Is Andy Murray the Greatest British Sports Star Ever?

On the face of it, deciding if Andy Murray is the greatest British Sports Star ever was a relatively easy question to answer.  For me the answer is a resounding 'yes'!

No doubt there would be many out there who would disagree.  There are of course many outstanding candidates.  The two biggest hurdles though in examining a question such as this is how do you possibly compare individuals (even if they competed in the same sporting arena) across generations and secondly, across sporting fields?  And in truth, there is no viable comparative method that enables one to do so with any sort of validity; it really is a matter of one's own perception of a particular sport as well as cross-generational, sporting prowess, and my perception may be vastly different to the next guy's, and one can really only have an opinion if one has been around long enough to witness sporting achievement across generations and across various sporting arenas.  For example, I can't reasonably compare Andy Murray to Fred Perry, except on paper, simply because I didn't see Fred Perry play.  But what I can say for sure is that the game Perry played might be, in theory the same game that Murray now plays, but in practice they are vastly different.

Andy Murray winning this years Wimbledon Men's Singles

To be blunt, if not controversial for a second, when Perry played tennis was a game that was played by an elite minority.  It certainly wasn't a game that Andy Murray, had he been around in the 1930's, would probably have had a chance to play, let alone play often enough to be able to gain any sort of prowess.  He just wouldn't have had access to the courts, the money or the opportunities.  So tennis back then was a competition between (for want of a better word) gentlemen and so the level of competition, though undoubtedly high for the time, was limited by comparison.  That said, a player in any generation can only beat those against whom he competes and Fred Perry was thus, a great Champion, but that was then and he remains a Champion of the times and his talent, no matter how great, cannot be compared to that of Murray who competes in a world very different from that inhabited by Perry.  The levels of competition and professionalism that the best tennis players in the world have to achieve now is immense and literally bears no comparison to generations past, thus for me at least, Murray's achievement's in winning 3 Grand Slams (2 of course at Wimbledon now) in the modern game is a simply mind boggling feat and far superior to that of (with all due respect) Perry, especially given that Murray has been I would suggest, up against (arguably) the greatest players in the world of this or any other generation, namely Roger Federer, Raphael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

It is hard to imagine there will ever be such a generation of greats in tennis or for that matter, any other sport, who will all be around at the same time with such rampant success.  At any other time time Murray would surely have won more than 3 Slams had he not had the misfortune (?) to be at the top his game at the same time as perhaps the three greatest players of all time.  This as much as anything leads me to say Murray is the greatest British star of all time.

But what of other modern British sports stars, and there are many to choose from across a wide range of sports, all of whom rightly deserve similar accolades for their sporting achievements.  Stars such as Steve Redgrave (rowing), Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Vicky Pendleton (cycling), Lester Piggott, Tony McCoy (horse racing), Joe Calzaghe (boxing), Mo Farah, Seb Coe, Paula Radcliffe (athletics), Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton (football), Adam Peaty (swimming), Jackie Stewart, Lewis Hamilton, Barry Sheene (motor sport), Ben Ainslie (sailing) are just some of whom one might consider in competition with Murray and all of whom, for one reason or another, I discounted.   Here's why....

Mo Farah

When considering this question I considered various criteria and within those various interim factors:

• longevity (level of achievement over time, consistency, competition over time)
• sporting arena (team sport or individual; injury risk)
• place in the British sports fans psyche (i.e. level of attachment or emotion) 

In considering sporting longevity (or success over time) one has to adjust ones expectations for particular sports; for example, in swimming for example, competitors usually come to the fore at a relatively young age (i.e. late teens, early 20's) and may have a career that lasts 10 years if they are truly lucky, whereas a jockey may begin at a similar age but can reasonably be expected to continue for double that time, sometimes longer, therefore in terms of sporting longevity expectations needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Ben Ainslie

In examining various sporting arenas and the success of competitors within that sphere one needs to look at different aspects of each sport and thus, each sporting star.  For example, in football it is relatively easy to determine who a great player is (and who is not) and to determine their level of success, but since it is a team game can one reasonably say that a great player would have been rated so if the team about him was not also a large part of the equation?  By that I mean, Leo Messi is arguably the greatest of all time, but would he have achieved the same levels of recognition and success had he not had an Iniesta, a Javi, a Puyol, etc playing alongside him?  So success in a team game is to a (larger) extent dependent upon the other members of the team than in say boxing, or tennis, where performance is purely down to the individual.  That is not to say that boxers and tennis players don't have teams because they do, but in the end the performance is down to the individual.

