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Claire Hughes: Legal fights likely to halt move for school boxing
Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has thrown his hat into potentially one of the toughest political rings going – the debate about boxing in schools.
Sutcliffe, basically, wants to see more of it. But the rest of the country? The judges are split.
The sight of children pulling on gloves and lamping each other in the school gym used to be pretty common back in the Fifties. Then in 1962 a public outcry led to a public school halting the pugilistic art overnight on the advice of a brain surgeon connected to the establishment.
Eventually, after a lengthy campaign by then MP Edith Summerskill, parental opinion took over and the sport was ceased – apart from, obviously, the fisticuffs in the playground.
But, as the pro-boxing campaigners are quick to point out, that was then and this is now.
Then it was a case of turn up and fight. Now it is about getting fit, turning your back on junk living and feeling better about yourself. And the only things that get punched – for the first 12 months at least – are the bags and pads.
It is easy to see why boxing is starting to put down roots in schools. You don't need tons of specialist gear which makes it cheap and you don't need playing fields – a big advantage in the green space-eroded land that accounts for many modern schools.
Training for the sport also combats the big, glowering exclamation marks that litter the headlines. More obese children than anywhere else! Youth self-esteem at all-time low! Kids have nothing to do!
It is not even a boys-only zone. Girls' boxing is increasing in popularity and many adult gyms boast influential female practitioners on their books doctors, lawyers, teachers. Boxing is a full-body workout, as anyone who has ever attempted 'boxercise' will testify. And it comes with the added bonus of rapid toning, no risk of bingo wings here.
So why not let our kids have a go? It is an Olympic sport, let's not forget, and we could do with all the help we can get in aiming for the rostrum.
Because at the end of the day, it still involves hitting people – and getting hit – in the head.
Yes, there is head protection, yes, there are strict rules. But when injuries occur, as they do in all sports, it is not a case of sitting out for a couple of weeks with a knee support and an appointment card for physiotherapy.
It's serious. A bruise on the arm is one thing, a bruise on the brain is another. And there lies the rub.
The kind of injuries that can leave serious long-term damage, or even kill boxers, are rare in amateur boxing because that is how it works. It's about points not knockouts, not that either would have helped Ricky Hatton yesterday morning. But they still happen; there is a significant risk.
The thing that strikes me most about the proposal is that the world of today is not the carefree, we've-been-through-worse-in-the-war one of old. The blame game rules.
Many parents today are litigious, the government is overly sensitive, the health and safety gurus a miniature secret police.
In an age where school trips and conker games – basically anything that would fall under the category of 'fun' – are being cancelled left, right and centre because of health and safety issues, it is hard to imagine that something as innovative and forward-thinking as martial arts in schools – be they boxing, tae kwon do, karate or fencing – will be given much of a chance.
It will only take one serious injury to knock boxing back out of schools and then the smug smiles of the health and safety brigade will return – along with more shock headlines.
Time to deal with this shortening of the shortlist
THIS morning, the nation has a new sporting personality to salute with due reverence, Joe Calzaghe having been crowned the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
And while no one can complain about the result – it being done entirely by phone voting on the day – the 10 finalists will have left many sports fans musing as to the gaping holes.
No one can deny Lewis Hamilton his place – he ticking both sporting (near) success and personality boxes, the latter no doubt helped by last week's timely appearance on Top Gear; Justin Rose has excelled on the golf courses of the world; Andy Murray, Joe Calzaghe and James Toseland all excelled in their sports; Christine Ohuruogu defied the odds to bring home Britain's only world championship gold in the 400m and Paula Radcliffe became the toast – and envy – of all new mums everywhere after coming back and winning the New York Marathon in one of the finest performances – in competition terms, at least – of her life.
Jason Robinson and Jonny Wilkinson, meanwhile, lost the rugby union World Cup but showed heart in battling injury, and Ricky Hatton lost the night before the ceremony.
But where was Victoria Pendleton, the sportswoman of the year who won three gold medals at this year's track cycling world championships? What about Jamie Murray, who won the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon; rugby league star Rob Burrow has had a fantastic year; and Mark Ramprakash can feel rightly hard done to for not making the final 10.
The answers lie in the 31 shortlists from newspapers, magazines – including men's magazines Nuts and Zoo – and a panel of experts.
