This week: Drama in Sport Edited by: NaNoKit More Newsletters By This Editor
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Do you have a favourite sports team or athlete? How did you come to support them?
Sport is filled with drama. Some of it unintentional.
This week's Drama Newsletter is all about the inspiration that sport can provide. And about Formula 1.
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I admit it – I am not a huge fan of sports. I don’t have a favourite football team. I don’t feel filled with national pride during international tournaments. I don’t even tune into the Olympics. Whenever I play Trivial Pursuit, I dread the sports questions, as you can imagine.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I watched Formula 1. We’re talking way back here, around the turn of the century, when you had drivers like Mika Häkkinen. Who was my favourite. I’ve always loved fast and loud aircraft, and fast and loud cars, so it was inevitable that I’d end up loving F1. And I truly did. I’d get up at crazy times to catch races in different time zones. I bought F1-related magazines, I had a signed Mika Häkkinen picture and I genuinely cared about the outcome of each race. Until I felt less and less enthusiastic, because the sport became too predictable. It was Schumacher win after Schumacher win. Eventually, I tuned out.
I didn’t tune back in until earlier this year. My sister’s an F1 fan and she was all enthusiastic about the racing season. As a Dutch person she supports Max Verstappen (and Daniel Ricciardo, because she thinks he’s cute), and she felt hopeful that this might be the year we’d get the first Dutch Formula 1 champion. I couldn’t stand Verstappen’s father, Jos, back when I watched, but felt out of the loop when it came to Max, or reigning champion Lewis Hamilton for that matter, and I figured that if my sister and I were going to discuss F1 I’d better check out what was new. That turned out to be a lot.
This is where social media’s very helpful. There was none of that around when I first watched. There’s F1 stuff all over Twitter and Reddit and TikTok and Insta… there are endless sources of information, and through those I learned about the Drive to Survive docuseries on Netflix. If you have Netflix and you like cars and/or racing it’s worth watching. It’s a good introduction to the sport as it covers the action and the drama of the last three seasons. You’ll soon learn who’s who and what’s what. It got me right back into it, all the way to me sitting on the edge of my seat in my Valtteri Bottas shirt on Sunday, watching the final battle for the championship between Lewis and Max. Talk about tension!
As writers, the world of sport can offer a huge amount of inspiration. There is the action of the events. The drama that surrounds them. The ups and the downs of teams and individual athletes. The sacrifices and the glory – or those who sacrifice yet never manage to obtain that glory. There’s the madness of the media, the rivalry between fans, the pressure to be a role model, the injuries, the sponsorships, the limited span of one’s career… It is not a life of ease and leisure. I don’t think I’d last a day. Or an hour. I’ve more than once literally tripped over my own feet...
I guess I’m back to watching sports. Or a sport. I will never be the kind of person who’s all tribal about it. I have my favourites, sure. It’s more fun to watch when you are hoping for a certain outcome. I don’t quite understand the sentiments behind fan rivalries, however, let alone those who think it’s acceptable to send nasty messages to athletes. The ease with which that can be done these days is one of the downsides of social media. It can make people feel closer to those they support, but also close enough to those they don’t like that they feel free to unleash an attack that stems from – I think, perhaps – some kind of unfounded belief that in doing this they’re somehow helping their favourites. Or perhaps they just enjoy the chaos. Rivalries aren’t new, after all. I remember when groups of football supporters would arrange meet-ups for a round or two of fisticuffs. Now they don’t even have to get up from their seats.
If you haven’t yet watched it, and have somehow managed to avoid each and every media source over the last few days, I won’t spoil the outcome of this year’s championship for you. It wasn’t exactly in line with my preferences, but I am happy for the winner. I am glad that F1’s back on the schedule for me. If it keeps on being this exciting who knows, maybe you’ll end up joining me.
NaNoKit
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