Sport kerfuffle

There is also the allegation that long time ago Olympic gold medal winner Alan Wells used performance-enhancing drugs.

Then to a principal summer sport – tennis, and a French Open commentator mentioned Rafael Nadal having requested that his matches not be umpired by a particular official.

To my surprise I found in checking out this umpire veto request that there is a history of this, though most are due to umpiring mistakes during matches.

Andy Murray was subject to time violations in the French Open and lost a point for this.

As a TV tennis spectator I now tend to count to 20 when I see a player about to serve and I  can think of several who habitually edge the time precipice, so  to speak – probably even fall over it.

And, unlike the TV commentators, I am unimpressed by the slow-moving and cumbersome movements of Serena Williams, who treats almost every point she loses as her failure rather than her opponent’s success, and shows it.

And when she loses a succession of points said commentators are quick to inform us as to her having some ailment or other.

I don’t think the over-presence of TV sports commentators has contributed much to the enjoyment of watching sport on TV.

They are not only over-present, but over-paid, over-the-top, and perhaps it is time their part, in what is after all mainly a spectacle, was over.

Ian Johnstone

Forman Drive

Peterhead