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Just one serving at a time, please by Matt Harrington, Radio Sport 927 June 13, 2002 Australian's love elite sport, we seem to not be able to get enough of it. However with the hype, excitement and thrill engulfing soccer's ultimate competition, the World Cup, you could be forgiven for thinking it was the only sport on around the globe at present. As our love affair with the round ball continues for a few more weeks, we're destined to ignore other sports. It seems our concentration levels can only handle one sporting spectacular at a time. And right now its World Cup time. Office chitchat is abuzz with France's early exit, Germany's ominous form and the ability of Australian-reared, Italian Christian Vieri. The only other sport that is rating a mention in Melbourne offices is our beloved AFL. That's because it's under our noses, and (as their supporters can't stop telling us) Collingwood is winning The fact cricket's World Cup finalists are clashing in Melbourne is almost going unnoticed. Our attention is elsewhere. Yet what a fantastic match our World Champions will provide under the closed Colonial Stadium roof against Pakistan. Ticket sales for the match have been selling at snails pace, and it appears our sporting loyalties don't run deep enough to support a Mickey Mouse one-day international. Essentially, it's just match practice for our 2003 World Cup campaign If it weren't for Radio Sport 927 media coverage on War Emblem's Triple Crown bid, would have amounted to almost nothing. The headline American colt was shooting to become just the 12th horse to snare the US Triple Crown, along with its $US5 million dollar bonus last weekend. History shows the star failed in his bid, but we wouldn't have known as the pre-race hype was almost non-existent. We have become so in need of World Cup information, our media outlets have led their bulletins with news from the tournament. We even ignored one of tennis' `Holy Grails`. The French Open has now passed, with it barely making a ripple in the sea of our sporting world. The majority of us would know Albert Costa won the tournament, but who did he beat in the final, and semis? Yet mention Rivaldo's name and we could enter into deep discussion about his Oscar-worthy acting performance against Turkey.
The World Cup is so powerful, even the starting time of the AFL match between the Kangaroos and Richmond last Friday was changed so it didn't clash with the group match between England and Argentina. The world is so engrossed with international sport, but our inability to deal with more than one event at a time, common sense needs to prevail with programming. Smartly, the AFL shifted the season forward in 2000 because of the Olympics, allowing us to focus on football, then change into Olympic mode. At the moment we are struggling to come out of World Cup fever, it has us in its grip. The French Open deserved more attention, it is one of the great sporting events on the world calendar. World sporting bodies need to ensure that elite sporting events - the Grand Slams in tennis, the Majors in golf and one-off World Championships in cricket, soccer etc - are not scheduled for the same time. Otherwise one event will suffer, as the French Open did last month. We love elite sport in this country, and will follow anything and everything, but we can be over exposed and ignore a worthy event. Let's just serve the lobster and caviar one month, leaving the prawns, oysters and scallops for next. . Balls and All.....this month • Roo star under-rated Matt Harrington, 7 June 2002 • Superstars or prima donnas Matt Harrington, 5 June 2002 • Index of all stories |
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