MacArthur provides red-letter day in sport

SPORTS writing is a language of its own really, one whose distinguishing feature is outrageous hyperbole.

Without blinking an eyelid, we scatter around words with a carelessness which totally undermines their original meaning. Tragedy is a goal conceded in injury time, bravery is moving your full-back to the half-back line, awesome is a midfielder who scored four points from play two games in a row.

It's not just sports writers who are to blame, in the age of hype and 24-hour news coverage everything has to be talked up. Stories are inflated like the body of a steroid-munching weightlifter, exaggerated like the ludicrous opinion of Kevin Myers.

Yet, in the midst of all this puffing up, there is sometimes a story commensurate with our appetite for heroism which deserves all the superlatives lavished on it.

Measure most sporting achievements against what Ellen MacArthur achieved over the past two and a bit months, and they will be found wanting. Look at these numbers for a start: 71 days, 14 hours, 15 minutes and 33 seconds her time at sea; 75 feet the size of her boat; 28 years old her age.

I don't have exact figures for the size of the waves which towered over the boat or the speed of the storms which threw it around the ocean on a regular basis. No doubt there is a precise medical measurement for the pain suffered when a sail fell on her head, but I don't have this either.

Yet the MacArthur voyage is, unlike most sports stories, more impressive the longer you think about it. Imagine, for a start, the mental resources necessary to cope with the loneliness, isolation, and tedium of 71 days without another human being in sight.

I remember seeing MacArthur on television over Christmas, she was soaking wet, miserable, close to tears, in the eye of a gale and unable even to open her presents because the boat was shifting around so alarmingly. She looked an unlikely heroine then.

Your first instinct was that this was someone who'd be better off jacking in the journey, getting on dry land and taking to the bed for a few days. You seldom see a sportsman or woman looking so vulnerable.

That was around the halfway point yet she pressed on so there must have been other moments when she felt just as lonely and even more scared.

She has admitted to feeling fear while out on the ocean and this makes her achievement all the greater. Knowing the risks, she took them anyway. In fact, she was appealingly honest about her worries all along.

A 75-foot boat. It's worth looking at that statistic again. Most of us would consider ourselves to have suffered hardship if we had to spend one night in a hotel room that size. To spend 71 days in that space seems like some technique designed by the US military for enemies of the realm.

One remarkable aspect of this saga is MacArthur is not the fastest yachtswoman around the world, she's the fastest yachtsperson. The record she broke was held by a man. She hasn't done well for a woman, she's done well end of story.

For all the brilliance of Serena Williams or Sonia O'Sullivan or Annika Sorenstan there's no denying that they aren't empirically as good as the men in the same sport.

The men run faster times, hit the ball harder, post lower scores. There are physiological reasons for this apparently and they provide solace for anyone who wants to diminish female sporting achievement.

Ellen MacArthur is number one in her field. And that surely makes this a red letter week for women in sport.

It would seem to be an achievement which no one could quibble with, but I have a nagging suspicion there will be a few begrudging voices raised over the next while. These predictable nayfayers will focus on the fact that sailing is "a rich man's sport" whatever that's supposed to mean.

There's actually nothing rich about Ellen MacArthur who is a teacher's daughter from a small village in Derbyshire. Yes, as happens sometimes when Ireland triumph in showjumping, Europe win the Ryder Cup or Ireland claim the Triple Crown, this will be derided as a middle class triumph

Two things. One, the middle class have to play sport too. And two, there's nothing more middle class than using middle class as a term of abuse. A few days ago I stumbled across an intriguing story in the files of my local paper, the Southern Star.

Two Cape Clear sailors, Tom and Denis Cadogan, piloted a small boat from Cork to the Falklands, surviving among other things tropical storms and a trip through an ice field.

That was back in 1927. I think Tom and Denis Cadogan would have been proud of Ellen MacArthur. They'd know what she was all about. The rest of us can only imagine.