At least this builds character
The cold, the frost, the ice... it’s having quite an impact.
The funny thing is that the cold plays more of a role in sport than you’d imagine. Remember it’s not so long ago since ice baths were all the rage with the theory that spending 30 seconds or so in the deep freeze was good for rejuvenating damaged tissue.
We’ll spare the blushes of the GAA club which misread the instructions and had players dicing with hypothermia as they alternated two minutes in ice-cold water and 30 seconds resting under a towel rather than the other way round...
Of course, we at Talking Sport have first-hand experience of this theory in action.
It’s not so long ago that we braved minus 110 degrees at the cryotherapy chamber in White’s Hotel Wexford, a harrowing tale of one man’s bravery in the face of the extremes that nature, or rather the extremes that a German-built refrigeration unit... (editor’s note: Talking Sport’s colleagues usually react to these introductory remarks, which tend to presage a lengthy revisting of said visit to Wexford, by booking flights to Rio De Janeiro, feigning death, signing up for classes in Gestalt, etc)... and a guy from the Leinster rugby academy. He had a torso like Brad Pitt, and Talking Sport had a torso like a tar pit.
Ho ho, gets them every time. And cleared up that rash on the ankle pretty quick too.
WITH the World Cup fast approaching, which is the last genuinely cold country which won the thing?
We’re ruling out France in 1998 because if you’re being honest your image of France is more dependent on the Cote d’Azur than the coal mines in the north. Consider this list: Italy, Brazil, France, Brazil, then Germany – but they’re quickly followed by Argentina, Italy and Argentina, going back to 1978.
Not an awful lot of markets there for thermal underwear.
I raise the issue because regular as clockwork when it comes to the World Cup, alongside the disappointment of the Dutch and the implosion of the Argentinians, you will always have one old excuse revived, the old “hot weather doesn’t suit the northern-hemisphere teams”.
There’s something to it. Germany and England both won at home, with the former braving the heat of the Italian night 20 years ago to add another title. But certainly the roasting heat of Orlando didn’t leave too many happy memories for the likes of fair-haired Stephen Staunton in 1994.
Admit it: you’d like to see Cristiano Ronaldo pick his way across a frosty halfway line, breath crystallising as he limped. There’s something about braving the cold that suggests, wrongly or otherwise, a character-building experience. And it may well be.
The other day this column was reminded of a comment from Sean Kelly in his biography, many moons ago: the great cyclist was asked about training in bad weather, and his answer told you a lot about professional cycling, and even more about Sean Kelly. It’s no good looking out at the cold and the wet and complaining about how miserable it is, said Kelly, you get your gear on and you get up on the bike and do your full training session, start to finish, then you put your bike away and get yourself washed and you sit down. And then, he said, you can talk about how bad the weather is.
If the met service is correct, it sounds like we’ll have plenty to talk about for a while yet.
contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; Twitter: mikemoynihanex
