Everywhere sport goes, words follow

A year cannot be boring when it starts with a Russian being rudely dextrous with the English language.

- ROHIT BRIJNATH

How does a heated Daniil Medvedev even think up this amusing line which he fires at an umpire at the Australian Open in January? "You are, how can I call it, a small cat." There are so many words spoken and shouted in sport all year and fewer are funny as time passes. Discourtesy comes easier. Quotes are anyway packaged and uttered by things called brands. It makes you wish you were a reporter in America in the time of Muhammad Ali.

Ali's words were entertaining but also had the sting of his left jab. In a 2019 piece in Sports Illustrated, Ben Pickman wrote: "The sports section was traditionally seen as the toy department of the newsroom, but coverage of the outspoken Ali often touched on subjects beyond boxing, offering a perspective on the state of race, religion and the Vietnam War in America." These days players plan to wear rainbow armbands at the World Cup, are threatened with a mere yellow card and abandon their protest. So much for the weight of their words.

For all the silent action which unfolds in arenas, words follow sport everywhere. They are found in dressing room rants, sideline commands, trash talk, griping to referees and hurried prayer.