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“I’m not going to be popular when I tell @karlstefanovic on @thetodayshow that I don’t care about Cadel Evans.” The above quote is from Mia Freedman’s Twitter yesterday morning.
This was just prior to the social commentator unleashing an attack on the adulation that has greeted Cadel Evans’ triumph in the Tour de France.
So, poor Miss Mia knew that prior to going on air she was to be expressing her interesting opinion that Evans shouldn’t be classed as a hero just because “he rides a bike”.
I’m not going to buy too much into the rights and wrongs of her opinion, except to say that there’s an old saying about opinions – everybody has one.
However, to express surprise that so many people vehemently attacked her beliefs (via her Mama Mia blog) was somewhat of a white lie, as her Twitter proves.
Freedman writes an interesting (occasionally) issues based blog and gains screen time as a social commentator.
Her previous journalistic employment includes New Weekly, Marie Claire, Who Weekly, Cleo and Cosmopolitan; all of which provides an interesting base from which to tackle the relevance of one of Australia’s sacred cows – sport.
Admittedly throughout her interview with Stefanovic, Freedman appears boxed in and uncomfortable with the fact her opinion was likely to be causing red blooded Aussies everywhere to be spitting out their corn flakes.
But…if you’re going to express your opinion, you need to be able to cop the fall out and you want to ensure you have your facts right.
I don’t necessarily disagree that we should see less focus on sportspeople in the EGN sections of our newspapers, or at the head of a news bulletin.
However, Evans’ achievement was not just significant to Australians but to the world – he was only the third non-European to win the planet’s most gruelling and vaunted cycling race.
The Tour de France is his Everest and with that great mound of dirt in Asia already conquered, along with so much more of our planet, sport is our way of challenging ourselves and exploring our own inner strength.
Sport is so often (incorrectly) compared to war and with the modern outlook towards battle having changed irrevocably since World War II, our sports stars are our new heroes.
They are the ones we look to for inspiration and who help us to build our nation’s reputation among the rest of the world.
Of course, their achievements are not as important as those of the ANZACs who staked a claim to a piece of land in far off Gallipoli, nor are they comparable to the stoic men who staved off the Japanese marauders in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
However, whether it is via the battlefield or the sports field, humanity has always sought a hero.
We in the modern day are no different to the people of ancient Greece whose adulation for the mythological warrior Achilles knew no bounds.
Sadly, while Freedman may have had a fair point (better aired at another time), she also revealed herself to be ignorant about Evans and the challenges he has stared down to reach the top, along with the good he has achieved via his continually growing profile in the sport.
His tale from childhood to bike riding champion and his support of Tibet and other causes have all been widely reported elsewhere but what they reveal is that he is a man of depth that many of us, let alone other sportspeople, can learn from.
And despite Freedman’s claim that Evans only lives in Switzerland, he is fiercely Australian and is a regular to his home in beautiful Barwon Heads.
I know I’m preaching to the converted about the relevance of sport and its value to society, so I’m going to leave the last words to Freedman herself.
But before I do, I’m going to ask her a question.
What has changed so much between May 2010, when young sailor Jessica Watson enjoyed a triumphant homecoming, and now for your definition of hero to be so different?
“I am genuinely in awe of her achievement. Back when she set out on her voyage, crashed on the first night and then set out again, I was a doubter. I still am a little bit. Now that she has returned a hero (as she should, her achievement is astonishing) it’s easy to say it was a wonderful thing for her to have done.” – When I was 16, I got my ears pierced, suck on that Jessica Watson (May 17, 2010).
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