Jan 14, 2022

Novak Djokovic, at least at the moment, won his case against the Australian authorities who tried to revoke the visa that would allow himUSA).When Djokovic goes out to the court on Rod Laver Arena, he will be the big favorite to win his 21st Grand Slam title and finally overcome both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in his exhaustive and historic race for Grand Slam titles.He has won the last three titles of the Australian Open, and nine in total.

The beginning of the tennis season in Australia and New Zealand is usually full of optimism and anticipation. The Australian Open even receives the nickname of "Happy Slam" [Happy Slam] for the festive energy that is breathed in its facilities. But in the scenario of his greatest domain, Djokovic now faces great distrust and resentment, nationally and internationally, in addition to his possible deportation. What happens with Djokovic during the next weeks and months will have had the high cost of current events: Djokovic arrested by Australian border authorities, the recognition that he participated in several December events apparently having had positive COVID-19 days before, His persistent decision to be indirect with respect to his vaccination status, the perception that he received a special treatment that the Australian people does not enjoy. Although the Australian government expels it from the country, doubts about its behavior persist during the pandemic. At the moment, when winning, Djokovic lost; The greatest achievement that he could conquer is already tarnished and he has not even stepped on the court.

Universe teachers

At first glance, the story is Djokovic. He consolidated his membership within the most infamous group of the gang: the an athlete athlete anti -vacacunas that behaves as if the fame, wealth and enormous platform of him to spread erroneous information would be placed above the rest of us. The Green Bay Packers Campo Marshal, Aaron Rodgers, and the Brooklyn Nets base, Kyrie Irving, are also members of the club, and even the Los Angeles Lakers eaves, LeBron James, considered the politically aware antithesis of their predecessors Scared and apolitical generational, published memes of Spider-Man by mixing the COVID-19 with the flu. In his manner, Irving has become one of the figures with the most principles of the group, unable to play local matches at Barclays Center due to the vaccination mandate of New York City. First he responded to the pandemic with disdain, confirming with confidence his theories of conspiracy as if he had knowledge superior to that of the health professionals of a lifetime, before choosing to remain silent and not play, and deal with the consequences that accompanied his decision.

Rodgers deliberately cheated the public with an insulting dance of words, calling himself "immunized" when asked if he was vaccinated.In another appearance, Rodgers trolled his critics, brandishing a copy of the dystopian novel of Ayn Rand of 1957, "The rebellion of Atlas", as a kind of omen that we live in a time when the winners of society arepersecuted, or as the Bible of his invaluable individualism, or both, and that, as one of those winners, is the main victim of an imminent infamy.Rodgers is not as intelligent or interesting as he thinks he is.

While the last 10 years will be remembered for the return of the political athlete, the time of COVID-19 has produced a less heroic professional athlete.Athletes praised for using their voices to improve the conditions of others have been replaced by the player of pandemic times completely bound to themTo spread pseudoscience, to rise and separate.

These voices of the superatletas now convey a different message: that they owe nothing because they believe much;Income and legacy for costumes, pleasure for spectators, security for their families.They are the value.They are the reason we look.In turn, they behave as if they were except for our common struggle.While the Australians and citizens of the world sacrifice themselves to resume their lifestyles, taking the difficult steps of vaccination demands for the greatest long -term good, several high -profile athletes have decided that the only name that matters isthat is in the dorsal of his shirts.

The Atlas have rebelled.Each on their own.

The easy reflection is to focus only on Djokovic, and its scrutiny is deserved.His recklessness has gone against the example of leadership to whom he says aspire beyond having the best setback in the world.After all, it is not the first lack of him in terms of bad decisions in pandemic.After all, it was Djokovic who was behind the disastrous beneficcence tournament without masks during the 2020 boreal summer, which was carried out by challenging medical opinion and that became an event of great propagation.And now he apparently broke the isolation protocols of his own country when traveling to Spain and entering Australia with false documents.He excused himself alleging human error, blamed his organizers, but treats each infraction as an unfortunate administrative error and not as a broken pattern for a deadly moment.

Djokovic will have attention now, he will certainly receive criticism from his wide followers.But it is the entire sports industry (leagues and their teams, government bodies, players and their unions and fans) that collectively has been one of the least responsible entities during the pandemic.Perhaps Covid-19 simply exposed selfishness that accompanies individualism as orthodoxy, but it was the sports leaders who allowed the behavior of the players, and not vice versa.

The United States should always load with its negligent and deadly initial response to the pandemic, denigrating the use of masks as a tool for the weak, and, worse, as a symbol of fascism, positioning the pandemic as a hoax, even when the systemHealth was overloaded and Central Park was portable morgue.

