It has always been a numbers game

                                                                                      Attribution: Jonathan Bowen
Image: The Blue plaque at Iffley
Road Track, Oxford, England (here)

Y is for Yardstick in the ABC of Sports

It has always been a numbers game
Targets are meticulously set and pursued
Records also relentless pursued and broken
What do happen in between are all spiced up
with the drama befitting of keen competition

The hours of sweat toil and sacrifice are
not seen but instead the accolades or the
disappointments are apparent in their reactions

That is the beauty of targets that are universally
graded as in the case of ju-jit-su or tae-kwon-do
One must aspire along the ascending grades from
a white belt through blue along the way to black
that they are readily accepted internationally

Other self-defense methods cannot hope to progress
as far as they lack such accepted gradings

There are then other personal targets in all sporting
activities that are all the more relevant in ensuring that
one can outrun or outdo others in similar activities

Records on the other hand are there regal in stature
to goad the aspirants in testing their prowess

The sub 4-minute mile stood proud and thought to be
'invincible' until Bannister surpassed it and nobody
took notice thereafter that it had gone lower and lower

Sadly though in the pursuance for honors there are
cheats who take it upon themselves to stoke and
abuse their muscles with drugs
They have no consideration or thoughts of the
adverse consequences to their well-being
or to the spirit of sportsmanship

A to Z Challenge