Tangents

In tennis fandom, I often come across an eagerness to see someone different winning the Slams and the Masters -- in the ATP, someone other than the Big Four (Roger, Rafa, Novak, Andy), and in the WTA, someone other than Serena, Maria, or Vika. (Li Na has won two majors, but her performance has been erratic enough that I rarely see her name associated with dominance. I myself frequently cheer for mayhem, but that's in large part because I'm rather fond of the sound of suicide pool bandwagons crashing.

Anyway, I was reading a feature about cyclist Marianne Vos last night, and this passage stood out:

BICYCLING: Do you ever worry that you dominate women's cycling too much and that people might become bored by you or the sport?

VOS: It can be boring. I ask myself the same question: If everyone expects you to win, and you win over and over again, do you get the Lance Armstrong effect? And I don't want that. But I also don't want to lose races because it's getting boring for the spectators. I don't want to harm women's cycling because of my winning, but I don't want to do things half. I don't want to say, Go for it 98 percent because it's more interesting for women's cycling.

I feel the contradiction, because I want to help women's cycling grow. But when you look at results from the last years, you think the level is low because you have the same winner over and over again, and maybe I should win less to make it more interesting. But I want to show that it is interesting even when I win. It's not Marianne wins again. It was a hard fight!

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/380909.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.