashwini Nachappa: Inherent

​”Love for sport is inherent in a child. All we need to do is to nurture it and give it wings. And, for this we need to understand that the mind is not devoid of the body. They work best with each other.” 

—Ashwini Nachappa. 

Ashwini Nachappa: Happy by-product

“An Olympic medal is a happy by-product of a purposefully designed programme that begins in school. Starting, therefore, with an objective of winning medals is holding the wrong end of the stick. By thinking about winning medals first, we will never build a system that naturally and continually throws up great athletes.”

—Ashwini Nachappa.

Tim Bresnan: What he said, really meant and definitely didn’t

What he said:

“In the past five or six years we’ve just done it like a Chinese parliament.”

Tim Bresnan, former England seamer, reacts to his appointment as vice-captain of Yorkshire’s country cricket side.

Yorkshire have not had a deputy leader  for a few seasons now.

Former captain, Andrew Gale, is the current coach and Gary Ballance the newly appointed skipper.

Bresnan said:

“Gary phoned me and said, ‘I’ve got to ask you something, mate, would you be vice-captain for me?’

And I was like, ‘Yes, I’m over the moon’.

It was a bit of a shock because we haven’t really named one over the past few years; it just came out of the blue.

I never even thought that Gaz would be having one.

It does make sense, though, if he gets called up for internationals.

I’m immensely proud, and it will be great to work with him and Galey. I’ll just do whatever is required of me.

Pretty much everyone in the team is in the senior leadership group as it is.

In the past five or six years, we’ve basically just done it like a Chinese parliament.

We’ve talked through anything that was going wrong and how we were going to improve as a collective, and we’ve done everything as a group really.

There’s never been any sort of group within that which has sat down separately to discuss things.”

What he really meant:

“Yes, we ran the side based on consensual authority with collective responsibility. That’s how Parliament works, doesn’t it? And we had no real opposition, hence, we’re obviously Chinese.”

What he definitely didn’t:

“I guess I’m Mike Pence to Yorkshire’s Ballance. That Trumps it all, doesn’t it?”

Tim Bresnan playing for Yorkshire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Vice Captain Sports logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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All-Williams and Fedal: Stuff of dreams, embellishment of legends

Would you have believed it, dreamt it, envisioned it? Yet, we can savour it—the stuff of dreams, the embellishments of legends—another glorious chapter in the annals of tennis history.

A fitting ending to two momentous occasions—nostalgic yet novel.

An all-Williams final that culminated in Serena’s 23rd singles Grand Slam win and a Fedal encounter lasting a pulsating five sets that saw Federer reverse his hoodoo against his younger opponent Nadal equalling Jack Nicklaus’ golfing record of 18 Slams.

Roger ‘Tiger’ Federer, take a bow while Serena pirouettes with her trophy.

Vamos, Rafa, see you at Roland Garros, hopefully biting into the silverware.