In some sports as well the chances of sustaining an injury (serious, career-ending or otherwise) are (arguably) more likely than in others; a boxer for example, is far more likely to sustain injuries than say an oarsman/woman during competition, and in motor sports those injuries may not just threaten a career but also the competitors life.  Would Ayrton Senna have gone on to become the greatest driver of all time had he not lost his life so tragically and so young?  But then a racing driver is far less likely to sustain a torn hamstring during training than say an athlete, so risk assessments across sports are very difficult to make and, I would argue, highly subjective.  

 

The final part of my analysis concerns a sports stars place in the British sports fans hearts, or how attached the public becomes to an individual.  For example, David Beckham is perhaps one of the most popular and loved British sports stars of all time, in spite of, relatively speaking, only limited success on the pitch. Whereas Chris Froome, a naturalised Brit born in Kenya, will have to work much harder to gain a foothold in the public's hearts, despite having won the Tour de France twice and may yet go on to become one of the greatest grand tour riders of all time.

Bradley Wiggins in Tour winners yellow jersey.

And so I come down to my selection process.  Despite all the wonderful names above only a few leapt out at me as possible contenders for the title of Britain's greatest sports star.  They were Steve Redgrave, Ben Ainslie, Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah and of course, Andy Murray.

Taking each in turn I shall give the reason why they didn't make my final cut.  Steve Redgrave I discounted because his success was to a lesser or greater extent dependent upon his team members without whom he may not have achieved such recognition.  Mo Farah, who according to Brendan Foster is the greatest, I discounted because despite all of his success I believe greatness in athletics is largely measured by the number of records he breaks, and rightly or wrongly, Mo has always been a pure racer motivated by medals and not times, and so in my mind has never scaled the heights that he perhaps might have.  Ben Ainslie has never gained the place in British hearts that other sports stars may have simply because sailing is not perhaps an ideal spectator sport and so public recognition has passed him by somewhat.  And to a lesser extent the same may be true of Bradley Wiggins who (in my reckoning came a very close second to Andy and) has never gained the public recognition I believe he deserves because cycling, as a TV sport is not as viewer friendly as say tennis.

Wiggins is, however, in my opinion the greatest cyclist Britain has produced.  The range of his successes is truly staggering reaching across a multitude of track events at both Worlds and Olympics, as well as untold success on the roads culminating in his 2011 success in becoming the first British winner of the Tour de France and all this stretching over an international career that has lasted almost 20 years and is still ongoing.

But in the end he will never gain the same place in British hearts as Andy Murray simply because tennis is a much more approachable and armchair friendly sport than say an individual time trial event!

So by process of elimination I come to the inevitable conclusion that Andy Murray is the greatest sports star that Britain has ever produced.

What do you think?  Am I right or wrong?

Le Tour de France: My fun look at the first week!

Ok, so the first week of Le Tour is done and dusted, and what have we discovered, if anything?  As always, at this relatively early stage there are more questions than answers, but I'm going to have a go at trying to answer a few of the more pertinent ones that have jumped out at me!  As well as that I'm going to dish out my 1st week awards - good and bad - and try to make a few precarious predictions as to where this years race might be headed!

So where do we start?  Of course, we start with the main man and that man this week has been Britain's Chris Froome.

Well, Chris is well placed, in yellow where he likes to be, but does he look as strong as he has done at this stage in 2013 & 2015 when he won his first two overall victories?

