Spanish empire conquering world of sports - USA Today

[roundabout]

As long as it substitutes war trenches for sports arenas, you couldn't have enough folk taking sports as the rallying flag, if you'd ask me. Just be grateful that we had ice hockey during the cold war. If the 1980s "miracle on ice" head to head were the most painful direct shots fired in anger, we weren't doing too bad, given the alternative.

Call me funny, but I actually think that strongly identifying with sport accomplishments of "your tribe" is just about the most healthy release valve there is for tribal tension. When the Dutch football team finally beat Germany en-route to the European Cup, more scars were healed that day than all the other efforts combined. After that, we didn't even mind Germany finally dared to wave its flag prouder too (quite rightly so).

And several "tribes" have shown over and over that they can be utterly graceful in defeat too.

I also think, in general, that tribes are a good thing, within reason. A common identity is essential human glue. If you can get yourself to think about the human tribe only, even better.

I want folk to celebrate their wins, especially if it means that much to them.

BTW, in sports, a cluster of good results is a far more likely occurrence than an even spread. With or without doping. Spain became a very different nation after Franco. Part of it is catching up to "expected levels", part of it is some superb schools of excellence, part of is doping no doubt, and quite possibly "official bodies willing to look the other way a bit". Which makes them pretty normal by my standards.

Now, which other "more sporting" nations can we name where it took external intervention by non-sport bodies (or insider whistle-blowers who knew damn well where the official route was gonna end up), before some pretty smelly national heroes were finally given a good scrubbing?

Here's the rock. Feel free to pick it up if you think your own sporting bodies were always super-keen to oust your rallying flags....

I'm Dutch, I can't.

It's people like you that are the problem. Period. All the talk about the human tribe is wishy-washy apologist claptrap. Your only argument of value is that it's not war. Should have really stopped there. Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain i'm not really the kind of person who needs to endure yet another one of your long-winded lectures about something you have little idea about despite the length of your posts.

Funny you should mention 1980 without mentioning the two Olympic boycotts of the 80's. If that wasn't a sign of sport being merely an extention of prevailing politics than i don't know what was.

As for identification with sport accomplishments of the "tribe" i say **** you. I don't know and frankly don't give a flying **** whether the "tribe" that was supported by football fans that actually attacked me won or lost. It certainly was by no means healthy.

As for celebrating wins, they can never mean so much that actual sport takes a backseat to something that it ideally should be above. Also it should never mean that much that people become devoid of critical thinking.

BTW your final couple of paragraphs inadvertently highlight the problem with your ludicrous idea that people should embrace sporting achievements with sportsmen reaching the sort of status that makes them holy livestock, national heroes and thus earning protection from their national bodies.

 

[Francois the Postman]

And Francois, if there was any Cold War melting through hockey shouldn't we be looking at the 1972 series - and not the 1980 Lake Placid thing? Dave.

Possibly. All I remember from that year was Ard Schenk winning 3 gold medals. Apart from speed skating "we" Dutchies don't do much Olympic Winter stuff.

 

[Francois the Postman]

It's people like you that are the problem. Period. All the talk about the human tribe is wishy-washy apologist claptrap. Your only argument of value is that it's not war. Should have really stopped there. Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain i'm not really the kind of person who needs to endure yet another one of your long-winded lectures about something you have little idea about despite the length of your posts.

We agree that it is people. Which underlies all I wrote.

I wasn't talking about the cold war or folk behind the iron curtain per se. I mentioned one example that touched upon it.

And one of that people ingredient is that we are tribal. Some folk care about their family tribe, some people think we are all in the same boat, a human tribe. Most folk have combinations of these to various degrees. Not sure what apologist clap-trap you see, it is merely an observation, using words to describe a concept.

Funny you should mention 1980 without mentioning the two Olympic boycotts of the 80's. If that wasn't a sign of sport being merely an extention of prevailing politics than i don't know what was.

Nope, we disagree. It is an example that sport can be an extension of politics, especially in exceptional circumstances. Which is the 80s Olympics in a nutshell. Not "sports" as a whole, through the ages. far from it.

As for identification with sport accomplishments of the "tribe" i say **** you. I don't know and frankly don't give a flying **** whether the "tribe" that was supported by football fans that actually attacked me won or lost. It certainly was by no means healthy.

That's screwed up people, not "sport". I suspect that someone would have been beaten up by the same folk over something else, if it wasn't sport. That doesn't mean I am not sorry to hear you got a trouncing you didn't deserve.

