Dialogue: Of modesty in victory, graciousness in defeat

By GORDON MCLAUGHLAN

If sculling events were held over 1000, 1500 and 2000 metres, instead of just 2000, we might have won almost as many medals as the Australians did in the swimming.

And perhaps there should be a mixed doubles so Rob and Sonia Waddell can start winning together.

Any extra exposure for the Waddells would certainly have done New Zealand a great deal of good.

It's a considerable thing to win a gold medal but a far greater thing to win it graciously.

It's a long New Zealand tradition - maligned in recent years by professional hypesters - to be quietly generous in both victory and defeat, no matter how disappointed in yourself you might feel inside.

From Sir Ed Hillary, Yvette Williams, Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, dozens of great All Blacks to Todd Blackadder and now Waddell, Kiwis have been admired for their tough, competitive, taciturn but fair-go demeanour in sport and war.

When the Swiss sculler Xeno Mueller said that if he had to lose he was glad it was to Rob, a gentle giant, it was a fine Olympic moment - a gracious loser paying tribute to a modest winner.

This tradition is something to be proud of. As sport has become progressively more professional over the past 15 years, marketers and public relations consultants have tried to turn New Zealanders into something they're not - show-offs and braggarts.

We are encouraged to confuse passion with arrogance.

And more recently, television commentators have become beat-up merchants for sport and sportspeople. The trouble with this is that it encourages athletes to lose touch with reality.

The function of the critic in any sphere of performance sport, art or literature is to contribute to the health of that discipline. And it's clear that the Australians - despite a silly resentment towards them that some New Zealanders might nourish - are aware of the value of keeping their big feet on the ground, especially on the side of the pool.

Ian Thorpe, after being beaten over 200m freestyle for the first time in two years, said of his conqueror, Pieter van den Hoogenband: "A great athlete beat me. After my gold in the 400, standing on the podium and feeling time slow down, you just want every athlete to share the experience."

Great stuff from an excellent man.

Too many of our television commentators heap superlatives on hyperbole about New Zealand's prospects and performances. Not John Davies and a handful of others, but too many of them.

The most egregious example, to quote Murray Mexted, was Peter Montgomery at the boardsailing.

Montgomery has brought excitement to yachting events over the years, injecting his commentaries with vigour and individual style.

He fancies himself as a phrasemaker. His premeditated "the America's Cup is now New Zealand's Cup" of a few years ago was a bit like astronaut Neil Armstrong's "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Some people have never liked Montgomery's loud style. Management used to pretend to phone a noise abatement officer whenever he came on.

I've always thought his delivery crisp and clear, if a bit heavy on the decibels, but he is starting to sound like someone from the 20th century. If he keeps up his Sydney performance he's in danger of becoming just another shouting mouth.

As Barbara Kendall came in third he yelled that it was "a brilliant, stunning performance." It was neither of those things.

It's clear enough that Kendall is slipping away from the top and is now under-motivated compared with the past. She was content to get a bronze - one of each colour, as she put it, over three Olympics.

She remarked that the two who finished ahead of her were on fire and hungry. From that and her demeanour, it was easy to infer that she was not on fire and hungry.

That's okay by me. She wasn't trying to fool anyone else. Montgomery does no one a favour by descending to this sort of maudlin nonsense.

When Aaron McIntosh came home for his boardsailing silver, Montgomery screamed: "Would you believe it? McIntosh has mown them down fired up and pumping."

As W.B. Yeats put it: "The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, the sentimentalist himself."

Montgomery seems intent on fooling everyone with this vacuous, sentimental stuff, and he's starting to sound old-fashioned, like so many of our television presenters.

John Davies is the man for the new age - in control, always ready with information about athletes or their particular event, reading races with skill and experience, and never stating the obvious or trying to grab your ear with shouting or with overcooked phrases.

Which prompts the question: Will the style of Peter Montgomery survive in the age of world dot.com-mery?

Let's hope not.

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