The Oscillating Positions Of Great Sportsmen

Here is an article which lists some recent instances of superb ace athletes seeing big misfortunes in their careers.

1. Pole-vault:

Yelena Isinbayeva: A Russian pole-vaulter and a two time Olympic gold medalist who is renowned to have broken the world record 26 times is said to be the first woman to have cleared the 5m barrier. But this ace performer was let down consecutively two times by Poland’s Anna Rogowska at crystal palace in London as also at Berlin. This ended the six-year winning streak of Yelena. Now this queen sportswoman is challenged again and is found to be in a strange terrain.

2. Golf:

Tiger Woods: Y E Yang, a sportsman from South Korea brought Napoleon Bonaparte’s “nothing is impossible” theory to the test. Tiger Woods, one of the finest Golf players lost it to this unheralded Korean thus contradicting his own history. Yang overcame a two stroke disadvantage and sent in a 210 yard approach to within 10 feet of the cup at the eighteenth in order to birdie for 70 and clutch the silverware. The ace golfer had missed the cut at the British open too! This is what sports is all about-witnessing the power of the upcoming professionals.

3. Cricket:

Michael Hussey: A couple of seasons ago he was considered to be a superman personified with obscene averages in all forms of cricket. The Mr. Cricket title given to him was apt. but while he scored a handsome sum of 591 runs at an average of 73.87 from six matches in the 2007-2008 season, he eked out only 146 runs from 12 tests at an average of 34 in 2008-2009. All this made the great sportsman- Mr. Cricket anything but extraordinary in the vision of the cricket crazy audience.

4. Tennis:

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal: The world was convinced that Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam titles would not be overwhelmed at least for a few decades. But, where he stopped, Roger Federer started. Finishing as number two by 2003 end, the ace sportsman started his historic run, winning three out of four Grand Slams in 2004, 2006 and 2007. Though he has never beaten sporty Rafael Nadal at the French open, he continued his supremacy and reached a total of 13 slams in the blink of an eye. Then his fortunes took different turns in the different directions as Nadal stretched him to the limits. Federer surrendered his five year reign at SW19 and number one ranking in 2008. A few critics, meanwhile, predicted the beginning of Federer’s end. Amidst concern over his injury-prone style of play, Nadal was set to become the next niche tennis player. But an unheralded Robin Soderling knocked him out of the French open. This handed Federer his elusive title and he retained his numero uno status as Nadal struggled with injuries. First Federer looked like superman, then Nadal, but challenges like Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have intermittently grounded both.