Alright, it's funny. Being a married man that watches his sport. I don't know what happened. The weird thing is, my favourite ones to watch, with the exception of cricket, are winter sports that i don't do - namely skijumping and skating.
So I've just been watching the skating from Salt Lake City, and it was Sven Kramer at the 10Km, the Cruyff of skating. Absolutely unbelievable. I've never seen a top race like that with one guy - who was in 5th at that stage - getting lapped. Kramer was 20 seconds ahead of the next guy, and knocked something like 10 seconds off his own world record. Which he set the last time he raced 10km. I can't think of anything comparable in sport that I know of where someone is so far ahead of all other competitors. He's almost literally a lap ahead of the rest. And he's only 20. Of course, he might burn out before the next Olympics, but he seems to have a real basic sense of self - he still comes across as a typical 20 year old. And what he's doing is stuff that Tiger Woods or Roger Federer can only dream of - he's not lost a race all year, sets world records almost at will (and not the Sergei Bubkov adding half an inch sort of record, but pulverising them), and is king of the world.
Knowing the ways of the world, this will probably all end bad. Apparently he's already got a supermodel girlfriend, and let's hope he doesn't chase mediocrity like van der Vaart. Still, one of the pleasures of watching sport is the moment. Tonight, I shared an experience with Bart Veldkamp. Such a race, he said, you just sit back and watch with your mouth open, drooling, at the perfection of the moment.
