Un País de Deportistas

In Argentina, one is required to mull over a handle of weighty questions:

Why is the steak so damn good? This is well chewed by the blog post Argentina On Two Steaks A Day (which brilliantly begins, "The classic beginner's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day...").

Why are the women so beautiful? Guardian writer John Carlin cogitates on this tenet in High-flying, adored and siliconised. (This too leads with a great line: "To be the best at something you have to be obsessed.")

Why does there have to be a financial crisis every friggin' decade? This is too long to be answered by any single article. Metaphoricaly, one must find a large celeste bowl and in it mix one kilo of short term thinking, a cup of bad foreign advice, two tabelspoons of chamuyo, a pinch of baldfaced lies, a dusting of inability to face reality, and a sprig completely unintelligible monetary policy. It's both obvious and inexplicable at the same time. And sort of funny in the same sad, self-inflicted way that a slow-motion car crash in a parking lot between two stubborn men fighting over the same parking space is. Take this Financial Times quote from Eduardo Fracchia, the director of the economics department at Argentine business school IAE, about the ongoing scandal about inflaction number fakery at the national statistics bureau: "Indec’s performance is just a joke. It started as a little lie and it’s snowballed." Notice the assumtion that, of course, no one will do anything about it. It can't be controlled. As they say, Se me complicó.

But as much as I'd like to, I'm not here today to gnaw on these issues. Rather, I'm interested in another question of vast national import to Argentina: Why are Argentines such good athletes? Specifically, this is something that has fascinated me since I noted that, except for France (15), Argentina has the most professional tennis players ranked in the top 100 (it is tied with Spain at 12). It's something I even began pitching as a story myself--How does a not-quite-First-World country have ones of the best groups of players in a sport commonly though of as for the rich? And why do so many of the best ones flame out (see: Gaudio, Gastón; Coria, Guillermo; Puerta, Mariano; etc.)? Well, today The Independent (UK) went wide angle on this idea in Champions of the world: Argentina's sporting miracle. Writer Paul Newman's theories? A "meat and potatoes" diet; a good climate; fútbol-taught dependence on feet--and rhythm--over hands; the underdog's resentment; the proliferation of sporting clubs; and a lack of funds. "In other countries you might think that being given an air ticket to travel to a tournament is normal, but in Argentina you treat it like a trophy," says Martin Jaite, the tennis coach of David Nalbandian (above). "And when you travel to that tournament you make sure you play your absolute best. You know you might not get another chance."

Amen.