The Vigilante I'd Like to Be

We've all grown up surrounded by ideas of vigilantes doing their bit in occasionally ill-advised attempts to make the world a better place. Robin Hood, Batman, Al Gore and so forth.

The vigilante role I would very gladly take up is that of taking out anyone being a show-off and spoiling everyone else's fun. The Spoilsport Revenger, perhaps.

The chap who I would gladly have taken out with any means at my disposal recently is the appalling Trenton Oldfield. He took it upon himself to disrupt the Oxbridge boat race for no other reason than he wanted to end elitist practices. Quite apart from the hypocracy of the man, how dare he ruin the entertainment of a great many rowing enthusiasts and friends and family of the rowers, let alone the hopes of the rowers themselves, for whom that race is the pinnacle of a year spent training every spare hour? This is a subject I can become furious about.

My role model for this vigilante role is Polyvios Kossivas. An extract from wikipedia follows, where the Arch Spoilsport and nemesis of Polyvios and myself, Neil Horan, interfered with the 2008 Athens marathon.

Horan pushed Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima, who was leading the race, into the crowds alongside the course.^[1] After a few seconds Horan was hauled off the shaken runner by Greek spectator Polyvios Kossivas. Kossivas subdued Horan and helped de Lima up and back to the lane. Horan was promptly arrested by Greek police (who, in spite of the difficulties of securing the marathon course, were later criticized for not giving runners adequate protection). Following the encounter with Horan, De Lima suffered from leg cramps and muscle pain, although he continued running and completed the race. He lost 20 seconds from his 48 second lead and finished third, after being passed by Italian Stefano Baldini and American Mebrahtom Keflezighi at the 38 km mark, however, it remains unclear to what extent this is attributable to the incident between de Lima and Horan.

I would have loved to have been next to that guy when he started to jump out in front of the runner, grabbed him, and put the miserable cretin down on the floor.

As with all vigilante work of course, it's very much about being in the right place at the right time. The only sporting events I tend to go to are ones I'm in, and other than swearing at pedestrians making their way through a stream of runners to get across roads, I have yet to exercise this dormant wrong-righting desire.

Polyvios Kossivas, and others like you/us, I salute you.