The day after Harry Kane had obliterated his record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year with yet another hat-trick, against Southampton, Alan Shearer wrote of his feelings at having the distinction snatched from his long-retired fist. “I was,” he claimed, “delighted.”
It was an unusual record, in that it took just a particular period of top‑flight football into account, and was measured over a time span across which British footballers never ordinarily judge themselves. It was akin to a 10,000m runner being told he had just become the fastest to complete laps 12 to 17 inclusive across all races contested during the month of April, and then being repeatedly interviewed about it. But it was nevertheless a record, a mark of significant sporting achievement, a footnote in which Shearer’s name will never again be written, a boast that he can no longer make, and it was being surrendered with barely a shrug. “Well done,” Shearer tweeted. “You deserve it.”
This seems to be the modern sporting model. Two years ago Ian Botham’s record for wickets taken during England Tests was stolen by Jimmy Anderson and his response was like Shearer’s, only, if anything, Shearerer. “He has been a joy to watch for more than 12 years,” Botham concluded, “and I am absolutely delighted for him.” Though here the final two words worked as a significant qualification to the previous five, leaving open the possibility that Botham was feeling personally crushed by the development but was too gallant to mention it.
It is fair to say that not all sports people share Shearer’s generosity of record-resigning spirit. In 2000 Pete Sampras became the man with the most grand slam titles in the history of tennis by beating Pat Rafter at Wimbledon. Afterwards the defeated finalist was asked how this news would be taken by Roy Emerson, his fellow Australian and freshly deposed record-holder. “Emmo is a pretty easygoing bloke,” Rafter said. “I don’t think he’s really going to give two shits about it.”
This turned out to be largely accurate. “I feel fine about it, no differently to how I felt on Sunday morning,” Emerson said. “He is a terrific champion and fully deserves his place in history.” The latter assessment was one with which Sampras heartily agreed: “When I’m gone, you might not see a player dominating the sport again for years and years,” he said. “I feel what I’ve achieved in tennis hasn’t always been appreciated.” By “years and years” Sampras was probably conjuring a number higher than nine; the very next summer Sampras was knocked out of Wimbledon by an unheralded young Swiss player who, before the decade was out, had written Sampras back out of history again. Asked in 2009 whether that achievement made Roger Federer now the greatest player of all time, Sampras visibly squirmed. “I have to give it to him,” he unthused.
This, though, is the spirit more commonly associated with high‑achieving sportsmen. It is not as if world records are mere snowflakes, delivered from the heavens and destined swiftly to melt away again. To achieve them requires a combination of dedication, sacrifice, focus, genetic good fortune and – occasionally and tragically – significant pharmaceutical assistance, after all of which surely they should not be easily surrendered.
Perhaps the disappointment is easier to cope with if the bettered athlete is still young and competitive enough to take the record back again. Surely the greatest example of record-claiming one-upmanship came on the athletics tracks of Europe in the summer of 1981, the year after Steve Ovett had broken Sebastian Coe’s two-year-old record for the mile. On 19 August Coe took it back again; and on 26 August Ovett reclaimed it. That night a journalist telephoned Coe at home to gauge the precise levels of anguish being experienced there, but the call was answered by his mother, Tina. “There is absolutely no reaction from Seb,” she said. “He’s gone to bed.” Less than 48 hours later Coe made history yet again and this time it was Ovett who could muster, in the sporting sense, absolutely no reaction.
If one man summed up true dedication to record-breaking it was Derek Ibbotson, like Coe a Yorkshireman and a middle-distance runner. He was once asked if anyone had inspired him on his run to the top of his field. “Nobody really,” he said. “I had inspiration from thoughts of breaking world records. I always wanted to be a world record-holder and had a lot of drive inside me. I always wanted to be the best in the world.”
One London afternoon in the summer of 1957 Ibbotson’s most cherished dream came true as he, too, claimed the mile record. It was an honour he held for 13 months. The following summer Herb Elliott, an athlete from Australia and a good friend – he later wrote the foreword for Ibbotson’s autobiography, Four-Minute Smiler – came to stay with the Englishman while preparing for a race in Dublin. Elliott duly set off for Ireland where he smashed his pal’s beloved mark by nearly three seconds. When he returned to the Ibbotson abode he found his belongings had been dumped on the pavement outside. “What’s my case doing out here?” he asked. “If you think you’re staying here after taking my record,” Ibbotson harrumphed, “you can piss off.”