On Winning and How Terrible It Can Be

I can’t do this any more. I can’t. I can’t do it. It’ll kill me.

Yesterday evening, I finished watching the Ronnie O’Sullivan documentary, The Edge of Everything.

You may not share my fondness for snooker, or for Ronnie — who, along with chess player Alexander Grischuk, is my favourite sports interviewee. (Both of them absolutely will not play the usual bland game.)

You may hate snooker.

However, better than any other film I’ve seen, Sam Blair’s documentary explores the immense and painful gap between how winning feels and how it’s perceived, between the reality and the discourse.

There’s a comparable moment in Chariots of Fire, which was on TV over Christmas. You’ll probably know it. Harold Abrahams has just won the 100 Metres Final in the 1924 Olympics.

Here’s the script:

INT. THE DRESSING ROOM - DAY

Harold is quietly packing his case, strangely subdued as the roistering goes on around him. He finishes and closes it with his usual neat precision. He looks about him then, surprisingly, he turns, takes his hat from the hook and pushes his way out through the door. Andy and Aubrey [other runners] see him go.

AUBREY (calling) Harold!

ANDY Let him go, can’t you see, the poor fella’s whacked.

AUBREY But he won!

ANDY Exactly! One of these days Monty, you’ll win yourself. And it’s bloody difficult to swallow.

The dream of his life; the supposed triumph against all the snobbery and racism. But Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) looks devastated. It’s brilliant and true — the punctum of the whole film.

In The Edge of Everything, there’s an even more piercing moment. (Spoilers.) Ronnie O’Sullivan has just won an unprecedented seventh snooker World Championship. He defeated Judd Trump 18-13. This makes him, without question, the greatest and most successful player ever. (All the clichés.) The crowd at The Crucible is giving him a standing ovation. Shiny confetti is about to cascade down upon him. The prize money is half a million pounds.

The commentator says, ‘Ronnie Sullivan is in seventh heaven.’

And after a really extraordinary whispered conversation with runner-up Judd Trump (worth watching the documentary just for this), Ronnie turns and walks towards his family. He is warmly hugged by his son and daughter. What will he say to them, in his moment of absolute triumph? What would a scriptwriter have him say?

Not this:

I can’t do this any more. I can’t. I can’t do it. It’ll kill me.

By the time we get to this point, if we didn’t already, we know about Ronnie’s childhood, his father, his father’s time in prison, his gift for apparently effortless snooker, his anxiety and depression. We’ve seen the anguish in his face. But it’s still a shock.

It shows the bland triumphalism of most sports commentary for what it is — nonsense unrelated to what’s really going on.

You can watch someone who seems completely confident, and is performing at their peak, yet inside they are collapsing in upon themselves. And perhaps that psychic collapse is what makes their victory possible. Smug self-love just can’t compete with self-hate and self-punishment. Maybe.

That’s just what Ronnie O’Sullivan is trying to figure out for the whole documentary.

And this goes for trying to do anything really well, striving to be any kind of ‘winner’ — at writing just as much as at sport.

I remember watching the coverage of Tadej Pogačar’s win of the General Classification in the 2020 Tour de France. He was on the Champs-Élysées, on the podium, raising the trophy in his right hand. And the commentator said:

There is a young man in total control of his life.

No.