1 October 2020
Good Sport!
But best ever?
by Frank O’Nomics
“The best in history”. So said the winner of the recent Santander triathlon, Javier Gomez Noya. The chances are that most will not remember the winner’s name in the fullness of time, but the athlete who came third is likely to become synonymous with selfless good sportsmanship. Mr. Noya was not describing his own performance, but that of Diego Mentrida who, having been in fourth place for much of the race, suddenly found himself third, after British athlete, James Teagle, took a wrong turn close to the finish. Instead of capitalising on his opponent’s error, he stopped and waited for him to catch up. After the race he said: “Seeing how he was wrong, unconsciously I stopped. He deserved it.” Mentrida’s gesture has been, quite rightly, widely applauded; with many heartened by such sporting behaviour in an era of rampant professionalism. But is it really a historic best?
It would be glib to suggest that Mentrida had little to lose (3rd prize was just Euros 300, which the organisers ultimately decided to give to both athletes); after all, such dedicated triathletes compete for the honour and the glory. Cash is incidental, but a podium finish is the target. However, to describe the event as exceptional neglects many other selfless sporting acts. One could argue that, even in the world of cycling, where for many years the competition seemed to be who could be the most effective doper, such acts are commonplace. For example, there is an unwritten rule in the Tour de France that no one attacks the yellow jersey when he takes a “nature break”. It is then worth looking back in history to find incidents that show sportsmanship that would probably not be displayed today.
The obvious one is “The Concession”. In the 1969 Ryder Cup, Tony Jacklin was left with a tricky 3 foot putt to halve his match with Jack Nicklaus and draw the competition between the US versus Great Britain and Ireland overall. Nicklaus conceded the putt, arguing, “I don’t think you would have missed it, but I wasn’t going to give you the chance, either“. It is hard to see anything like that happening today, and even then the US captain, Sam Snead, was reportedly livid with Nicklaus. There is, however, one contextual element that should be remembered. The US, as the holders of the Ryder Cup would retain it in the event of a draw. That is not to degenerate the gesture, but if the putt had been to win the event it seems very unlikely that it would have been conceded.
One gesture that at the very least should be viewed as rivaling Nicklaus is that of Luz Long in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. When the US athlete Jesse Owens was struggling with his run up in the long jump, his German rival, Long, gave him some technical advice that corrected the problem, thereby helping Owens make the qualifying distance and go on to win the gold medal. One can admire (and hopefully understand) an athlete who, like Mentrida, only wanted to succeed through their own endeavours rather than the underperformance of others. However, Adolf Hitler was not pleased. Given the backdrop to this display of sportsmanship it is hard to come up with anything more selfless. Nevertheless, there is one that is at least amusing.
In the late 1950’s the British Lions rugby team was enduring a grueling tour in New Zealand. Early in one particularly combative match an English centre found himself on the floor of a ruck and, unseen by the referee, was given a thorough kicking by an opposing flanker. Today he would have gone off for a head injury assessment, but then it was a matter of letting one’s head clear and soldiering on. Later in the game, however, the situation was reversed. The opposing flanker was prone on the floor of a ruck, the wrong side for the referee to see, in an ideal position for the Lion’s centre to wreak his revenge. Instead of administering a few choice blows with his size 11s the centre merely reached out his hand and helped the miscreant to his feet. When he returned to his position, the centre was asked by a teammate why he had not got his own back. “I thought I would make him feel a cad”, was the response.
We should allow the winner of the Santander his hyperbole in describing Mentrida’s act with such praise. It was undoubtedly a worthy act bringing an act of good sportsmanship to an audience wider than that normal for such a sport. We should also be grateful that the example leads us to examine whether other sports could be so generous. In looking at examples from history the answer seems to suggest that, in most cases, that would be unlikely. In Jack Nicklaus’s favour, golf was already a professional sport in 1969, while athletics in 1936, and rugby in the 1950s was still very much amateur. What this all suggests is that, while not the “best ever”, Mentrida’s act is unlikely to be reflected in other sports in the modern era. The triathletes have shown us what we are missing.
