Not only at the Olympic Games do protégés miss chances on the podium
How good that the sport exists, isn’t it? A lot of people will agree with me. It’s just as good with the sports reports. They deliver – the games in Beijing have shown it again – on masses of channels over masses of sports the coveted material for victory and defeat, for medals and championships. But they have a problem, and that with their crucial tool: language. Nothing works without them.
Now there are no laws, only the dictionary with all sorts of rules, which never really decides the game. However, they are often ignored. There are also fashions and questions of taste. In journalism, for example, the golden rule is that you shouldn’t come up with the same word too often, especially not in quick succession. A varied language puts an end to “she shoots”, “he falls”, “the Frankfurter”. In order to avoid repeating what is always the same, there is a wealth of synonyms, i.e. words that have the same meaning or are at least synonymous. They are in many manuals.
However, they are not always suitable for sports reports. To do this, such tomes should know that you can also say “the lilies” for SV Darmstadt 98, “Geißbock-Elf” for 1. FC Köln and “Reds” for Klopp’s FC Liverpool.
If a city has a cathedral, its athletes are baptized cathedral townsfolk without being asked. Stupid only when Cologne competes against Frankfurt or Aachen. And Berlin also has a cathedral!
And then this sonorous chance: Mozartstadter instead of Salzburger. Beethoven townspeople for Bonn actors would still be available. But rather not. Better borrowings from the animal kingdom: the lions for 1860 Munich, the foals for Borussia Mönchengladbach. Or new creations for what’s happening on the pitch – whether they’re beautiful or not, see “netting” instead of “scoring a goal”.
In order not to mention the name of an actor twice in a row, the language of sports knows entire chains of avoidance strategies. Hometown and nationality, ex-club and age, the length of the contract and the style of play from offensive left foot to falling back six are all ready for this. Anyone who follows this just needs to know how many lives a player brings onto the field.
But then there is the exact opposite of the rush on synonyms. Let’s call this phenomenon the P parade. It ranges from blunders and misses to podiums and pedestals. Nothing works in reports without a blunder: mistakes, blunders, weaknesses, gaffes and shortcomings have been eliminated. It’s screwed up, screwed up and screwed up again.
And no decent report misses a chance to celebrate missing out. Almost everything can be missed: first place, second place and so on, qualifying, the next round, a new record. Sport therefore consists almost exclusively of missing out. It’s always okay to miss.
We’re going into the penultimate round. What else will be missed: the podium and the pedestal. This is the podium for the first three places. But who is talking about places one to three? That is not how it works. All that is required is a podium and a podium, whether achieved or not.
Off to the final: Another word is urgently needed for those multimillionaires who have a trainer (or several) in tennis, for example. The reporters only know one substitute: the protégé. Well, it can’t get any worse.
