In 1890 Samuel Butler observed: ‘It is bad enough to see one’s own good things fathered on other people, but it is worse to have other people’s rubbish fathered upon oneself.’ Received wisdom is often incorrect. Cary Grant boasted: ‘I improve on misquotation.’ This book may also serve as an arbitration facility for long-standing disputes about who said what. The target audience is any reader with a sense of humour, or an eye for the eccentric or simply ridiculous, but obviously this will mean more to the sports enthusiast. One preliminary warning – the truth is often funnier than fiction.
John Scally
Rathmines, Dublin
THE GOOD, THE GLAD AND THE WORDY
Robert Burns once stated: ‘I like to have quotations ready for every occasion … they save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one’s feelings.’ At its best, athletics has the power to make the pulse miss a beat. Whatever your sporting fancy, this collection of quotations recreates the unique excitement, drama and unpredictability of athletics in the words of the sport’s practitioners. Anyone who’s anyone in the athletics game may find themselves quoted here in their scurrilous, unguarded, rude and humorous moments. A newspaper is rather caustically defined by George Bernard Shaw as a device ‘unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.’ Hence it is no surprise that the media presence in this section is very strong.
1. On the track
Misplaced Confidence
The difference between me and other athletes who go to the Olympics is that I go to win and they go to compete.
David Bedford, long-distance runner, before the Munich Olympics. He only came sixth!
Heavy Breather
The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
Erma Bombeck
Fall Of The Titans
The most famous collision since the Titanic and the iceberg.
Pat Butcher on Zola Budd’s tripping of Mary Decker in the 1984 Olympics
Amongst Women
My secrets? I don’t know – maybe ladies?
Mexican marathon man Dionicio Ceron on the key to his success
Health-Conscious
Go jogging? What, and get hit by a meteor?
Robert Benchley
The Power Of Love
I never jog. Love is still a better and more pleasurable sport.
Cary Grant
Race
We should be thankful to lynch mobs. I’ve got a brother who can run a half-mile faster than any white boy in the world.
Dick Gregory
Handicap
My leotard got twisted and stuck right up my bottom just as I was getting to the hurdle. It was a bit of an unwanted distraction, really.
Sally Gunnell, unhappy at encountering unexpected problems in her 1993 World Championship semi-final
You Don’t Say
Early rounds of an athletics meeting are called heats, because that is when the competition begins to heat up.
Colin M. Jarman
A Racing Certainty
The race is not always to the swift, but that is where to look.
Hugh E. Keough
Close Shave
Italian men and Russian women don’t shave before a race.
Eddy Ottoz
Bias
The decathlon is nine Mickey Mouse events and the 1500 metres.
Steve Ovett
Incentive
I’m Jewish. I don’t work out. If God wanted us to bend over he’d put diamonds on the floor.
Joan Rivers
Missing The Target
The athletic facilities situation is a mess. Girls still haven’t figured out how to use the urinals.
John Roberts
Elementary, My Dear Watson
In running, you have to be suspicious when you line up against girls with moustaches.
Maree Holland
Medical Advice
My doctor told me my jogging could add years to my life. I told him ‘Yeah, since I began, I already feel ten years older!’
Lee Trevino
Early Risers
Jogging is for people who aren’t intelligent enough to watch Breakfast TV.
Victoria Wood
Testing Positive
If she [Diane Modahl] was as much over the limit as the test supposes, she would be a big girl with a deep voice and beard. We’d all be calling her Barry White.
Tony Jarrett
High Power
Nature’s attempt [Vladimir Kuts - Olympic 5000 & 10000m champion] at an engine in boots.
A. P. Herbert
Wired For Speed
I’m studying to be an electronics engineer. I put wires in my legs.
Wilson Kipketer after winning the 800m gold at the 1995 World Championships
Mathematics Made Complicated
I’ve got ten pairs of training shoes. One for every day of the week.
Samantha Fox, ex-Page Three Girl
Requirements
Women need a firm bra, not one of the flimsy all-elastic ones. That’s especially true if you have large breasts. Otherwise they’ll bounce and you’ll always be waiting for them to come down before you take your step.
Nine Kuscsik
2. Field Of Dreams
Expensive Education
Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.
Minna Antrim
Muscle
People think of me as the Incredible Hulk.
Fatima Whitbread
The Hands That Rock The Cradle
To be an Olympic champion, I am convinced you must choose your parents carefully.
Per-Olaf Astrand, Swedish athletic researcher
Idiotic
Athletic sports, save in the case of young boys, are designed for idiots.
George Nathan
Amateur Ethos
A proper