Can we skip to the good part?

Peaks in sport, television and life

I’m not suggesting I was an anxious child, but I did take it upon myself to worry about the implications of peak oil almost immediately after the concept was explained to me by my year 6 science teacher. I think it stemmed from that fear of being late to the party. “So what you’re telling me is not only are fossil fuels making the planet less habitable — but we’re running out of them?” Still, peaks can give us hope, too.

Sport provides fertile ground for them, partly because it is an arena in which numbers can be left to tell the story. Think Roger Federer’s 11 major titles between 2004 and 2007, Ricky Ponting’s test batting average of 73.62 between 2002 and 2006, Lionel Messi’s 233 goals between 2009 and 2013. The arts have their zeniths too, of course: Lennon and McCartney from 1964-1969, Meryl Streep in the early 1980s. I also understand Pablo Picasso had a decent run of things in the early 1900s.

There is certainly something so narratively satisfying about being able to point to a specific person at a specific time and say: yes, that. Peaks give shape to stories: from the rise to apex and then decline. They also confer scarcity. A peak is, by definition, something that doesn’t last, but is instead a temporary window of mastery that can appear, on reflection, almost mythical. “Grandpa, were they really that good?” And peaks act as an occasionally uncomfortable mirror for our own mortality. When was I at my best — or is that yet to come?