SPORTS August 15, 2005 Issue

A WINNING—OR HEALING—STREAK

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

LAST MONTH, all eyes were on cyclist Lance Armstrong as he rode bravely for his seventh successive win in the Tour de France, and on tennis player Roger Federer as he went for his third Wimbledon singles championship in a row (after 35 successive wins on grass and 20 consecutive wins in finals, including four in majors). Could they preserve their winning streaks?

The July 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal listed and compared some of the most remarkable winning streaks in sporting history: wrestler Alexsandr Karelin, 59 matches; boxer Joe Louis, 25 title defenses; skater Sonja Henie, 10 world titles; hurdler Edwin Moses, 122 races; Formula One racing driver Michael Schumacher, five world championships; tennis player Martina Navratilova, six Wimbledon titles; and squash player Jahangir Khan, 555 matches. All without defeat!

That article, covering half a page, confirmed how sports reporters love the word streak. Some newspapers have a section on the baseball pages labeled Streaks. Journalists are even counting losing streaks, despite the fact that they often appear to be little more than a lazy way of trying to say something meaningful about an otherwise unremarkable season or effort.

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