Of the final 10, only two were unanimously voted in; Hamilton and Calzaghe. Ohuruogu (10), Robinson (11) and Toseland (12) scraped in at the other end of the scale; Seb Sanders had the nearest miss with nine nominations.
The lack of female nominations is notable. Six of the shortlists – one-fifth – were disturbingly all-male in a year where England's women's football team made the quarter-finals of the World Cup, Pendleton ruled the world championships and Ohuruogu set the world alight on the athletics track.
Would a women's magazine send in an all-female shortlist? I suspect not. But there's only one way to find out.
'Flukey' Mayweather shows Hatton respect
HERE is an exchange you won't hear this week: "Did you see the fight on Sunday?" "What fight?"
Was yesterday's Undefeated clash the most hyped boxing match of all time?
Well, I wasn't around for the old classics – The Rumble in the Jungle, The Thriller in Manila etc – so I can't be sure. But if anyone in the country did not know that a proper lad from Manchester was getting in the ring with a customer so smooth he could market himself as a fruit drink, I'd be genuinely surprised.
It didn't seem to matter which channel you were watching, there were adverts, teasers and stories about the build-up.
Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday was hijacked with trails every 10 minutes and BBC Radio Five Live was swallowed up with nearly as many references – and some fabulous cameos by Ricky Hatton's mum, Carol, and a bloke who once met 'The Hitman' face to face.
On the web the bloggers were beside themselves with glee and the chatrooms were full of eager Mancs ready to cheer on their man.
The most important question is did the fight live up to the hype? Mike Costello's phenomenal radio commentary on Five Live certainly suggested it did (the prospect of getting out of bed at 4am AND paying someone so I could watch the action from several thousand miles away just didn't do it for me).
When it was all over, Floyd Mayweather's swagger was swapped for a genteel and genuinely respectful attitude towards his defeated opponent; Hatton responded with typical humour – "it was a fluke," he joked to the excruciatingly bad interviewer from HBO, who didn't get it.
And all was quiet again. Well, almost.
Exhibit these tainted medals as message to all potential cheats
If Victor Conte's intent was to throw sport into a state of chaos when he set up the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) and created a new go-go-gadget level of performance-enhancement, he must be a very happy man right now.
Today, the International Olympic Committee are essentially attempting to rearrange funeral flowers yet still come up smelling of roses.
The dilemma is this. Marion Jones, athletic superwoman of the early 2000s, admitted in October that all those rumours back in Sydney, the ones about the super-human sprint efforts being just a little bit too 'super' – maybe even illegal – were actually true.
And her 'flaxseed oil' supplement – which she had always claimed was her speed secret – had been going on since before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, where she happened to win three gold medals and two bronzes.
The IOC, quite rightly, quickly moved to strip her of those medals just as the IAAF – the world athletics body – deleted all mention of the sprinter in their records for the past seven years.
But now they don't know what to do with them.
History has it that where cheats fail to prosper, the unlucky loser suddenly gets lucky and finds a nice, albeit slightly worn, medal in the post.
But the woman who came second in the 100m that year, Greek runner Ekaterina Thanou, was herself revealed as a cheat four years later at the Athens Olympics.
You see their problem?
They need to scoop up the dead flowers from that long ago medal ceremony and then present the ghoulish bouquet to the next bridesmaid in line. But when the No 2's white dress has been equally smeared with mud, that makes life tricky.
It is an unenviable scenario, unless you're Conte, the man who claimed that "doping is rampant and beating testers is like taking candy from a baby". He may be secretly delighted at the crisis meetings and the growing list of unmasked cheats – because it proves his point.
And it also pushes the much-needed drug-testing revolution closer to the tipping point. It's funny how embarrassment can spur radical change at the top.
For me, the only solution when the IOC gets to the crux of this – and several other of the thorny issues surrounding this sorry episode such as whether to strip Jones's relay team-mates of their medals, too – is to take the chunks of metal and put them on display in the Olympic Museum.
Or use them as the centerpiece of an exhibition that could tour athletics meets across the world. 'These were Marion Jones's medals,' the plaque would read. 'She thought she was in the clear. But we got her in the end – and we'll get you too.'
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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