[The identification of sporting prowess with national prestige…]

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The identification of sporting prowess with national prestige is something the press works hard at.

In Britain the use of sporting events as part of anti-Sovietism is a long practiced art which has reached its pinnacle in the Moscow Olympics.

But it is not just the Olympics. For the past two years Martina Navratilova has provided the Wimbledon writers with a fruitful source of copy -as if it was only by rejecting the Czechoslovakian state that she had perfected her forehand There was no such opportunity at Wimbledon 1980. Instead there was a curious contradiction which should be causing some second thoughts in Fleet Street, particularly in the gutters where the Mail, the Sun and the Express are produced.

The Wimbledon women's champion, Yvonne Cawley, prompted a string of cliched headlines (The Queen Mother, Mother's Day) which show that where women are concerned, even athletic perfection will be twisted to confront them with their role as wives and mothers'.

It was the role as wives which brought forth the contradiction.

Both Mrs Cawley and Mrs Lloyd are married to British men. As British players had been eliminated from the competition by the first day of i the second week, the press IREL found in this a sort of ser hand chauvinism.

Australian and America: n the tennis players might be, but they couldn't have won (as Navratilova remarked) u inless they had been married 1 to Englishmen!

But the same papers v vhich made most of this distin ction are those which have camp ›aigned against the right of wom en to confer British nationality on their foreign-born husbands If Borg and McEnroe we se to marry British women, they would presumably be depr orted in the middle of the secon id set for overstaying.

Chess, too, has been a h lappy hunting ground for the anti-Soviet crusaders. But since Bobby Fisher hung up his r ooks, this has been blunted by • the fact that the Soviet P ›layer Karpov has proved himsel f the best in the world.

Skullduggery

The failure of Korchnoi to unseat him in the world championship contest was treated as confirmation of Soviet skullduggery.

Since then chess writers, who include some (like Keene) whose anti-Sovietism reaches the point of hysteria, have put it about that Karpov is a second rate champion, that his play is boring and that he is sure to be toppled.

An article by Leonard Barden in the Guardian gives the lie to this.

He points out that in terms of major tournament results Karpov has already proved himself the "most active and conJean Dukes cond- sistent reigning champion of all time".

He explains the campaign by saying that: "a reserved, physically slight, well behaved Soviet citizen is difficult to fit into our heroic stereotypes in the West".

But even by the standards of British press reporting, an article in last Saturday's Telegraph must take the biscuit.

Under a front page headline: "Coe becomes Soviet weapon in games row", , the paper sought to defuse the explosive event which will take place in Moscow -the struggle between Coe and Ovett to see who is the fastest middle distance runner in the world.

This race, which has caught the imagination of the British public like few others is certain to undermine any • amount of campaigning against the Moscow Olympics.

Tass has reported Coe as condemning Thatcher and saying that it was a true sign of patriotism to stop the government bringing still further disgrace on Britain.

The Telegraph stated:

'His remarks were reported in several newspapers and magazines. But the general feeling was that Coe, despite his courageous world breaking run in the 1,000 metres, was unwell at the time"

At the time he broke the world record Coe was hailed as being at the peak of physical condition.

What would the Telegraph have Mrs Thatcher do? Commit Coe to a mental hospital for the duration of the Olympics? That would really teach the Soviet Union a lesson!