Inside Track: Teams Trump wouldn’t want to see on victory podium
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
Mexico might win the World Cup; Canada most certainly won’t. Neither will Iran.
Mexico, one of the competition’s three host countries, flew from the traps, winning the extravaganza’s opener with the expected defeat of South Africa on Thursday last.
Mexico are favourites to top their group. The Republic of Ireland’s nemesis, Czechia, and South Korea are the others involved.
Canada are no wild price to come out of Group B. Just 5/2, with Switzerland and Bosnia & Herzegovina above them and Qatar on 33/1.
Also playing host, the Mounties are 150/1 to lift the trophy, and are unlikely to be in New York on July 19th. They struggled to a draw on their debut.
But just say they, Mexico, or Iran, make it to the final, and one of them wins it.
Wouldn’t it be a bit awkward for Donald Trump having to acknowledge the victory and then present the trophy to the captain?
Trump hasn’t been a flavour with these countries, nor they with him. First of all, he built a big fence to prevent Mexicans from getting into his country, threatened Canada with a takeover, and, at the time of writing, is at war with Iran.
He has met his match in Mark Carney, who is visiting this country. Being of Mayo extraction, the Canadian Prime Minister might just bring the team in red-and-green the luck they need to reacquaint with Sam Maguire.
Adolf Hitler, in a role something similar to the one Trump is due to fill in New York, was far from effusive in his acknowledgement of one of the greatest Olympic achievements at the 1936 Berlin Games.
The dictator didn’t snub Jesse Owens, but neither did he afford the black American athlete the recognition his mastery on the track deserved.
Owens had no equals at the last celebration of the Games before World War 2. (It would be 12 years before the next, London, against all the odds, staging them at venues throughout the capital, the famed, but no longer standing, White City among them.)
From Cleveland in Ohio, Owens was supreme over the sprint distances in Berlin. He won the 100m, the 200m and was part of the USA team that won the 4 x 100m relay. He brought up the four-timer by winning the Long Jump.
And not only did he take four golds, every time he set foot on the track, he equalled or bettered an Olympic or World record.
When it seemed Owens’ achievement of taking four titles might never be equalled, onto the track stepped another of the great athletes, in 1984.
Carl Lewis was, like Owens, in his early 20s when he blitzed the opposition at the Los Angeles Games, winning the same four events as his countryman.
He successfully defended his Long Jump title in Seoul, four years later, and finished second to Ben Johnston in the 100m.
However, when Johnson, representing Canada, tested positive for drugs, he was stripped of his title, with the gold going to Lewis.
Lewis was rightfully feted for his many successes, but not Owens. He had to be satisfied with a nod from Hitler, who had used the Games as an opportunity to pour out propaganda for his Third Reich.
The Americans’ success would not have rested well with the man who was about to unleash a devastating war on the world.
While Mexico are a big price to win the World Cup and Canada even bigger, Spain are among the favourites.
Here’s another country who would add to Trump’s discomfort if they were to lift the trophy.
Having to present the trophy to the captain of another country with which he has had issues might make him sorry the tournament ever came near the US.
It’s said that politics and sport shouldn’t mix. But they do – at local, national and international levels.
As always, when there are boycotts, bans, and withdrawals, it’s the games’ practitioners who are the sufferers, the little piggies in the middle.
At least Jesse Owens got to compete.