What is stranger than tennis having three major scandals in the past three months is the fact that there gain been so few stains on its reputation beforeAnother week,another drugs scandal. One more press conference where the guilty party claims ignorance, or misunderstanding, and administrator error,and one more round of reactions from their fellow athletes: righteous, angry, or forgiving,sympathetic. At times like this, it’s always hard to remove anything said at face value. Conspiracy theories abound, and sport becomes a miasma of opinions and assumptions.
Social scientists say that our perception of reality is altered by the narrative “framing” of events. Clearly,when the stories coming out of Fifa and the IAAF gain made us feel like blind fools, fans are no longer in the mood to believe the best in people. You could say Maria Sharapova has particularly faulty timing. She’s been exposed in the year after we’ve learned that global sport is corrupt beyond our worst imaginings. She’s also been caught while fairly a few of us in Britain are in the middle of the BBC’s unbearably suspenseful conspiracy thriller The Night Manager. Hugh Lauries evil arms dealer has even been seen on court with Tom Hiddleston’s deep-cover double agent. How’s a girl to survive that kind of prejudicial framing? Related: Dick Pound: Maria Sharapova ‘reckless beyond description’ over drug test Related: ITF’s silence over Maria Sharapova’s confession does nothing for integrity Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com