Ed Warner: Ronaldo, Federer, Bolt, Biles – what makes a sporting icon?

The camera loves an icon. As Jasprit Bumrah strangled South Africa’s victory surge in the T20 World Cup final, the broadcaster cut repeatedly to Virat Kohli’s reaction to each key event, even if the cricketer himself was far from the ball. 

Cristiano Ronaldo attracted selfie-seeking pitch invaders during Portugal’s opening Euros match – and was happy to oblige the first one. He may have been less enamoured of the tight focus on his tears after that penalty miss on Monday.

“Greatest ever” lists of sportspeople abound online. Futile attempts to compare athletes across sports and generations. At any one time there are numerous greats, more superstars and countless sporting celebrities. 

Icons, however, are those rarest of beasts, capable of galvanising audiences across the boundaries of sport, nation and time.

While, yes, we may wonder at what they have for breakfast and who they might be stepping out with, it is their sporting genius and the causes their auras enable them to espouse that sets them apart.

Ronaldo’s apologetic celebration after scoring Portugal’s first shoot-out penalty against Slovenia was a mark of the man. As was Kohli’s swift announcement of his retirement from international T20s after India’s thrilling triumph. In sporting terms both may be long in the tooth, but there is little sign of others waiting in the wings to don an icon’s mantle. 

Football will be poorer in due course without Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, however fantastic the talent sprinkled across the globe. Their cut-through to wider audiences will be difficult to replicate. 

Who down the years (adjusting for differing media landscapes) has had similar impact? Puskás, Pele, Maradona, sure. Perhaps Cruyff and Beckenbauer. Beckham, although maybe more for non-sporting reasons. Paul Gascoigne? Might have had the chance. In all, not many it seems.

The fashion for sporting documentaries – cheaper than screening live events – is sustaining the memory of icons past. Ayrton Senna, Michael Jordan, and now Roger Federer: Twelve Final Days, just as The Championships return at Wimbledon. Knowing what an icon looks or feels like to us makes it no easier for a superstar to be elevated to their ranks. 

Noah Lyles is giving off his own version of Usain Bolt vibes, and may well win three gold medals in Paris. But is he following too soon in the footsteps of the great showman sprinter? Every heavyweight champion ever will be compared to Muhammad Ali and found wanting, however skilled they are in the ring. 

Perhaps the seeming ubiquity of sport makes true breakthroughs into global consciousness more difficult now than in times past.

Our hearts went out to Simone Biles as she struggled with the twisties in Tokyo, just as they are likely to soar if she excels in Paris. But Olga Korbut – now there was cut-through! Would she have been adept at X, Insta or TikTok though, had they been available in her day? 

Literally not literally

Easy to poke fun at commentators who have to craft their words in the moment, I know…

As Bumrah bamboozled the South African batsmen we were breathlessly told “he’s literally making the ball talk”. I strained in vain to hear whether the stump mic had picked up exactly what it was saying. 

The second edition of Major League Cricket starts tomorrow. Now we’ll start to see what effect – if any – the T20 World Cup has had on the US sporting public.

Lots of elbow room

Air France pumped up flight capacity in anticipation of bumper levels of travel to Paris this summer. This week the airline warned investors that the hoped-for demand has not materialised and its revenues may be as much as €180m below expectations. 

That’s a lots of empty seats on planes. Air France shares are down almost 40 per cent this year. With plenty of Olympics tickets and hotel rooms also available, looks like a trip to the Games could be put together at a bargain price. If you’re not already going, what are you waiting for?

Splendid isolation

Seb Coe’s nine years as president of World Athletics have been dominated by the Russian question: how to keep a nation that, firstly, has systematically cheated and, latterly, waged war on its neighbour, out of the sport. 

While the International Olympic Committee has created a path for Russians (and Belarusians) to compete in Paris in other sports this summer, track and field has resolutely kept its door bolted. 

Whatever your views on Coe, he deserves plaudits for his resolve on this issue. And if you had any doubts, take a look at the account in The Times of his trip to Kiev to fulfil a promise to Ukrainian athletes to attend their Olympic trials. 

“If their athletes are successful he [Putin] will use it. It will be hard to even be in the same Olympic village as them.” Anna Ryzhykova, Ukrainian hurdler.

Full marks to my former colleague Jamie Fox who masterminds World Athletics’ media relations, and journalist Matt Lawton who, Dory-like, flipped out of the Euros goldfish bowl in Germany for 48 hours to provide the reportage. Remember his words if you see IOC leader Thomas Bach hang a medal around a Russian neck at the Games.

Stuffed crusts

The Football Association should maybe think of poaching Fox. The pontification about the AI-faked clips of Gareth Southgate denigrating his players shows its PR team to be out of touch with the zeitgeist. Surely the England manager himself didn’t ask for their intervention?

“As we do with all harmful content we will take steps to have these offensive videos removed.”

A Crystal Palace fan, I have a vivid memory of standing at Wembley to watch ‘our’ Southgate demonstrate the balls lacking in England players who actually had penalty-taking experience as he strode from the halfway line and missed that decisive kick against Germany at Euro 96. 

His self-mockery in the subsequent (in)famous Pizza Hut TV ad didn’t bother me, just as I doubt viral lampooning bothers Southgate today. (Could someone nudge him to fix the midfield by picking Adam Wharton for Saturday’s match though, please?)

My other technicolor ‘96 memory is the short minute from David Seaman’s penalty save to Gazza’s “dentist’s chair” goal celebration. That and a surprisingly bald Fish from Marillion leading the singing of Flower of Scotland in the blazing Wembley sunshine before kick-off. 

I’ve a ticket to see him at the London Palladium next year. Once more, in the playground of the broken hearts…

Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes his sport column at sportinc.substack.com