Losing It

To understand Anna Karenina, Mellors, Molly Bloom, Dante, Romeo, Juliet and Bridget Jones you must also have loved and lost and won. To understand sport in the greatest arenas of them all you too must have played and lost and won, known shame, hope, joy, horror and glory.

Simon Barnes has taken part in seven summer Olympic Games, five World Cups and ten Ashes series. Well, not exactly taken part, b...