YesMisty and kind fruits, close companions of Boden Gilead. The leaves fall from the trees and turn colorful, heading straight towards the train tracks. Fall light bounces at sharp angles, a reminder that it's always too early to put away your sunglasses.
This is the time of year when sports fans' thoughts naturally turn to one of the biggest plays of the year. We're talking about the World Cup that generated more media interest last week than the England men's and women's cricket teams combined. Toddlers usually love the bright brown treasures on the sidewalk. But recent events have shown that adults can also defeat conger eels.
If you missed the story, how exactly? – The headline is that newly crowned men's world champion David Joggins has been accused of cheating. The runner-up was suspected when his own chestnut disintegrated on impact during the crash. When asked to return his pocket, Juggins received a steel chestnut painted to look real.
The champion, “King Conqueror”, maintains his innocence and insists that he was only using the children to mock him, insisting that ring judge Joggins, like all the competitors, pulled his nut out of a bag full of matches. Dr. Conkers is unlikely. But organizers say they have expanded their investigation “following the emergence of new evidence.”
Is this, perhaps, evidence of fraud generating enormous publicity? After all, some sports only get national attention when there's a chance someone will break the rules. Not many people can name the three best chess players in the world, but Hans Niemann, currently ranked 18th, is famous for losing to Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen in 2022 and quickly refusing to play him again. The furor that followed gave chess the glamorous sheen of corruption for months.
Nieman was found not guilty of all charges against him and settled the dispute with Carlson after admitting to cheating in “random” online games as a teenager. But the 20-year-old doesn't feel obligated to give an interview to Piers Morgan: “Have you ever used anal balls while playing chess?” Refrain from using sex toys to receive secret messages during games.
You can say Joe all you want, but most sports fans love the drama of the cheating scandal. And we especially appreciate them in the marginal games that pass by us. They somehow tickle both sides of our brains at once: the sophisticated, self-aware part that recognizes the utter absurdity of our invented competitive pastime, and the ancestral part that wants to banish the evildoers from our society and leave them alone. peace. Eaten by bears.
Small efforts can have serious consequences. In 2023, two fishermen found guilty were sentenced to 10 days in jail. Ohio cheaters load their claws with lead weights and fish fillets in search of a $30,000 prize. A video taken immediately afterwards reveals that they were lucky to escape unscathed from angry fellow contestants when the organizers removed their vehicle and exposed their mistakes.
Perhaps we are drawn to these episodes because, for a moment, we imagine that we are taking a collective moral stance. Many frauds in modern sport go unpunished, from financial scams to institutionalized doping. Some of this is positively normalized: witness the typical sequence of football players clutching their faces as they fall to the ground like extras from a World War II movie.
Theoretically, the game only makes sense as a concept if it is played at the village level and organized within a framework of arbitrary rules. In reality, a millionaire businessman is trying to launch a version of the Olympics where competitors can revel in themselves, and England's most successful and, coincidentally, richest soccer club is under investigation for several allegations. violates the financial rules of his own league (which denies the allegations). The modern line is that what benefits the individual – even the richest and most powerful among them – benefits us all. What is good for business is good for sport.
Perhaps, when the World Concourse Championships are subject to cheating rumors, we feel nostalgic for supposedly simpler times, when cheating was as simple as jumping into a car mid-marathon or scoring a point. Aim for the World Cup with your fist. Back then, it was easy to tell who was to blame.
Who can blame Conquer World if it helps generate publicity for your event and your fundraising causes? I don't want to say they have form, but two years ago, when Juggins prepared chestnuts for the women's final, her daughter won the title and a similar “investigation” was launched. A spokesperson duly assured concerned fans that no anal beads (or, presumably, fish fillets) had been inserted into their bodies.
Raising the profile of one contest event raises the profile of all of them. Some, like the Waveney Valley Conkers Tournament and the Beckham Conkers Championship, have made it clear that they welcome sharp practices such as shooting the nuts, soaking them in vinegar or injecting them with resin. You could say it's about growing the game. I don't think it works.
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