As for celebrating wins, they can never mean so much that actual sport takes a backseat to something that it ideally should be above. Also it should never mean that much that people become devoid of critical thinking.

WTF? Am I suddenly arguing that people shouldn't be critically thinking? Or that sport matters most than the important things in life? Hmm, I think I am gonna drop out quickly if you take my writing in that direction. Argue about what I write, not what you make of it.

BTW your final couple of paragraphs inadvertently highlight the problem with your ludicrous idea that people should embrace sporting achievements with sportsmen reaching the sort of status that makes them holy livestock, national heroes and thus earning protection from their national bodies.

Nope, I didn't do any of those things. I said that people "do" embrace sporting achievements. Not that they "should". And you and Hitch and Orwell can argue all you want, the real world is firmly in that camp. Like it or not.

And to be frank, I welcome it there. I see lots of folk thoroughly enjoying it there. Good for them.

And yes, it probably does highlight why national bodies tend to look a bit protective to their own heroes. Again, that's an observation, not something I condone as such, let alone "promote".

But where I strongly disagree is that sport is the cause bad things, rather than the cause of good things. I wrote all my clap-trap just for that.

 

[The Hitch]

Which is pretty much why no-one is making that argument, but it's the sticking point you keep coming back to.

Sport has a function in society that you completely ignore in your pov. It is a rallying point for tribal impulses that we all have. And if we are gonna rally for something, there are infinitely worse things to rally to than the sporting arena.



No, I said that sports can be a place where certain tensions can be (and are) played out so we don't need to settle all of it in trenches.

I keep saying it is healthy release valve. I don't claim it lets all air out, nor do I suggest it takes away the source of tensions.

So I didn't say they "settle" things, on the whole, although I do propose that sport events have given a form of "closure" to lingering grievances held by those that were wronged. Finally beating the "arch enemy" in football is but one of those occasions.

Simply hosting mayor sport events is often seen by those that feel marginalised as recognition of their worth. You can argue all you want about the things that the World Cup in SA didn't address, it was experienced as an "arrival of sorts" by many South Africans (and "wider" Africans), a recognition that they felt they were long due.

It might not be as substantial as I'd like it to be, but we are emotional creatures, and if "they" experience it that way, it can only help with their confidence and self-image. Which again feeds other areas.

Apart from that, that Mandela moment does cement a change in South Africa that has taken place, and will be proudly remembered as such. There are many "underdogs" that look back proudly at their first global recognition of their arrival, or the first time they got their own back on their arch-rival. And often, it is sports that enables this type of "popular" experience.

And the sports arena gives a stage to aspiring Davids who go straight to Goliath's front door and knock it down. Images generated by individuals that have become symbols that are recognized the world over. The gesture of a few black US athletes on the Olympic stage. The two fingers up that Jesse Owens gave the Nazi hosts during the Berlin Olympics, simply by beating their finest.

Sport, almost like no other popular pastime, has the capacity to generate emotions and images that transcend their "actual" worth for large sways of the population, simply because of its popular appeal.

You are very good at finding the occurrences where it is used for evil. You keep saying things like "it didn't solve Aids", "Chinese still booted folk out of their house to make way for a stadium", and "****stan and India aren't the best of friends". Anecdotes, however, do not make a blanket rule.

There are counter-examples a-plenty too. Again, given the overwhelming amount of sport there is on planet earth, what you raise are still very much the exceptions. And what you raise only proves that sport cannot fix all problems that are already there.

Sport also has the ability to help break down existing barriers. When nations that have previously been add odds with each other, sharing sport events is frequently picked as a first very public step towards better relationships. It won't solve things right away. But it certainly has been a very useful tool in overcoming "other" obstacles.

I keep failing to see this overwhelming case that you appear to be advocating, that sport as rule "creates" problems. That is your angle. But is not substantiated by your argument or examples.

I also expect that without sport, a seriously important release valve would be removed from the "very" real world, as you put it. Sport is the real world too. It is at this level I do have a problem with folk like Orwell, who think too much for their own good about lofty 9and admirable) ideals, forgetting that the simple things in live genuinely matter as much and are as important to most people.

For most people, sport seems to give an outlet to a very strong human experience need. The real world needs sports. Without it, there would be a lot more tension and scores going around that would find more violent and direct ways to get settled.

Some prefer debate for sporting competition I guess. For feeding a need that resides in all of us, in one form or another. And simultaneously pretend that sport is much different from what you and I are doing here. Debate hasn't exactly brought world peace either, has it now? Just think about all the atrocities triggered by big thinkers and "(temporarily) won arguments". That list is endless too. Yet you and I would probably agree that debate, ideals and opinions are, on the whole, a good thing, despite all the examples of where it went wrong. Look where it got us, on balance. Yet you reverse that stance for sports, which has a lot less blood on its hands.