In the same way, sport must carry its load.Two years ago, the industry saw the apocalypse: the matches were canceled, but the worst thing was that life continued.In the weeks and months between the initial closure in March 2020 and the slow resumption of the regular season of the MLB and the bubbles of the NBA/WNBA, the United States seemed to hungry for sports because it represented a path to give people hopethat normality was possible.But Americans also quickly adapted to life without parties.When people could not get disinfectant for hands or toilet paper, hitting a ball with a stick did not seem so important, after all.

NOT ESSENSIAL

The sport responded by assuming its historical position, ready to help their country in times of crisis, to provide fun as a healing balm, and then used that position to do whatever necessary to survive. Sports have been necessary to raise the morals of a country, and the World Series was not canceled during any of the world wars. During the first year of the pandemic, the public told the games. In the cultural lexicon, together with doctors, nurses, paramedics, supermarket employees and distributors, athletes were called essential workers. While the borders were closed and asked - and demanded - to citizens who took greater security measures to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, the sports business received a special exemption. The sport was positioned as an ally for the world to return to normal. The borders opened, not for you, but for sport. The tennis players were traveling around the world when few could do it. When Covid-19 tests were implemented for the first time, athletes often had priority access.

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And what did the sport with that special exemption? He did everything he could not to give the example, not to be essential, but to stay in business under his own terms. The industry refused to act according to its responsibility in the fight against a global health crisis. Sports adopted the divisive political rhetoric of the effectiveness of the vaccine on health, of the personal about the collective, guided by the spectrum of the existential moment - any possibility of a second mass closure. NBA players, headed by LeBron James, rejected a second bubble. The associations of players of each sport rejected the idea of ​​the demand for vaccination. That was a failure. Desperate to win, Kyrie Irving returned the court. Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians, included Antonio Brown on the squad after the suspension of three receiver's three games for having used a false vaccine card. The universities exempt the athletes from the rules that applied to student bodies. Instead of leading, several very prominent players, as well as their colleagues in the celebrity circle, immediately questioned the value of vaccines. The sport was in this for itself. Atlas rebelled.

It did not become an example, but an accelerator of the divisions, a reflection of anti -science, cynicism, pandemic as a policy. In essence, a point that can never be forgotten is the issue of public health and the confidence that, as a public figure, an athlete will not expose other people to an air -transmitted disease. But many of its highest profile players raised the strongest voices to the rhetoric anti -vacacons that has stifled recovery, using their platforms to shout conspiracies from the roofs. Leaders have been as irresponsible as players, fearing to receive bad news from their accountants and resistance from athletes. The parties did not favor - as has happened frequently during the battles for the stadiums and relocations with local municipalities - society with the public that claim to support the theory, but rarely in practice. Some of the healthiest and most visible people in the country are actively using their positions to undermine confidence in public health. The dispensation that sports leagues and their teams receive - the tax exemptions of the stadiums, public money for their private companies while schools and streets fall apart - exist under the premise that, fundamentally, sport is a public service. During a pandemic in which to breathe can be a deadly exercise, the private business has drastically failed the public. The same criticism could be elevated to politicians, the media, celebrities, but those entities are not routinely regained in audiences in person to have more efficient actions while selling their product as something vital for health and good Physical state of the nation and while their athletes are models to follow for young people. New York restaurants have made more difficult decisions than NBA, NFL, ATP Tour and other associations.

Some athletes understand what the situation is like, such as the tennis player three times winner of a major, Andy Murray."Ultimately, I think that the reason we get vaccinated is to take care of others," Murray told The New York Times in September."We have the responsibility, as players who travel all over the world, to protect others. I am happy to have vaccinated. I hope more tennis players decide to do the same in the coming months."

As an industry, sport has played the letter of deception, deciding that collective health was now an individual choice - and the reason why Rodgers, Djokovic and others as they receive so much attention when most players are vaccinated is notBecause the world prefers to focus on the negative, but because these players are actively using their position to get yours.The sport has failed us, and the resulting failure of its leadership has insulted people who have had to face the real life costs that the pandemic has left - more than 61 million cases in the United States and, to theday of the date, about 840,000 deaths.

The leadership of the leagues have fallen in the personal responsibilities of its members so as not to take care of theirs.Either the MLB, in the tennis or the NHL, the leagues have talked about the high percentages of vaccination of their players, but avoided implementing a mandate, which opened its way for deceptive exemptions to coexist with which they have been legitimate.Instead of protecting the public, sport has fallen to the little ones to investigate the individual situations of players trying to avoid weak policies.

