Inside U.K. Can U.K. Sports Find Way Out of Slump? By STEVE HILL	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
さえない英国のスポーツ界 サッカーもラグビーも英国が発祥の地ですが、最近英国チームは、国際舞台で目立った成績をあげていません。またクリケットは、競技人口の減少に悩まされています。スランプにあえぐ英国のスポーツ界を救うヒーローは現れるのでしょうか？

Britain may have given the world the sports of soccer, rugby and cricket, among many others, but we're now struggling to compete on the global stage at many of our national pastimes.

It's been a depressing summer for millions of television viewers and spectators who are fast becoming used to the sporting failures of our teams.

Let's start with the footballers of Scotland and England, who tried bravely to make an impact in the World Cup finals in France but ultimately failed, yet again, to fulfill expectations.

The Scots won widespread acclaim in the cities of Paris, Bordeaux and St. Etienne for the way in which their supporters behaved. But, sadly, that was their only success. The team scored just two goals, drawing with Norway and losing to finalists Brazil. And it lost 3-0 to Morocco, a nation many British people still fail to take seriously as a soccer power.

England's remarkable teenage star Michael Owen scored a memorable solo goal that led to him being acclaimed as one of the world's leading players. But despite his best efforts, the team did little better than Scotland. We (I am English, after all) qualified for the second stage of the competition, despite the scare of losing to Romania, only to lose to Argentina in a penalty-kick shootout.

The heartache of the dramatic nature of that defeat served to partially hide national disappointment at not progressing further in the World Cup and coming close to repeating the great success of 1966. At least we went further than the Scots though, and for the main part the supporters behaved themselves.

While the soccer players can at least look to the future with some hope and optimism, it's a very different story for our rugby players.

England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales all sent teams on tour to the Southern Hemisphere — and all returned home with their tails between their legs after a series of crushing defeats.

England, admittedly missing many of its leading players through injury, suffered record defeats against Australia and New Zealand, while Scotland fared little better, losing to Fiji and Australia. Wales, who in the 1970s was widely regarded as the unofficial world champion, was crushed 96-13 by World Cup holder South Africa. South Africa also beat Ireland twice, though by lesser margins.

The scale of these defeats has made our rugby players a laughing stock in the Southern Hemisphere. One newspaper in New Zealand even proposed that England on their next tour should play the All Blacks' women's team, instead, to ensure closer games.

If we were hoping that all this humiliation could be forgotten thanks to the achievement this summer of our crickets, then we were wrong again.

The performance of the English team has largely matched the weather, which has been gloomy and uninspiring. South Africa, which only recently returned to international competition after the overturning of apartheid and the end of a sporting blockade, has once again proved far too strong for us.

Although England recovered after a typically poor and disappointing start to the series of games, it's clear that we now lag a long way behind other cricket-playing nations such as Australia, the West Indies, India and Pakistan.

The problems facing the national side are symptoms of the crisis that cricket, our national summer sport, must now deal with.

Fewer people are playing at the grassroots level. That's partly because there is so much more for youngsters to do these days. The situation is not helped by yet another dreadful summer in terms of weather ― cricket cannot be played in rain or bad light. Many small village and town clubs are struggling to keep going and that will eventually have a knock-on effect at the top end of the sport.

The situation is not much better in other sports when you consider British success. Tim Herman at least managed to reach the semifinals of this year's Wimbledom tennis championships, but it has been another disappointing year for our golfers and athletes.

Britain did not win a gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, but there is one sporting hope for the future. The 19-year-old Christian Malcolm, of Wales, won the 100-and 200-meter sprints at the World Junior Athletics Championships in Annecy, France, earlier this month. And he is showing such promise that the legendary Carl Lewis is tipping him to become a star, perhaps even at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Shukan ST: Aug. 21, 1998

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