Some are born great

Are great sportsmen born with high talent, or do they win prizes through years of application? That question, as old as sport itself, forms the basis of this book, which tries to inform readers ‘how champions are made’.

Are great sportsmen born with high talent, or do they win prizes through years of application? That question, as old as sport itself, forms the basis of this book, which tries to inform readers ‘how champions are made’. The author, a former Commonwealth table-tennis champion who is now a journalist, has investigated the subject thoroughly — too thoroughly, it might be said — but fails to make his case. For sport, like life, is odder than we think.

In attempting to make top-level sport appear democratic — that is, within the scope of everybody, or at least most people — Matthew Syed succeeds only in reminding us that it is a tyranny. Few champions glide effortlessly to the top. Whatever the discipline, most spend years refining the gifts they were born with, but the evidence is undeniable. Practice and determination can take the most enthusiastic performer so far, and no further. The gilded few have something, recognisable yet largely unquantifiable, which sets them apart.

In his introductory chapter Syed asks: ‘Is talent what we think it is?’ More than 250 pages later, after ploughing through dozens of glowing references to sports psychologists and university researchers, the answer is plain as day. The highest achievers, the Peles and Alis, the Nicklauses and Federers, do not hog the spoils because they practise harder than others. In fact, in the case of Sir Garfield Sobers, who is unaccountably overlooked in this study, the opposite may well be true. Sobers, the greatest all-round cricketer of all, was usually to be found on the golf course in his social hours.