Thrilling as the race was, last week’s Cheltenham Gold Cup will leave an even more remarkable legacy: the winning jockey, Sam Waley-Cohen, did it as an amateur. Being a jockey isn’t his day job — he is the CEO of a dental business — and he races for love, not money.
It’s not supposed to happen these days. According to the logic of professionalism, it is impossible to compete at the highest level, let alone win, unless you sacrifice all else. The word amateur has gone from being an accolade to a term of abuse. When coaches get seriously angry they call you ‘amateurish’, meaning sloppy and inept. When they are impressed they call you ‘a real pro’. The Gold Cup was a delicious snub to that simplistic view of excellence.
In 13 years as a professional cricketer, I was often told to give up distractions, to narrow my life, to pursue one professional goal and only one.
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