Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Heros...

I came accross, today, to the news of the 25th anniversary of Gilles Villeneuve's deadly crash. I still remember it as it was yesterday... obviously, I was 10 at the time, but HE was my hero... I loved watching formula 1, thanks to dad being such die hard Ferrari (back then frustrated) fan...


I remember, even so young, loving every race of this super talented Canadian... his memorable number 27...what he did with his car was simply amazing... but he never had the chance to win a championship, never the chance to delight his fans for many more years, as his life was cut short during a qulifying lap near here we I ended up living... he died in Zolder, after sustaining fatal injuries in a really horrifying crash... I still remember, sitting on the long gone white and brown couches of my parents' livingroom, watching the doctors attending him, motionless on the grass, near a fence that stopped his body from rolling even further... I was in shock, in denial... how can that be? Heros are not supposed to lose, let alone die! So, I thought, he will be fine...

But when the evening news reported that Gilles had died, at age 32, I couldn't believe it. I stopped eating, I ran into my room and never emerged till the next morning... I remember crying as a baby (maybe I still was, after all I was 10...), it was a sleepless night...
I think his myth has been amplified, surely by his driving skills, but also by the way he died... a champion in the making... he is one sportsman I can't simply forget, so powerful he had been in my mind during his short stint in the formula 1 circus...

Depending on which sports you follow, we can surely mention few more heros... Mohammed Ali, Pele, Segei Bubka, Pete Sampras, Tiger Woods... to mention the first ones that come to mind... but they were, either before my time, or performing at an unprecedented level, but in a sport I had little interest in... they were (or are) people who dominated their sport... that left little to nothing to the opponents...

I can mention Michael Schumacher, whose greatness was not defined by an unexpected death or his friendliness, but by simply being the greatest formula 1 driver ever... simple as that... maybe Villeneuve and Ayrton Senna, another victim of a race accident, and another great of formula 1 history, could have become what Schumacher is... but they had no chance...


A hero is also defined by the opponents he's able to beat... Villeneuve had epic "battles" with Renault's Rene Arnoux... Senna had to compete with Alain Prost, Niki Lauda, even a young Schumacher... and Schumacher himself? Maybe he didn't have to race with the best opponents in formula 1 history, but he brought Ferrari back on top of the world after 21 years, won 7 titles, 5 consecutively... he could have had 2 more, barred injuries... amazing stuff... But you see, there are no unbeatable heros... Senna unfortuned accident cut his life short at only 34, at the peak of his career... Schumacher also suffered a bad accident where he broke both his legs when he was leading the standings to what it could have been his 1st championship with Ferrari... but it wasn't meant to be, not yet...

Valentino Rossi, the MotoGP rider who won 7 championships in 10 years of races, has also sustained a burning defeat in last championship... blame the lack of competitiveness of his motorbike, blame a slow start of the campaign, blame a career (lucky) season from another rider, but at the end, he didn't win, as everyone expected... by the way, on 2 of the 3 occasions when he didn't win a championship, he finished in 2nd place... including last year... but as you know, there is only room for one winner in sports, so 2nd, for as close as it can be to 1st, ain't good enough...

Even Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all times, had his misfortunes, for as talented, driven, rich and famous as he was... he won everything, he accomplished everything, he achieved everything... but he also had to sustain burning losses, here and there... or give up to age, even if you could really tell he still had it...

But one question comes to mind? Are these
people really heros, or they just seem to be? Aren't these people just talented yet fortunate people who can make a beautiful living by doing what they love? Why everyone celebrates them, misses them when they die... we don't know them, after all... they are not our family, they are not our friends... how many people die, silently, every day? Do we miss them too? How many people do more, work harder, without all the accolades of sport and fame? So maybe, we should rethink who the real heros are... maybe... let's just think about it... maybe someone who tries to make this world a better place is more of a hero... someone we don't even know the existance of, and yet dedicate their life to make it better for everyone... shouldn't they be the ones we look up to? Aren't they the real unsung heros?

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