Great Sporting Moments of Our Time

In the days of my youth, when the sun was always shining and the magic lantern show cost a farthing, I was a somewhat competitive individual. I played football at a high standard, cricket to a lesser standard (although I was a pretty handy leggy - took 2 - o off three overs once. Everybody knew that spinners were a thing of the past, though) , at school I was usually in the top two or three in swimming and middle distance running. I even played basketball for a while, which is surely the WWE of ball-sports. However, for once this post isn't all about me, except that it is. These are the top ten sporting moments which I have witnessed, as opposed to participating in. I'm not even going to tell you about the football game in the thunderstorm in the under 15's where I kicked our team's entire score. We won.
A lot of these moments came in sports which, in themselves don't really captivate me, but the emotion of the moment caught my attention. What can I say, sometimes I get caught up in the moment.
You will note that Cathy Freeman doesn't appear on the list. I have nothing against Cathy, but I never really bought into the whole "Darling of a Nation" thing. I was pleased when she won in Sydney, mainly because of the media scrutiny she would have been subject to if she lost, but..., meh. She also lost a bit of goodwill of mine when she only started speaking out about the plight of aboriginal people a week after she got hit with a bill for back taxes.
So, without further ado and in reverse order, here's my top ten:

10:

The day after Australia Day, 2001 Jennifer Capriati won the Australian Open; her first Grand Slam, ten years after she started out. Capriati was something of a child prodigy in the mould of Tracey Austin and Martina Hingis, arriving on the scene as a 14 year old and kicking some major league arse. It all got a bit much for her and she fell of the rails for two and a half years, before making the Big Comeback.
I'm not greatly bothered either way by any of that, or the fact that she successfully defended her title in 2002. I just like the way she celebrated after her win. I don't remember too many times when I have seen such pure, unadulterated* joy in my life. She looked like a ten year old girl who just got a pony for her birthday. Maurice Green could take a lesson from this - but probably won't.

*Honourable mention in the celebration stakes goes to Brooke Hanson after qualifying for the 2004 Olympic team.
9:
I was late for work the day that Australia beat New Zealand in the 2002 Commonwealth Games Netball final. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of netball, contrary to what a lot of girls might think in the area where I grew up. Everybody plays sport in country towns. Boys play football, girls play netball. For reasons best known to the organisers, netball games started a little bit later in the day than football games, so when I'd finished my game(s) as a junior, I'd leave the other blokes at the footy and go over to watch the netball. A lot of the girls were impressed that I'd chosen to support them and I did nothing to disabuse them of the idea. Lots of athletic women running around in short dresses had nothing to do with it, alright? It actually did have nothing to do with watching the 2002 game. It was just a very exciting, hard fought contest against a traditional enemy. And we won. What more do you want?


8:
Gary Hall jnr. is a knobjockey. He can swim like a trout but he's still a knob jockey. Because the media thrive on conflict, they had tried (and still are trying) to portray Australia and the US as major enemies in the pool. As if. There are no enemies in swimming - it's basically eight people/teams competing against a clock all at the same time. To think otherwise is fatal, as I'll explain a bit further down the page. Anyway, Gary Hall jnr. played up to the hype, saying in an airport interview that the Americans were going to "Smash the Aussies like guitars." (Which reminds me - Leo Fender hated Jimi Hendrix with a passion because of the way he treated his Strats).
Cut to the first day of competition in the pool and the final of the 4x100 men's freestyle final, an event exclusively the preserve of Sepps since, well, ever.. The Aussies dominated the Yanks, blitzing them by a massive 0.19 seconds. Everybody said yay. The best was yet to come - when the boys had assembled on the pool deck, they all turned towards Hall and gave an impromptu air-guitar recital. Ha Ha Hall.

7:
Another swimming one. I like swimming, you'll get used to it. In 1984 the 6'7½ West German Michael 'The Albatross' Gross was the holder of the world record for the 200m butterfly and close to unbackable for the Gold medal at the LA games. Jon Siebens's best time was nearly four seconds slower than the record. Siebens cut that back to two seconds in the heats, but nobody took him seriously. Gross qualified fastest, naturally. Gross was leading after the first 100m and looked to be cruising, Sieben and most of the others were just maintaing contact. Gross fell apart in the last half lap and Sieben swam over the top of him to claim Gold and the World record. I can even forgive him for being coached by Lawrie 'somebody put him out of my misery' Lawrence.