Francois. Most of my responces to your posts have been based on your opening comment in the post earlier today

As long as it substitutes war trenches for sports arenas, you couldn't have enough folk taking sports as the rallying flag,

If you are not arguing that sport is a substitute for war or economics or other problems then we are not in disagreement, or not in any big one anyway.

Yes i know sport is has the capacity to generate greater emotions than any others. That is obvious. And it has its advantages.

But i remind people that it has its disadvantages and am of the belief that when it does mix with politics, it produces more bad than good, contrary to claims by fifa and bbc sport that football is a main weapon in the fight for peace.

Anyway ill make a few points based on what you said.

When i talk about the difference between sport world and real world, i talk about the difference between the athlete, who is the main beneficiary of sport, and for whom sport wipes away all problems, and the worker, for whom sport is merely a passtime, which one could argue from an extreme marxist perspective is imposed on him from above, but which ultimately represents a world which he himself will never know.

That is the difference between the world i call fake and the one i call real. one. Same as Hollywood is for me an unreal world, as opposed to the real one.

Secondly i would very much dispute the claim that there are many counter examples. THe Honduras El Salvador war is a pretty big thing for sport to create would you not agree. I would say that for a counter example, football would have to stop a war, and as i outlined this can not happen. Same with the damage done to relations between important countries. Does sport have any examples of doing the reverse?

You mention Jesse Owens. To me that is also a Kodak moment. Hitlers racism didnt stop.

And i think theres is one flaw in your claim that sport is a release valve. Its a release valve when you win. But as i say for every winner there is a loser. And people do not like to lose.

Where is the release of tension when a people put all their hopes on the shoulders of athletes and they disapoint. Luckily for you you live in the northern part of this little island, so i am not sure how much of the "England66" "We will win the world cup " etc etc etc you have to hear. But everytime England fail to perform as a tournament, the tension just increases, the economy loses out, a bit more tension is built up, and more pressure falls on the footballers for next time round. The media calls it 44 years of hurt. Hardly a realease of tension.

That is the nature of sport. the people admire and love the winners. But for every Federer there are 10 000 kids who didnt make it. For every German success there are English fans whose 44 years of hurt continues. For every miracle on ice therre and Bobby Fischer there were disapointments in the Soviet Union.

Hope neither one of us is a sore loser. Nothing good will come out of this exchange ;-

If i was a sore loser, i wouldnt be making the point that we should sympathise with the losers Bring it on.

 

[The Hitch]

Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain i'm not really the kind of person who needs to endure yet another one of your long-winded lectures about something you have little idea about despite the length of your posts.

Where, may i ask.

 

[Francois the Postman]

Secondly i would very much dispute the claim that there are many counter examples. THe Honduras El Salvador war is a pretty big thing for sport to create would you not agree. I would say that for a counter example, football would have to stop a war, and as i outlined this can not happen. Same with the damage done to relations between important countries. Does sport have any examples of doing the reverse?

Again, it wasn't football alone that triggered it. Those two nations were in a rather peculiar base state to begin with.

But a counter example where sport really caused something on its own that sent history the other way?

How about the Italians not starting a civil war after a political assassination because some Italian dude called Bartali was doing well in the Tour de France and it proved too distractive?

 

[The Hitch]

Again, it wasn't football alone that triggered it. Those two nations were in a rather peculiar base state to begin with.

But a counter example where sport really caused something on its own that sent history the other way?

How about the Italians not starting a civil war after a political assassination because some Italian dude called Bartali was doing well in the Tour de France and it proved too distractive?

Now thats more of what i wanted to hear. Examples. I dont deny that there are some. But i still argue that (like with many things, not just sport) there are more occasions were sport has caused problems for society than when it has offered solutions.

 

[Señor_Contador]

Reply to Senor Contador:

yeah, cool, you got me all wining and stuff, and in all honesty I do care more about Spanish unemployment rates than the average sucker out here on the internet.
but
the point is: the advert struck me in the first place cuz it says: "A LOS QUE DUDAN".
And even though Khardung La has already convinced me that it is not about doping (but about the financial crisis), you really can't blame me for having taken that title as a (indirect) reference "TO THOSE WHO DOUBT the authenticity of the Spanish sportive successes as a result of the recent doping scandals". Get my drift?

You're barking at the wrong tree here buddy, I wasn't refering to your comment.

