In the same week we have seen both sides of the sporting age coin.
In football 39-year old Ryan Giggs won a record 13th Premier League title. Described by his manager as a “freak” who will continue to play for at least another two years, Giggs is redefining the very boundaries of age and longevity in sportsmen.
Yet at the same time 20 year old Spaniard Marc Marquez won his first Moto GP race in only the second race of his career, an absoloutely staggering achievment. This illustrates a trend of sportsmen being able to compete at the highest level for longer, but also an increasing ability to reach the summit at an ever decreasing age, due to improved training and preparation techniques.
What do these examples tell us, if anything, about our attitudes to age and sport? It should be obvious that age is just a number. We should never judge an athlete based on their age; one is never too old to perform at the highest level, just as one is never too young. Too often athletes are written off and put on the scrapheap when they still have plenty left to give.
It should be recognised that many athletes take different careeer trajectories. Some, like Boris Becker, reach the peak young but are never able to recapture the heights later in their career. Others, my favourite example being Swiss Skiier Didier Cuche, only reach the heights at the end of their career.
Athletes are not numbers, they’re individuals with their own life stories and differing physical and mental development trajectories. We are missing out on so much potential and expertise both on and off the field of play if we dump them when they hit an unfortunately high number.
It’s a ridicolous state of affairs when trophyless clubs such as Arsenal and Newcastle refuse to buy a player over 24, yet are willing to fork our huge money for unproven youngsters who often flop. Ferguson, on the other hand, likes to blend youth and experience in his squad. This year he hoovered up Arsenal’s best player, 29-year old Robin Van Persie, at the very peak of his game, for less money than Liverpool payed for unproven Andy Carroll.
In a world which likes to label people not for who they are, but for what they are, or more accurately what they are percieved to be, we should take a leaf out of Ferguson’s book and judge everybody on their merits, rather than an arbitrary label.