Following tennis young gun Nick Kyrgios’ adamant rejection of a pre-game ban on sex, David Packman continues a conversation that’s been going on since the days of Plato.
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The myth and mystery surrounding the pros and cons of pre-game sex in professional sports has been long debated, perhaps going all the way back to 444BC when Plato wrote that Olympians should avoid sexual intimacy before they race. Pliny the Elder provided the flipside, writing in 77AD that sluggish athletes are revitalized by lovemaking.
Whatever the case may be, tennis’ boy wonder Nick Kyrgios has once again stirred the proverbial pot of this timeless discussion on the eve of the French Open with his comments in the most recent Australian edition of GQ Magazine.
When asked if he had a pre-match ban on sex, the refreshingly brazen Aussie’s answer was emphatic:
“No, I don’t abide by that rule. I don’t abide by that at all.”
The 20-year-old went on to say that “lots goes on” in the world of professional tennis. While that hardly comes as a shock, let’s not assume the hallowed red dirt of Roland Garros is going to be the grounds for a Caligula-style orgy over the next fortnight either. It’s simply that the “play-before-play-for-athletes” conversation has going on since the days of Plato.
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The greatest of all time, Mohammed Ali, was well-known to abstain for up to six weeks prior to a title bout. Quarterback and Hall of Famer “Broadway” Joe Namath was infamously quite the opposite. In an interview with Playboy in 1969, he said,
“The night before a game, I prepare myself both mentally and physically for the next day. I think a ballplayer has to be relaxed to play well; and if that involves being with a girl that night, he should do it. If some ballplayers don’t feel that way, they shouldn’t do it. But I feel that way.”
Then of course, there’s the 1988 classic movie Bull Durham.
Who could forget the tagline, “It’s all about sex and sport. What else is there?” Maybe Bulls pitcher Ebby “Nuke” LaLoosh had it right when he refused sex with Annie until his winning streak ended?
“It’s all about sex and sport. What else is there?”
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As they say, “Never mess with a winning streak.”
At the 2012 London Olympics a number of teams vowed celibacy during the event – with the Australian Olympic Committee going as far as not allowing shooter Russell Mark to even share a room in the athletes’ village with his wife and fellow competitor Lauryn Mark.
Ironically, the Olympic Village ran out of the 150,000 condoms that were handed out to athletes on arrival long before the event was even over.
Several teams participating in the 2014 FIFA World Cup also issued bans on sex before games, believing it could interfere with performance:
“There will be no sex in Brazil,” Safet Susic, then coach of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s national soccer team stoically told reporters.
It’s safe to assume he wasn’t mandating abstinence for the entire country, fans and all, but the intent for his players was very clear.
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The stories are endless. The science however, remains inconclusive on whether or not sex prior to competition has any impact on performance at all. Of course, one needs to consider the ‘boisterousness’ of the sex in question and the quality of sleep thereafter, but that’s more about common sense than anything else.
To my mind, I’d suggest the premise in Bull Durham is correct; it might all come down to superstition and ritual. That said, perhaps it’s best left with New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel who once said:
“It’s not the sex that wrecks these guys, it’s staying up all night looking for it.”
As for Nick Kyrgios, let’s just say his Twitter hashtag #NKRISING may not mean exactly what we thought it did.
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Photo Source: Twitter
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