Finn McRedmond: We don’t need our athletes to be thought leaders

On the outskirts of Visoko, a small city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a cluster of hills believed by a few thousand tourists to be ancient, man-made pyramids with healing properties.

Among the proponents of the theory is current world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic. Unfortunately, the geological consensus is that the so-called Bosnian pyramids are just uniquely shaped hills.

The quirky iconoclasm of Djokovic may once have been considered harmless fun. His other scientific ventures include the belief that water reacts to human emotion, and that we can turn toxic food good again with prayer and gratitude. Oddballs like this have often been forgiven as charming, if unserious, until we underwent a sea change with the arrival of Covid-19 on our shores.

Djokovic has no inherent right to play in the Open. And this will hopefully emerge as a much-needed reminder that the stars are not subject to different standards and treatment than the rest of us

Now such renegade sensibilities are balked at more than ever as dangerous gateway drugs to Covid denialism and anti-vaccine sentiment. In this vein perhaps we should credit Djokovic for his intellectual consistency, at the very least. The tennis player has been vocal about his vaccine hesitancy, saying first he would not wish to be forced to receive a vaccine, and adding that he believes he can harness the power of his metabolism to fend off viruses like Covid-19.

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He has been roundly criticised for his bad leadership, his ideological position dismissed as disappointing for such an influential star. That might be all well and good. But citizens are entitled to their private beliefs, no matter how misplaced. And, like Djokovic, I think forcing people to receive a medical procedure is a threshold society ought not consider crossing.

But it has caused him no end of grief when it comes to his participation in the upcoming Australian Open. The story is one of procedural loopholes, twists and turns, off-the-hook and back-on-the-hook chicanery. But the core problem is simple: Australia requires foreign visitors to be vaccinated and Djokovic is not. He believed he could play in the tournament under an exemption for those recently recovered from infection. But after a drip feed of more information, it appears the athlete broke regulations by not isolating while knowingly infected with the virus, and that he travelled in Europe two weeks prior to his flight, also not permitted by Australian immigration policy.

It all seems an enormous faff all easily avoided by being vaccinated. Just as Djokovic is entitled to his private beliefs, Australia is of course entitled to enforcing its national policy. Djokovic has no inherent right to play in the Open. And this will hopefully emerge as a much-needed reminder that the stars are not subject to different standards and treatment than the rest of us.

But how worried should we be about a star athlete espousing anti-vax sentiment in the midst of a pandemic? While Australia is facing the Omicron tidal wave, the timing of the dispute is unfortunate. Djokovic is the acme of physical achievement and a specimen of health. Is it dangerous that he is declaring to the world that life-saving public vaccine policy is needless and in fact inhibiting his athletic potential?

Maybe. It’s certainly a mode of thinking Djokovic’s current detractors are leaning on. When it comes to athletes, claims Lindsay Crouse in the New York Times, “what they do in public health situations matters even more” than the regular citizen. This extra burden Djokovic allegedly carries is derived from his huge social influence, his implicit roles as a leader, his status as a health symbol.

It is indicative of a terribly weak societal fibre, and a very flimsy public ethos, to think we are somehow failed when a tennis player does not wish to be vaccinated

It might be tempting, even satisfying, to pursue this route. There is little better than righteous anger and a classic tale of elite idiocy. But before we castigate Djokovic and his failure as a role model, we should remember it is the same man who fired a tennis ball (accidentally) into the throat of a line judge during the Grand Slam final in 2020. And the same Djokovic the year before who smashed his racket to pieces on the floor at the Monte Carlo Masters. He was hardly the paragon of good sportsmanship and comity before now.

But far more importantly than his prior indiscretions, Djokovic does not have to be a role model. It is not his job to be a public health ambassador. And we really can do better than appealing to him as a kindly shepherd who can lead us out of Covid’s embrace. He believes that water knows if we are being nice to it or not, lest we forget.

Djokovic is an athlete whose sole intention is to perform to his highest capacity, whose whole life has been teleologically geared towards physical and mental exceptionalism. Whatever he thinks of the vaccine is really irrelevant to those of us who are not intending to play in the Australian Open and who, honestly, ought to have better places to look for moral guidance in the middle of a pandemic.

Because we don’t need our athletes to be thought leaders, we don’t even need them to be nice. It is indicative of a terribly weak societal fibre, and a very flimsy public ethos, to think we are somehow failed when a tennis player does not wish to be vaccinated. When did we start taking these people so seriously?