United States' Tennys Sandgren places an ice towel around his neck during a break in his quarterfinal against South Korea's Chung Hyeon. Photo / AP.
United States' Tennys Sandgren places an ice towel around his neck during a break in his quarterfinal against South Korea's Chung Hyeon. Photo / AP.
Sports stars and political beliefs are often difficult partners – witness the mini-fuss after Tennys Sandgren's run to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open tennis.
His sounded like a sporting fairytale – a guy whose name sounds like the sport he plays, barely in the world top 100, dispatching big names like Stan Wawrinka and Dominic Thiem. That excited a flurry of interest in a man few had heard of before.
Unfortunately for Sandgren that interest extended to his Twitter account. There lay about 18 months of tweets, some re-airing pearls from denizens of the far right and following others, plus some not of the far right.
One of his allusions was to "Pizzagate", the conspiracy theory linking Hillary Clinton to a paedophile ring – part of the 2016 Presidential scrap and which was thoroughly debunked and discredited. Fake news, ironically. Sandgren said the evidence was "sickening and the collective evidence is too much to ignore".
Quizzed if he considered himself alt-right, Sandgren said: "No. No, I don't. I find some of the content interesting, but no I don't. Not at all. As a firm Christian, I don't support things like that. I support Christ and following Him…
United States' Tennys Sandgren leaves Rod Laver Arena after losing his quarterfinal to South Korea's Chung Hyeon. Photo / AP.
"What information you see doesn't dictate what you think or believe. I think it's crazy to think that… To say, well, he's following X person, so he believes all the things that this person believes, I think it's ridiculous.
"If you already think you are correct and there's nothing else you can learn in life, then I think you are in trouble. I like to consume information. I like to learn." He deleted almost all past tweets.
If Sandgren is denying his beliefs, that's a bit of a shame. It evokes the old quote oft repeated by Americans illustrating first amendment rights – "I disapprove of what you say but I defend to the death your right to say it."
It's also part of the piquancy of sport if a contest is between a "good guy" and a "bad guy" (assessed according to which part of the political spectrum you inhabit).
If you had, for example, a rampant US far-rightist playing against a person from a country that the current US President might have labelled a "shithole", and whose nationality might have denied him immigration rights, isn't that more interesting than journeyman v novice?
Sportspeople can and do have political beliefs that move mountains. Muhammad Ali changed not just his sport but much of the world's views on race, religious tolerance and pacifism.
Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback whose US national anthem protest at the treatment of blacks and police shootings, polarised the country. He drew fire from President Donald Trump, many NFL and NBA players joined him in protesting and he left the San Francisco 49ers but remains unsigned.
Trump continued to castigate Kaepernick, predicting he wouldn't be signed by another team because they feared him making a political crusade – irony of ironies – through Twitter. Kaepernick is now taking legal action alleging owners have colluded to keep him out of the NFL.
Many professional sportspeople do not air their views because of the possible effect on popularity and therefore income. Some are just plain old apathetic, limiting political activity to the ballot box – and sometimes not even then.
Yet it can be argued sports stars have a duty to cry foul when they see injustice, no matter what part of the political spectrum they favour. Sport has rules, codes of ethics, morality and a reach most politicians would sell their grandmother for.
Some might consider the focus on Sandgren to be more a comment on the news industry than anything else. But, as the old saying goes, "Dog bites man" is not news. "Man bites dog" is – and there have been few examples of far right sportspeople sticking their heads over the political battlements (though Sandgren gave a Trump-like verbal spray at the media as he departed Melbourne).
Politicisation of sport has been around forever. The new world made huge capital over Jesse Owens' four gold medals at Hitler's Olympics in Berlin, 1936. The great Nelson Mandela tried to heal a land torn by decades of racial division – naively supported by some All Black tours – through the 1995 World Cup.
The black-gloved, Black Power racial protest of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico Olympics saw them metaphorically crucified before views changed and they became heroes.
If these seem lefty, liberal issues, that's because they are. But we should not forget Trump is President largely because a section of the US (yes, male, white and of the right…) felt disenfranchised and a sense of injustice; who are we to say their injustice is greater or lesser than someone else's?
Sport is a powerful platform and those who have spoken out have often made a difference. So if an alt-right sportsperson can highlight injustice and oppression and advocate changes that benefit many, we should – without limiting anyone's ability to disagree – at least listen.
I look forward to that. Wonder what the issue will be? And will the rightist choose issue over income?
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