6:

Anthony Gobert isn't the best looking bloke I've ever seen. Nor is he the most well-balanced individual to ever grace the stage of world motor sport. But gee, he's good to watch. In 1996 at Brand's Hatch Gobert pulled off the single best overtaking manouvre I've ever seen in my life.
The format for World Superbike Championship is different than that of the GP classes. It is held over two races, with the points tally from the two counting towards the championship. In the first round at Brand's Hatch the ageless Pier-Francesco 'Frankie' Chili had skipped out to a bit of a lead on his Ducati. Gobert hunted him down on his Kawasaki but didn't look like he had enough to get past. Brand's Hatch's main straight goes up over a bit of a hill with a long right hand corner about 150m over the brow. On one lap Chili crested the hill about 50m in front of Gobert who locked the brakes at the crest of the hill, threw his bike sideways and flew past Chili about fifty metres before the corner, with the bike laying on it's side and pointing at the side of the track. When the bike was pointing at the apex of the corner he released the brakes, opened the taps and shot out of the corner fifty metres in front of Chili. Sheer brilliance. Chili won the race, but Gobert won my admiration. Later that year Gobert did the same thing lap after lap at the Honda Hairpin at Philip Island and wone both legs. Still not as good as Brand's, but.

5:
In 1979 two old rivals met in the Grand Final for about the seven thousandth time. As is usual with these games, it was a pretty intense affair, with Collingwood coming back at Carlton in the final quarter. Carlton God coach Alex Jesaulenko had shifted nuggety back pocket Wayne Harmes into the centre and late in the final term Harmes had a snap at goal from near centre-half forward. The ball sprayed wildly towards the boundary line, but Harmes chased it down and, diving headlong, managed to tap it back in to Kenny Sheldon (who is probably more famous for landing on his shoulders after collecting a haymaker from Mad Dog Muir in a whole 'nother game) who goalled to extend Carlton's lead to 10 points. Collingwood goalled, Carlton scored a behind, the siren went ant the correct team won by five points. The fact that replays show that the ball that Harmes chased down was clearly over the line and the goal should have been disallowed (which would have given the Maggies the crown) only makes it sweeter, I know people in the Black & White army who are still bitter about it. My niece was born in that year. I took a photo of her in a Carlton beanie. It turned out to be a pretty cute photo as far as baby photos go, so my sister-in-law had it enlarged and framed, then hung it on the lounge room wall. When her father - a lifelong supporter of the 'woods - saw it he had a hissy fit and never spoke to me again. Hahahahahahaha is all I've got to say on that subject.

4:
I have absolutely no interest in athletics generally, although Tatiana Gregorieva caught my attention. It had nothing to do with her being a statuesque blonde, either. Shut up.

Jai Taurima won silver in the Long Jump at the 'lympics. Here's a couple of quotes to illustrate why I liked this;

``I'm the stereotypical knockabout Aussie,'' he once wrote. ``I eat pizzas at least twice a week, and when I get bored with them I head down to McDonald's. I am addicted to chocolate and jellybeans and I'm never in bed before midnight. I love smoking and will go through a pack a day. The smoking actually helps my career; it keeps my weight down. I'd me massive if I didn't smoke."

[...]

Jai Taurima knew it was time to stop celebrating his silver medal in the Olympic long jump when his drink slipped out of his hands at dawn. . ..

He is a walking advert for the unorthodox view that you can smoke, drink and stuff yourself with fast food and still make it big at the Olympics. . .

He was still making his presence felt at Sydney's Olympic Park on Friday, long after his contest had ended.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a smoke-free zone," said an announcement over the public address system at the complex's railway station.

"Anyone caught smoking will be asked to leave or join the Australian long jump team."

Thanks, smokers

Another quote of his that I like but couldn't find a link to was a response to a question about what foods he likes to eat when he's celebrating - "Anything that doesn't hurt too much on the way back up." He's keen on a Bourbon, too.

