As committed members of athletics clubs we are aware of the immense satisfaction and enjoyment a huge number of people receive through participation in the sport and are constantly trying to encourage more people, and particularly youngsters into it. Coverage of this type will only succeed in leaving the image of the dreaded 'school sports day' in readers' minds, a totally untrue picture of the event that Birchfield Harriers so professionally staged last weekend. Anna Jackson and Julian Dowen Lichfield, Staffs I have to say how thrilled I was to read the piece by Will Buckley called 'Oldcorn wins big'. In this day and age we are constantly bombarded with images of perfectly honed specimens excelling on the field of play, but it is always refreshing to witness a triumph for the 'larger' competitor. Even sports like rugby, where the sight of an overhanging belly was commonplace, is now the preserve of giant musclemen who are built for speed far more than comfort.
Sport is for all, or so the saying goes, whether they are thin of fat, short or tall.
What Oldcorn and Inzamam have proved is, at the highest level, what matters most is talent. I was interested to read Jon Henderson's comments last week about women's tennis recovering from domination by a few players. While I agree that any professional sport needs to have strength in depth, it isn't true to say that it loses appeal when a few greats dominate, especially when those greats include Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis. To see players so superbly gifted is never boring.