Tennis, in particular, could have made the decision to implement a determining collective action. Each of these tournaments that make up the coveted Grand Slam - the Open of Australia and the United States, Wimbledon and Roland Garros - are the most powerful events in sport. Each could have made the decision, both individually and collectively, to demand that the players be vaccinated to participate - practically without exception. None hesitated to act by mutual agreement when Naomi Osaka refused to participate in the press conference after the matches during the France Open, which ended up giving rise to it from the tournament. When the organizers at Roland Garros threatened Osaka, demanding that he make the conference or in his abse He was going to be welcome to participate in New York, London or Melbourne. The four most important world tennis tournaments agreed immediately to get Osaka to sit down to interview, but, on the contrary, they decided that vaccination during a pandemic that has charged thousands of lives, was a personal decision.

The populist illusion

Now it is Djokovic who is positioned as a symbol, as well as an anti system fighter, and an anti system for the wrong reasons.While the Americans, John Isner and Venus Williams, shamefully celebrated their triumph against the Australian government, Djokovic is not trying to send a message beyond wanting to play tennis under their own terms, without being an ally of health improvementPublic or a collaborator for the eradication of a virus that has ruined people's lives throughout the planet.And neither is this sport.When Australian authorities arrested Djokovic, Roland Garros organizers continued with the same sports pattern harming public health, trying to take advantage of the situation immediately and making known an interested and cynical statement informing that Djokovic was going to be ablePlay the France Open in June.

Djokovic's appeal is in sight.You could say that he is one of the best players in history.In this era that the titles are counted in Majors, he probably ends up surpassing Federer and Nadal - who have established the rods to be overcome in this era - and possibly exceed his numbers.Djokovic is the perfect player of his era, with a balance, a setback and a perfect drive, a pressing defense and the mentality of a champion.When Djokovic improved him in 2011, he became unstoppable - 19 Majors in the next 10 years.As Federer in Wimbledon and Nadal in Roland Garros, he has dominated in Melbourne as no other male tennis player.In an era in which many Top tennis players did not travel to Melbourne due to the distance, Margaret Court won 11. Like Federer and Nadal, Djokovic is one of the best players of all time on all surfaces.

He is human, with a tendency to have temperamental attitudes and has sometimes lost control.For some, it is a marked contrast of the right attitudes and gentlemen who have always demonstrated Federer and Nadal.For others, he is an unworthy ambassador despite his titles.Djokovic was disqualified from the US Open in 2020 for giving a ball to a judge, and his tremendous 2021 season in which he was at a triumph in the US Open to get the Grand Slam, seemed to cure that wound and bring Djokovic closer to unconditional worshipthat the great champions receive.

But he is complex as to what he represents for his people.His presence is populist, a symbol of the East Europeans who have forced the west elite to recognize them - which explains why the followers in Melbourne have supported pepper gas in their confrontations with the police.Despite his shouts and all his championships, Djokovic has never been able to separate himself from the narrative that tennis audiences want him less than they should love to a champion of his height.For the Serbs and millions of people who have felt that the first world looks at them with contempt, the great Djokovic is his avenger.

In a sense, Djokovic represents his Serbian followers in a symbolization similar to what black fans see Serena and Venus Williams - intruders in an elite sport for first world whites, tolerated, but never desired by the establishment, But whose impressive talent and domain made it impossible to ignore them. Finally, they have a champion who can avenge all their conditions, which is good enough to beat them in their own home and under their own rules. Djokovic can take revenge on each of those humiliations. For a century, tennis was the sport of west whors, created and appropriate by England, Australia, France and the United States - and the exclusive country clubs and prestigious tournaments that come with them. It has been, in the first instance, a first world sport in terms of culture and geography, and the powers of Federer and Nadal have added new flags to elite nations. But Switzerland was already part of the popular countries of Europe and Spain was an original colonizing nation that already enjoyed a comfortable (but dominant) place in the history of tennis, both male and female.

The fact that Djokovic is representing despised classes - first, as a national figure of a nation that has always been humiliated and attacked - has protected it.When they arrested Djokovic, his father said he was a direct insult to the Serbian people that his son were in federal custody, and this resulted in clashes between the followers of Djokovic and the security forces, who used pepper gas against the crowds they blockedthe traffic.

As a symbol of western aggressions against its people, Djokovic has taken its position as an outsider and used it to become a reformist.He is the public and co -founder face of the Association of Professional Tennisists (PTPA), in rival50. But despite being the best player of this sport, he is not universally accepted as a leader.

This last episode, regardless of its resolution, will only weaken that trust - even if Djokovic receives the additional support from the anti -vaccine public that can be aggrieved with this whole issue.Djokovic is only the Atlas of this moment.Tomorrow, we will have another.And while he, Rodgers and many of the most prominent athletes shrug, as teachers of their own universes, their behavior may belong to them, but it should not be forgotten that the thoughtlessglobal disaster that we still can't leave.