That's a hard one.  On the face of it one might be tempted to suggest that his position is precarious by comparison to 2013 & 15.  At this stage in 2013 he had a lead of 2m2s and in 2015 1m59s over Colombian ace Nairo Quintana, the man most people expect to be his main rival once again.  So by pure numbers it's easy to suggest that Froomey is struggling and is set for a big fall come the high Alps in the final week of the race.  In both of his Tour wins Froomey has hit the first week hard, and in particular the Pyrenees, where he has typically opened significant time gaps over Quintana and his other main rivals.  This year however, although he did win Saturdays mountain stage it was only by a matter of seconds and not the minutes that perhaps we are used to seeing.  Does this mean that he is on the back foot already and has only way to go as the Tour rages on - backwards?

I don't think so!  If you listen to Chris speak, as well as how Dave 'the Maestro' Brailsford talks about him, I think it's fair to say that the 2016 version of Chris Froome is a much more relaxed, chilled and realistic animal.  If it's possible at 31 years of age, I think Chris has finally grown into his role as a (budding) cycling legend and seems to be able to handle the stresses, strains and demands of being the Tour favourite in a much better manner than perhaps we've seen previously.  He himself has pointed to his normally dominant first week and must be fully aware of the relative disparity in the comparative time gaps this year and the potential consequences as the race develops.  But Team Sky are also a very different animal this year compared with their previous winning years with both Froomey and initially Wiggins (in 2012) when the Sky train was all dominant and, despite all the success, gained only scorn amongst sections of the press (particularly in France) for the manner of their victories.  However, this year Team Sky have also grown into their role as (arguably) the top team at this years tour.  The Sky train is still there, but it is no longer the rigid (and boring?) locomotive that we've seen before.  The development of Brailsford's Team Sky and by proxy, Chris Froome, has come about as a result of their experiences over the past few years.  Their learning curve has been steep indeed, and one would be hard pressed to suggest that they haven't taken on board any of the lessons learned since the team's inception in 2010.

We saw the first indications that the 2016 version of Team Sky was perhaps somewhat different from previous versions in the Dauphine where the riders seemed to have much freedom to explore their own races whilst still maintaining the basic remit of protecting their team leader, Froomey, and winning the day, which they duly did.  The evolution of the team and it's riders has continued this week with riders appearing in breakaways as well as adopting different tactics in the early mountain stages where Sergio Henao, for example, has certainly been given his head to try and ride his own race, in stark contrast to 2011 when Froome was held back under team orders to guide eventual winner, Bradley Wiggins, over the high Alps.

Criticisms of Froomey being a boring, robotic rider in previous years have surely been laid to rest this year after his extravagant downhill attack and eventual stage win in Saturday's stage, if not by his elbowing of a Colombian fan who got too close on the ascent!  I think Chris is riding well within himself and has preserved his legs (relatively) and energies for what is still to come.

The first week has seen the peleton cover just over half the distance of this years Tour, some 1769kms.  The coming week features 2 more mountain stages, including on Thursday a mountain top finish of the legendary Mont Ventoux and on Friday the first of this years TT's, which is a longish, relatively hilly day with an uphill gradient to finish, all of which should suit Froomey well.  Whilst Quintana has undoubtedly improved his time-trialling the 37.5km TT should see Froome putting a bit more time into Quintana.  The big test though will surely come on the ascent of Mont Ventoux where we can reasonably expect Quintana and the other GC contenders to all have a bash at taking Froomey's crown!  However, Ventoux is a climb Froomey knows well having won there in 2013 on the way to his first overall victory.  If he does make the first move on Thursday I can see him running the show again and stretching his lead further over a somewhat reticent 2016 Quintana.

One would think that if Quintana truly has designs on this years Tour he would need to attack early on on Mont Ventoux to try and test Froome's endurance to it's max.  But I've sensed a certain reluctance in Quintana so far to really put himself on the line, for example on Saturday when he failed to chase Froome down, despite being on his wheel, as they topped the mountain and instead he sat up and waited for Valverde to arrive before he began his chase.  Does that indicate a lack of confidence in his own ability?  Or maybe he's not sure of his own physical capabilities coming into this years Tour having not raced for some time, despite successes earlier in the year when he beat Froome (e.g. Tour of Romandie).  Maybe that lack of racing the past few months will be telling in the final wash?  Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all and he's really is just biding his time.  By the end of this week we shall all know a lot more.

