Be a participant in life, not a spectator

This is as good a day as any to throw in the ball and announce, with a suitable fanfare of mixed metaphors of course, that the much-anticipated summer of sport has begun.

The tsunami of competition will highlight some of humanity’s best qualities. Unfortunately, we’d be foolish not to anticipate a downside too but, and this is why the weeks ahead are so anticipated, the experiences will be largely positive and often inspiring.

Some performances will be moving. No one who saw pixie-like Nadia Comaneci scoring a perfect 10 on her way to winning three gold medals in Montreal in 1976 can have forgotten how beautiful, how almost ethereal, her decade-defining performances were.