| So.
We're having a sports summit. I presume everyone knows how provocative
this is. Time was when "summit" meant either a quiet mountain
peak, or a gathering of the eminent, powerful and altitudinous.
That time is no more.
The eminent have lost their lustre, and the mountain peaks
are quiet no longer.
Mountaintops are scarcely to be distinguished from drop-in
centres these days. They're busier than most liquour stores
on New Years Eve, with "adventure" teams criss-crossing one
another, on the way up and on the way down, in a cat's cradle
of too much loot and too little sense. As for the eminent,
they still, infrequently, gather - but they're going to have
to learn to stop calling these huddles of the high and haughty
"summits."
Just for safety's sake.
I presume this is not a global sports summit. That (pace Bernard
Landry), I fear, would be one red flag too many. After Seattle,
after Quebec city, any congregation, of whatever intent, that
dares bill itself as global is issuing an invitation to the
righteous, the idle, or the barbaric to come and try their
wily arts. It's tear gas and wire fence, catapults and rubber
bullets - a pentathlon of mischief, misery, pain, farce and
embarrassment - if anyone holds a summit and calls it global.
A sports summit will probably escape the frissons and fibrillations
of Quebec city, if only because sport is seen by the serious
classes, inside of politics and outside, as intrinsically
unserious, An activity that depends on muscle, determination,
reflex and personal industry, does not offer much fertility
for class warfare. The cultivation of physical excellence
and mental discipline for their own sakes has about it a fineness
and purity that exempts it from the clamorous attention of
those who make "politics" and "issues," and who hopscotch
the world for headlines and hype.
Sport and its rivalries are, at their most fundamental, not
so much above politics, as in a sphere to which politics does
not belong. And when sports is genuinely amateur, even when
the amateurs wear the banners of their countries as at the
Olympics, there is something that resolutely remains purely
with the individuals involved, as individuals, in the honours
achieved and the distinctions earned.
Nations applaud their star athletes. Vicariously, they borrow
some of the glory and dignity of those atheletes. And they
borrow both the honour and the glory to strut before other
nations. But for every superlative athletic performer who
achieves a success at the highest level of competition there
is something truly private, something that pertains only to
that individual, which is the deepest reward of his or her
race to excellence. All trips to the podium are solitary.
This particular summit spills out of the contention over Canada's
"poor" performance at the recent summer games. That Canada
didn't harvest a shoal of medals at the Australian games is
reputed to be a shame and a national dishonour. And that "poor"
showing is traced, among other considerations, to the lack
of support for amateur athletics -- the nursery of our champions
-- in this country.
Canada has always been a hypocrite in its attitude towards
sports. Hockey, even more than the sacred idea of Medicare,
is our surrogate patriotism. And whether it is professional
hockey or Olympic and world competition, Canada has always
drawn a civic dividend from sports achievement. When Canadian
athletes bring home the gold the whole country turns manically
chauvinist for weeks.
Well, if we derive great civic comfort and national self-esteem
when our athletes achieve, it seems only fair to underwrite
them more generously when they are preparing to achieve. But
if the reason we draw such comforts from superlative athletic
performance is because sports - in its dedication to excellence,
its industry and competition for its own.sake - is in itself
virtuous, a path to great character, then it follows that
it is the activity that we should be supporting and not just
its champions. Horowitz was a majestic pianist, but he wasn't
music itself. It's the music, finally, we honour. Nancy Greene
was a great skier; she isn't skiing itself.
If the summit we are now holding speaks for each individual
who makes a commitment to self-improvement and character,
if the nation will acknowledge the value of sports, in and
for itself, for all who engage in its delights and disciplines,
then it will surely be a good thing. But if this assembly
of the mighty and the famous is merely to seek a path to a
larger cluster of silver and gold the next time around, then
it is specious and shallow.
The amateur is he or she who loves - in sports or any other
calling. The beacon is excellence, and applause, civic or
otherwise, merely a Side benefit. Amateur sport should be
supported for its own sake.
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