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The word sportsmanship has traditionally had warm, positive connotations. However, recent indiscretions by the Harlequins rugby team and the Renault F1 team have put this into question. The reputation of Harlequins and its former Director of Rugby, Dean Richards, along with the Renault F1 and former Team Principle Flavio Briotore are firmly in the gutter and if things continue in this vein, the term ‘sportsmanship’ may become a synonym for deception, injustice and cheating.

For those who are not avid followers of sport, the ‘Bloodgate’ scandal as it has become known, involved a Harlequins player, Tom Williams, faking a blood injury (by inserting a blood capsule into his mouth) in order to allow specialist kicker Nick Evans onto the field for the crucial final few minutes of the match. William’s mouth was then purposely cut afterwards to make the injury real.

Renault’s deception involved former Renault driver, Nelson Piquet, who after being dropped from the team admitted that in last years Singapore Grand Prix, he was ordered to crash on purpose in order to give team-mate Fernando Alonso a slight advantage after the safety car was deployed.

Perhaps the seriousness of this latter incident is not immediately apparent, but it came to light shortly after Formula 2 driver Henry Surtees was killed, and F1 driver Felipe Massa very nearly so, by debris on the track from another car. When Piquet was ordered to crash, he was not only being ordered to put his own life in danger, but those of every other racing driver on the track – not to mention those of the stewards who are charged with clearing the debris.

These two incidents are appalling and frankly disgusting demonstrations of the lengths some are willing to go not even to win, but to fractionally increase their chances of doing so.

It is enough to make one question whether the spirit of fairplay and sportsmanship is still alive within sports at the highest level, such are the pressures placed on those who take part. However, whilst watching England play Sri Lanka in the ICC Champions trophy recently, my faith was restored somewhat.

During a critical part of the game, Sri Lankan batsman Angelo Mathews collided with an England player while attempting a run. As a result, he failed to get back to the crease in time and was ruled out. A little unfair maybe, but out nonetheless.

However, Andrew Strauss, England’s Ashes-winning captain immediately called his team in a huddle. Consensus was quickly reached that Mathews would have made his ground if it was not for the unfortunate clash, and Strauss informed the umpire to rule Mathews not out and allow him to continue to bat. Why? Because as Strauss commented afterwards “it was the right thing to do.” Strauss chose not to take advantage because it was not sportsmanlike, not proper and quite simply, not cricket.

So if Harlequins and the Renault F1 team want to do something about their flagging reputations, they could do a lot worse than watching a few games of cricket and taking some notes on the spirit in which it is played.

Tags: Andrew Strauss, cricket, Dean Richards, F1, fairplay, Flavio Briatore, football, Harlequins, Renault, reputation, rugby, sportsmanship

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 am and is filed under General PR, Travel & Leisure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.