The saddest sight in sport is to observe a marvellous athlete not so much go into decline as suddenly burn out before one’s eyes. In almost seven decades of passionate association with sport – forty years as competitor and all that time and still continuing as avid spectator – I have watched a long line of sportsmen falter and fade from glory, and it is always a melancholy thing to behold. But nothing is sadder than the burnt-out case – the sudden and comprehensive collapse of morale and will leading to surrendering all that had meant everything previously.
The most tragic example of burn-out in sport that I can remember was that of Bjorn Borg, the great tennis player