I personally do not give a hoot whether you believe the successes are "clean" or not, I do care when people start making HUGE generalizations and get into full demagogic mode.

I am a Spaniard and I do hate to see all those positive cases but... I still do not understand how that somehow translates into the simple mind's generalizations insinuating some sort of acquiesence on the part of the Spanish public, which, I suppose, the "A los que dudan" slogan is only only but a subliminal message asking people to rally behind the flag...

Neega pleaze.

 

[sniper]

You're barking at the wrong tree here buddy, I wasn't refering to your comment.

I personally do not give a hoot whether you believe the successes are "clean" or not, I do care when people start making HUGE generalizations and get into full demagogic mode.

I am a Spaniard and I do hate to see all those positive cases but... I still do not understand how that somehow translates into the simple mind's generalizations insinuating some sort of acquiesence on the part of the Spanish public, which, I suppose, the "A los que dudan" slogan is only only but a subliminal message asking people to rally behind the flag...

Neega pleaze.

This was a couple a days if not weeks ago already. Now that I re-read it, I was indeed being a bit too emphatic. Guess it was in the heat of the discussion, pero lo siento de verdad.
I do understand what you're saying, and I do try and reflect on my own position back then, and I notice I was indeed negatively prejudiced towards Spanish sports.
But I stress once more that the many apparently anti-Spanish prejudisms you find around here (including my own) have little to do with Spanish athletes doping, but much more with the uncritical way in which Spanish institutions and federations have been dealing with doped athletes. Recall Odriozola who won't step down, recall the RFEC defending AC shortly after AC's positive came out, recall how O.Puerto has (not) been dealt with, etc.

But thanks to openly debating the context of Spanish sports here in the CLINIC, with honest people like you, I myself (and I think several others) have come to realize (a) that the peak of Spanish sports in the last decades is attributable to a whole complex of factors, of which doping is just one small factor, and (b) that doping in Spanish sports is in no demonstrable way worse than in other developed countries.

So yeah, I do love Spain, I think you are richly talented people, and yes, I think the coming years we will see less doping in Spanish sports due to an increasing awareness, and no, I don't think this will affect the bandwidth of Spanish sports: results will keep coming either way.

 

[sniper]

yeah, i know, it's getting a bit boring, but the titles and subtitles of these pieces of sports journalism really do seem to confirm some of the prejudices uttered in this thread. It's all about the injustice of Messi winning the Balon d'Or, and about identifying those who are supposedly guilty of causing this injustice:

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/11012011/47/estos-culpables-injusticia-oro.html
http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/11012011/47/liga-injusticia-oro-messi-lleva-balon.html

In this one, Holland is somehow declared guilty of anti-Spanish sentiments:

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/10012011/47/liga-holanda-deportiva-votando.html

I sure hope Eurosport.es is not representative of the whole of Spanish sports journalism.

 

[The Hitch]

yeah, i know, it's getting a bit boring, but the titles and subtitles of these pieces of sports journalism really do seem to confirm some of the prejudices uttered in this thread. It's all about the injustice of Messi winning the Balon d'Or, and about identifying those who are supposedly guilty of causing this injustice:

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/11012011/47/estos-culpables-injusticia-oro.html
http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/11012011/47/liga-injusticia-oro-messi-lleva-balon.html

In this one, Holland is somehow declared guilty of anti-Spanish sentiments:

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/10012011/47/liga-holanda-deportiva-votando.html

I sure hope Eurosport.es is not representative of the whole of Spanish sports journalism.

The title of best player in the world should be given to the best player in the world. Iniest and Xavi were clearly NOT the best players in the world. Messi was heads and shoulders above them.

Messi couldnt win the world cup because his team wasnt anywhere near as good.

But this is an individual award not a team one.

Its like having Switzerland face Australia in a world ttt championship, then ignoring all the itts Cancellara won and instead choosing Mick Rogers as worlds greatest tter because he won a team championsip.

 

[pistolero]

I remember pete sampras wins for ten years,lance armstrong's victorys in tour de france seven times,his comeback and 3rd position at the age 37,and no one found that suspicious at all,of course there is doping in spain,but not only in spain.look around.last five years in tour de france are the best after seven booooring years of dopestrong ever!!!:d

 

[hrotha]

I remember pete sampras wins for ten years,lance armstrong's victorys in tour de france seven times,his comeback and 3rd position at the age 37,and no one found that suspicious at all,of course there is doping in spain,but not only in spain.look around.last five years in tour de france are the best after seven booooring years of dopestrong ever!!!:d

Come again?