There are times when it's not a good idea to put out your B-team
If you've been following the Olympic swimming, you're probably aware of the curious case of the relay team that disappeared. The British women's 4x200m freestyle team, which included the golden girl, Rebecca Adlington, seemed destined for a place in the medals - if they'd ever made it into the water, that is. But the coaching staff put out a B-team in the heats, who, gallingly, failed to qualify for the final. The coaches apologised, but said it had been worth the gamble.
Apparently, it is now common practice to send out a different set of swimmers in the relay heats. "Strength in depth" has become a sporting mantra in the past few years; the concept of tactical squad rotation - rather than putting your best possible team out every time - has bled from football into other sports with packed schedules.
In some places, however, the concept of the B-team seems in danger of being taken to extremes. Take cricket, where several countries, including England, are nervous about sending their prize cricketers to the upcoming Champions Trophy in Pakistan, what with bombs going off in Karachi and British government travel advice which suggests that westerners are likely terrorist targets.
If forced to send a team to the tournament, England will likely send a bunch of second stringers. Clearly, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen are irreplaceable, but I think that if I were one of those getting on the plane, I would be a little disheartened to know that I was, well, so much more expendable than the other players.
Clearly, competition for places is so strong that the usual sporting cliché of "running through a brick wall" for your team is no longer enough - you've now got to be prepared to have it explode right next to you.
Of course, it is central to the notion of a team sport that people make sacrifices for a shared goal. But normally, everyone gets to share in the success, too. There doesn't seem to be enough room on the Olympic podium for the reserve swimmers who get the big guns into the final. And if England's wannabes were to win the Champions Trophy in September, how many would be invited to play against the billionaire Texan Allen Stanford's West Indies all-star team the following month, and possibly pick up a $1m winner's cheque? Very few, I suspect.
It's what makes watching the Tour de France a slightly uncomfortable experience. I can't help wondering about the dozens of professional cyclists working as domestiques, who sublimate their own competitive desires in order to act as cycling flunkies for the star man in the team, pushing their bodies to the limit for someone else's glory. Do they feel used? Are they in a permanent state of frustration? And, more importantly, do they receive a pension from the team?
Still, perhaps Team GB's swimming coaches didn't have such a bad idea. Just think what the track-and-field athletes could achieve at the Olympics if they were allowed to appoint someone else to run all those energy-sapping qualifiers for them. Usain Bolt would probably have broken the nine-second barrier by now.
There are also the benefits for big-match players who struggle to motivate themselves against small fry. Yes, I'm thinking of Andy Murray - the man who looked like he couldn't quite remember where he was in the first round of the tennis in Beijing. What a joy if he could have sent in a sub, and saved himself for the big showdown with Rafael Nadal.
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