There is a scene towards the end of the new Roger Bannister documentary which helps make the distinction between talent and genius. Or at least what separates the good from the great in the sporting context – and it seems an important part of it is overcoming some moment of adversity.
Because if talent is reaching a target few other people can hit, then genius is reaching a target few other people can see, and Bannister certainly qualified on that count. Only in getting there, Bannister also got the chance to prove his sporting greatness, and suddenly it seems Katie Taylor is about to get that chance too.
Her defeat to Yana Alekseevna in the Turkish Black Sea port of Samsun at lunchtime on Friday certainly surprised some people, although surely not Taylor herself. Anyone who was present in Baku last June when Taylor earned a countback decision victory over Alekseevna in her semi-final bout at the inaugural European Games will recall the look of unmistakable relief on the face of the Bray fighter.
It was a result which could have gone either way. Even against the backdrop of the wildly partisan Azerbaijani crowd, some of us felt Taylor was slightly fortunate when the referee raised her arm. This time, almost 10 months on, the look on Taylor’s face was of ambiguous acceptance. She knew exactly how dangerous her Azerbaijani opponent would be, and there was no denying Alekseevna had fought the better fight.
Taylor has overcome moments of adversity before, although clearly not on this scale. It was her first competitive defeat since 2011, at the now mythical multi-nations tournament in Bulgaria: Denitsa Eliseeva was given a blatant hometown decision which confounded everyone including the referee, who briefly held up Taylor’s right arm as the winner. Since then, Taylor had gone 62-0, bringing her championship gold medal tally to a treasure chest of 18.
Some people, not so surprisingly, were already putting a second Olympic gold medal around her neck. She only needed to show up in Rio next August to collect it. Instead, there’s still no guarantee she’ll actually be there – although it’s far more likely she will, even if it comes down to a wild-card entry. It does, however, open her to greater scrutiny, the inevitable “Where is Billy Walsh now?” headline (or indeed “Where is Pete Taylor?”), although she could do worse things right now than watch the Bannister documentary.
Horizontal Everest
It's titled Bannister: Everest on the Track, and for good reason. With an all-star cast that includes Seb Coe, John Landy and a still-buoyant Bannister himself, the documentary makes a direct and justifiable comparison between his first sub-four- minute mile and the first summit of Mount Everest (and not just because running four laps of the track in under four minutes is still often described as a sort of horizontal Everest). They were, after all, both achieved within a year of each other, Edmund Hillary reaching the summit of Everest in May 1953, Bannister running his 3:59.4 in May 1954.
What they both shared, as Bannister touchingly recalls, was that sense of breaking through a physiological and psychological barrier which “hitherto” could not be broken. Indeed “hitherto” is a word not often used in the sporting context these days, partly because there aren’t many physiological and psychological barriers left to be broken.
Yet two years before breaking four minutes for the mile, Bannister faced his moment of adversity: he was the gold medal favourite for the 1,500m at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, only to find his meticulous preparations scuppered when they added a semi-final round between the heats and final. “I gave the instruction to my legs to work faster, which had always hitherto [there it is again] worked,” he recalls. “And there was nothing there.”
He finished fourth (how many people remember that?), and it's there that Bannister: Everest on the Track makes the distinction between talent and genius. He had actually planned on retiring after Helsinki, had he won gold, which might have satisfied his talent, but instead Bannister showed his genius, chasing and then hitting a target few other people saw as possible.
It's there that David Epstein, formerly of Sports Illustrated and author of The Sports Gene, makes another distinction between talent and genius. These days, he says, summiting Mount Everest is as much a resource issue as it is about talent or indeed genius, which helps put some sporting achievements further out there on their own. The success of Leicester City, for example, should they go on to win the Premier League title, will be as much down to the genius of Claudio Ranieri as the talent of his players.
Reaching a target
For Taylor that distinction has already been made. In reaching a target in women’s boxing few other people had seen, she’s already in Bannister’s category, answering the question of “can she even go there?”
Now comes her first moment of real adversity. Bannister, in his day, would have seen it as an opportunity, not an obstacle, another chance to prove what separates the good from the sporting great.
Taylor now has that opportunity too, the Rio Olympics suddenly, and possibly even unwittingly, giving her the chance to make that further distinction.
Bannister: Everest on the Track is out now and also available on iTunes.
