Well played, gentlemen

Even though I love track and field, I lost a lot of my interest in Olympic sport when NBC got the contract to broadcast the Games in the 1980s. Over the decades their coverage has descended further into crapdom at every Olympiad, and the merger with Comcast has only meant that if you want to see some actual sporting events in real time where the US isn’t a lock to medal, you have to VPN out of the country. (They have such a lock that you can't even see video unless you're on one of their properties.)

Not for nothing do #ShutUpMattLauer and #NBCfail trend every two years.

When you factor in the general corporatization of the Games and the commercial hype of a few select athletes, it produces in me a full-throated meh. The world, in my opinion, really does not need more drama queens, particularly in a presidential election year.

So this summer I’m pleasantly surprised to hear of actual graciousness and sportsmanship, coming out of—of all places—the tennis court, which ever since John McEnroe has been the home of toddler-grade toy-tossing tantrums.

First, we have the American Jack Sock, who competed despite a diagnosis of walking pneumonia just before the opening ceremony. He lost early in the singles event, but still pulled a bronze in men’s doubles (with Steve Johnson) and a gold in mixed doubles (with Bethanie Mattek-Sands).

Now, that’s an achievement in anyone’s books, but you get a measure of the young man’s sense of sportsmanship from a competition earlier this year. He was playing Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt in the Hopman Cup match in January when the umpire ruled one of Hewitt’s serves out. Sock told Hewitt that it was in, actually, and he should challenge the call.

The disbelief on Hewitt’s face is evident. But Sock was right, and the point went to Hewitt, who went on to win the match.

But the audience went wild.

My other example of an Olympic champion whose ego does not require constant feeding is Andy Murray. The Scotsman was the first athlete to win back-to-back gold medals in men’s singles. Naturally one of the approximately 12,342 BBC sport reporters sent to Rio interviewed him and fed him a line you’d expect many competitors to lap up, a fulsome “you’re so amazing, two golds in tennis, a first ever.”

Murray never hesitated, pointing out that the Williams sisters “have about four each”.

Boom.