But what of the rest of the peleton?

Froome aside, the other big stories this week are perhaps also British.  The return to form, after a seemingly long absence, of Mark Cavendish with 3 fantastic wins this week.  Cav's post race interviews are always a mix of emotion, angst, muttered phrases and either beaming smiles or black scowls, but they are always entertaining!  If I, for one, had been doubting Cav's ability to get back to his best after a long performance hiatus, then it must be said that Cav himself never shared in those doubts and is now perhaps as good as he's ever been and has, this week, overtaken Bernard Hinault's total Tour victories with a staggering 29 wins!  He has more chances this week, though with the Olympics just round the corner one has to question whether we will see Cav racing all the way to the Champs Elysees this year.

Britain's other big successes this week have been Fridays amazing mountain stage win by 35 year old youngster Steve Cummings of Team Dimension Data (Cav's team) and the second placing overall (some 16secs behind Froomey) and white jersey holder (best young rider) of Adam Yates (Orica Bike Exchange)!  Cummings win was arguably the best and biggest win of his career and comes at a time when most are digging out their pipe and slippers but Cummings, bucking the trend, just seems to be getting better and better!  Has he found the secret of eternal youth I ask?  And so for Cummings this week I give the Never Say Die Award which is also known as the Cher 'I can turn back time' Award!

At 23 years old and being well into the final year of his contract at Orica Adam Yates is probably this years hot young thing and must have new offers of employment filling his inbox every morning!  His form so far this Tour has been quite staggering given that his chin is a mass of stitches after the inflatable flamme rouge collapsed on top of him during Friday's stage!  He has managed to stick with all the big guns in the mountains so far, however, it must be said without setting the peleton on fire.  Nevertheless, he could well be Britain's next grand tour winner (after Froome) in the making and for this reason I award him the Week One Hottie Award, an honour he is sure to live up to in the coming fortnight!

Other winners and losers this week include the Evergreen Peter Sagan (evergreen because he is destined to spend the rest of the Tour in green) who can surely gain worthwhile employment, once his cycling career is over, as a cartoon voice-over character; Alberto Contador, who followed up a very heavy fall on the opening day by trying to outdo himself the next day by tumbling over again, and in the end abandoned the race during Sunday's stage.  Contador's days of challenging the best during the grand tours are now probably behind him and if he decides to continue next year (perhaps with the new Bahrain team) then it may well be in more of a support role!  BMC's Richie Porte also had his share of bad luck losing time on his GC rivals with a mechanical failure some 5kms out during Monday's (I think!) stage and his chances of pushing for overall victory seemed to have dissipated in the process!  Marcel Kittel, who looked so great earlier in the year, looks a bit below par but still managed to win Tuesday's stage ahead of Sagan, but does look to be second best this year to a rejuvenated Cav!  Andre Griepel has been way off the pace despite having had good lead out trains for most of the sprint stages and is languishing in the sprinters wilderness right now!  Best Newcomer Award goes to British sprinter Dan McClay riding in his first Tour and who has managed to finish in the top 10 of every sprint stage thus far!  Keep it up Dan!  And talking of Dan's, it wouldn't be right to finish without giving a mention to Ireland's Dan Martin who is showing that maybe he does have the makings of a GC contender after all.  The Etix man is running hotter than ever after finishing to second in last month's Dauphine and finally seems to demonstrating that he has the confidence to stick with and even attack the top GC guys in the high mountains.  But for both him and Adam Yates, the final's weeks high Alps tests will be the true test of their mettle and will show whether they really can compete with the very best over a 3 week grand tour!

Ok, I'll be back next week with another round up of Tour news!  In the meantime, enjoy this weeks racing and get on your bike!