Monty Python 1972 - Michael Jordan - William Shakespeare - Sarah Palin - The Belles of St Trinian’s 1954 - Victor Cahn - Paul Rodriquez - William Cowper - Shelby Foote - George Foreman - 50 Years of Sport on BBC TV - Steven D Levvit & Stephen J Dubner - George Orwell - Richard Nixon - Babe Ruth - Howard Cosell - Nelson Mandela - Jerry Maguire 1996 - Gene Tunney - Horizon TV - Spitting Image TV - The Endless Summer 1966 - The Dark Side 2015 - Icarus 2017 - The Secrets of Doping: How Russia Makes Its Winners TV - All This Mayhem 2014 - All New Moment Shocking Moments in Sport TV - The Trans Women Athlete Dispute with Martina Navratilova TV - Jermaine Jenas TV - Storyville: United Skates TV - Panorama TV - Jeremy Paxman TV - Untold TV - Big Train TV -
And it looks as though we’re in for a splendid afternoon’s sport on this the 127th Upper Class Twit of the Year Show. Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different, BBC 1972
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan
For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv 207, Hamlet to Mother
As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;
They kill us for their sport. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear IV I 35-36, Gloucester
There be some sports are painful, and their labour
Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. William Shakespeare, The Tempest III i 1, Ferdinand
Everything I’ve ever needed to know I learned through sports. Sarah Palin
Your place is on the hockey field. The Belles of St Trinians 1954 starring Alastair Sim & Joyce Grenfell & George Cole & Hermione Baddeley & Betty Ann Davis & Sid James et al, director Frank Launder, Ms Fritton
There never is a second half. ibid.
In our country, true teams rarely exist ... social barriers and personal ambitions have reduced athletes to dissolute cliques or individuals thrown together for mutual profit ... Yet these rugby players with their muddied, cracked bodies, are struggling to hold on to a sense of humanity that we in America have lost and are unlikely to regain. The game may only be to move a ball forward on a dirt field, but the task can be accomplished with an unshackled joy and its memories will be a permanent delight. The women and men who play on that rugby field are more alive than too many of us will ever be. The foolish emptiness we think we perceive in their existence is only our own. Victor Cahn
Hunting is not a sport. In a sport both sides should know they’re in the game. Paul Rodriguez
Detested sport,
That owes its pleasure to another’s pain. William Cowper 1731-1800, The Task, 1785
The great lesson in sports is supposed to be that you not only learn the elation of winning, you also learn how to lose. There’s a lot of emphasis on that in the British attitude towards sports, and Americans have it too. But there’s something very American about being a poor loser, refusing to shake the other fella’s hand. He says he’s a scoundrel, he always was a scoundrel, and he’s even more of a scoundrel now that he’s beat me. There’s something likeable about that in people. It’s bad sportsmanship though. Shelby Foote, interview Ken Burns ‘Baseball’
Sports are sports. It’s all about how we carry ourselves out of the ring. George Foreman
Sport on BBC is 50 not out. Half a century packed with thrills, spills and unforgettable action. 50 Years of Sport on BBC, BBC 2014
BBC2 helped introduce football to the masses. ibid.
Where is a sport where you would not find cheating? I would have said Sumo Wrestling. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics, caption, Sky Atlantic 2009; viz also novel
The realm of high finance and the world of Sumo both demonstrate that the illusion of purity can not only hide corruption it can help to make it possible. In Sumo when whistleblowers stepped forward to expose corruption they were not treated kindly. ibid.
Two weeks before the press conference both men died in the same hospital, on the same day, from the same mysterious respiratory ailment. ibid.
Another mysterious death haunted Sumo. This time it was a young Rikishi in training. ibid.
Despite clear evidence of brutality the police declared the young man died of natural causes. ibid.
The young boy had died at the hands of fellow wrestlers who were ordered by their stable master to punish the boy. ibid.
Sports and cheating go hand in hand. That’s because cheating is more common in the face of a bright-line incentive. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant ‘I Write as I Please’
I’m coming as the president of a friend, and I’m coming as a sportsman. George W Bush, on trip to Olympics China 2008
I don’t know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports. Richard Nixon
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. Babe Ruth
Sports is human life in microcosm. Howard Cosell
Sports have the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sports can create hope, where there was once only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination. Sports is the game of lovers. Nelson Mandela, Laureus World Sports Awards 2000
America still sets the tone for the world of sports. Jerry Maguire 1996 starring Tom Cruise & Cuba Gooding & Renee Zellweger & Kelly Preston & Jerry O'Connell & Jay Mohr & Regina King & Bonnie Hunt & Jonathan Lipnicki & Lisa Stahl Sullivan & Todd Louiso et al, director Cameron Crowe
I’m the one behind the scenes. I’m the sports agent ... Sports Management International. ibid.
Who had I become? Just another shark in a suit? ibid.
Show me the money. ibid. Gooding to Cruise
When games cease to have rules, they become jumbled-up happenings that cannot be listed as sports. Gene Tunney, Nine Seconds Belong to the Man on the Floor
Sports is once again hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been investigating the controversial and dangerous world of sports doping. Horizon: Sports Doping – Winning at Any Cost, BBC 2016
Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are using steroids. ibid.
Steroids are addictive in 30% of users. ibid.
Caffeine improves performance in a range of sports by up to 3%. ibid.
Good evening and welcome to A Question of Rubbish. Spitting Image s14e6, David Coleman, ITV 1993
Summer means many different things to different people … but for us – the sport of Surfing! The thrill and the fun of the sport of surfing. The Endless Summer, 1966
Some surfers prefer the hairy thrill of a big wave. ibid.
Henry’s a seal – nature’s greatest body surfer. ibid.
Mike & Robert: You think they’re coming out with their forks to have you for dinner! ibid. guys in Ghana
Here in Cape Town they like to go all together … Durban: the sun is already up and it’s 4.30 a.m. … 80 degrees out, water temperate about the same … Sharks are a tremendous problem here. ibid.
In the curl for 45 seconds. ibid.