3:

As I said earlier, swimming is an individual sport, competing against a clock. When you start treating it as a race against somebody else, you are likely to lose. Kieren Perkins showed this in 1996, when he won the 1500m in Atlanta. He'd been ill and in poor form for quite some time (I think they found out later that he had an iron deficiency which was remedied by eating more meat). He'd only just qualified for the team and when he scraped into the final in lane eight not many people gave him a chance. The usual method in a 1500m race is to go out fairly hard for about 200 metres, then settle down into a rhythm for about a kilometre before winding up in a 'sprint' to the finish. Perkins went out even harder than usual, surprising the field, who all broke the basic rules and paced themselves against him. 200m came and went and Perkins kept up the pace, the field breaking one by one as they tried to keep up. Finally it was just him. He finished about fifteen seconds outside his record and was about ten seconds clear of second place. It was the single gutsiest effort I have ever seen in any sport, also one of the smartest. Four or five of the finalists were capable of beating Perkins's medal-winning time, but none of them could beat him.


2:
On the afternoon of September 26, 1970 at about 3:30, the modern style of fooftball was born.Rumblings had already been felt because of the efforts of Polly Farmer (In my opinion, the greatest ruckman ever to play the game) and a couple of others, but never before had an entire team moved the ball around so quickly. Carlton were forty four points down at half-time when Blues coach Ron Barrassi made the changes to the Carlton game plan that he lived off for the rest of his career. Essentially, all he did was to tell his players to keep the ball moving. Before this, Aussie Rules could be a bit of a stop-start affair. It was rare for anybody to 'play on' after a mark or free kick, but Barrassi instructed his kiddies to "handball, handball, handball."
Essentially, they ran the Maggies of their feet. Teddy Hopkins also guaranteed himself free beer for life in the environs of 3053 when he came off the bench after half-time and kicked two goals in two minutes, with four in total. This was also the match in which Alex Jesaulenko took the official 'Mark of the Century' over Graeme 'Jerker' Jenkin, which is probably the single most widely distributed photo in Australian sport. I must confess that I didn't actually see this happen until they played the replay later that evening, VFL Grand Finals not being screened live until 1977 (another Grand Final losing year for the black & whites. Ha ha.) I listened to it on the steam powered wireless at a friends place instead. His family were all mad Blues supporters who couldn't get tickets to the game and we cried nearly all day, first because we were sad, then because we weren't. It was a good time to be a little Carlton supporter. I was even allowed to stay up and watch Mary Hardy and Mike Williamson on Penthouse.

Equal first:

I couldn't separate these two, so I put 'em both at the top, or bottom if you want to be peadntic. The bloke on the left is Rune Holta. The photo is taken at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney on October 26, 2002. My mum died on October 2, 2002. She'd been crook for years and had spent the last two years of her life either in hospital or a nursing home. My Daddy used to race speedwaybikes for a living, so when in January of 2002 I found out that the Speedway Grand Prix was coming to Sydney I drove down and organised tickets, accommodation and an air fare for Dad. Unfortunately, I got Stadium Australia and Aussie Stadium confused and booked the accommodation in Rushcutter's Bay, which isn't exactly next door to Homebush. Oh well, Homebush is a slum anyway. I could write an entire post about that weekend and the effect it had on my Dad and I and one day I probably will. I'll also write a sentence with fewer repetitions of the word 'and'. Suffice it to say for now that it was the most exciting nights entertainment I've ever had. Rune Holta got knocked off his bike in the most bizarre speedway accident I've ever seen in turn one when the bloke on the outside of him (don't remember who it was) got too far sideways and backed off, which had the effect of standing him up. He opened the throttle again, but instead of sliding, his bike stood up on its rear wheel. It then pivoted on its back tyre and caught Holta neatly in the face with the front axle. Greg Hancock won the night but it didn't matter who won; those guys are seriously fast.
The dude on the right has the same initials as Jesus Christ and just like The Son, he comes from a famous family. Jason Crump's Dad Phil was a fairly handy speedway rider who got podium finishes in the World Final when it was run as knockout event. His grandfather, Neil Street, was also a handy rider who rode professionally for about twenty years, who also built the modified four valve JAWA engines that Phil used. Both of them are very friendly, approachable chappies, too.
All of this paled into insignificance when, in 2004, Our Jason™ brought the Speedway world title home to the land of speedway's birth, fifty two years after Jack Young was the last Australian World Champion.
Tony Rickardsson has set things back on the status quo, claiming his seventh world title, but at least Our Jason™ managed to win a couple of rounds and secure second place for the fourth time in five years.
I don't have a neat way of wrapping all this up, so I'm just going to sto

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