The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

Didn’t it all feel like the run up to a heavyweight boxing match or even the titanic showdown between two powerhouse American football teams?

Analysts were excitedly speculating on how the recent arrival in the White House would fare in the big match with his wily, experienced foe from the Kremlin. Two old, veteran, experienced antagonists pulling on the gloves for a rematch under different circumstances and yet with very familiar themes running through the endless pre-match speculation?

Joe Biden’s much-anticipated showdown with Vladimir Putin took place yesterday in Geneva, one of the most expensive cities in the world, where summit meetings and international gatherings have often been held and sometimes yield results.

When you think about it, the Swiss have really turned the business of searching for international peace or at least partial reconciliation into quite a lucrative undertaking.

Consider all the pomp, the limousines, the regiments of miscellaneous security personnel, the numerous rehearsals lest any oversight give unwanted advantage to one protagonist or another.

Imagine the jostling for a seat on the planes bearing Biden and Putin to Switzerland. The validation that an invitation to join a correspondent’s network coverage live from Geneva would provide. The restored primacy of the American Secretary of State, admitted to the ultimate inner sanctum of the four-person, four-hour private presidential meeting held just across from and around the western end of Lake Geneva from the main city.

The pomp and circumstance of a US-Russia summit meeting still holds a fascination for political insiders from government, the media and the vast web of private and university think tanks in both capitals.

Yesterday’s meeting also moved a certain distance in returning to influence and prominence the vast array of American specialists inside the Russian government and the even larger group of Soviet/Russian experts in and around Washington who make a very comfortable living and reside in lovely suburban homes based almost entirely on the perpetuation of a US-Russian nuclear and strategic rivalry.

Yet certain realities continue to suggest the US-Russia relationship is less than ever one among equals. Pundits this week were merrily recalling former senator, presidential candidate and war hero John McCain’s famous remark that post-Soviet Russia is just “a nation connected to a gas station”.

Indeed, an estimated one-third of Russia’s GDP is derived from oil and gas production and exports.

And Russia’s GDP is also believed to be lower than, for example, that of Canada, another nation whose GDP relies importantly on energy resources and production.

It was interesting to watch all manner of analysts opine about the Americans and Russians, showing various charts depicting the economic strength of various nations linked by their location in North America, Japan or Western Europe.

Missing from all these analyses was China.

Still in many ways more enigmatic and inscrutable for the West than is Russia, the world’s most populous country and second largest economy was notably absent from all the ceremonial build-up to a Biden-Putin summit meeting that seemed almost pointless to some observers and premature to others.

Geography dictates that still-powerful Japan and emerging South Korea look first warily at their colossal neighbour in Beijing. So too do India, whose relationship with Pakistan and China remains troubled, and the economically growing and populous nations of Southeast Asia.

Geography similarly mandates that Germany especially, with its enormous appetite for energy, plus the rest of Eastern Europe and most of Western Europe, focus more on their giant, intermittently ominous neighbour in Moscow.

With his decision to make his first trip abroad to Western Europe and then to the summit meeting with Putin, President Biden is reflecting his long Cold War experience in Washington and that of so many of his key advisers.

Even Putin acknowledged this in an interview with NBC leading up to yesterday’s summit meeting. He began by characterizing ex-President Donald Trump as a “colourful, talented individual who did not come from the American political establishment.”

In summarizing Trump so briefly – and accurately – Putin left the indelible impression that he is the experienced hand in the US-Russia relationship. By dwelling on him so briefly in his remarks, Putin also appeared to almost dismiss Trump as something now in the past.

Putin seems to understand much more clearly than do stubborn, recalcitrant members of the Republican Party that Trump should be exactly that: an aberration.

Maybe that is why Biden chose to inaugurate his administration’s diplomacy by reaffirming pre-Trump strategic imperatives, while simultaneously subtly endorsing Trump’s aggressive posture toward America’s real rival on today’s world stage – China.

An agonising moment for all sport lovers

Time stood still on Saturday afternoon in Copenhagen. A champion athlete’s heart stopped beating in the middle of a soccer match televised live around the world.

ESPN’s broadcasters were stunned, then stumped. What do you say when Christian Eriksen, a 29-year-old Danish midfielder with a glittering resume at the highest global levels of the world’s most beloved game, simply drops in his tracks toward the end of the first half of a “Baltic derby” match against Finland in the 2021 version of the 2020 European Nations Cup that was postponed from last year by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Every once in a while, a boxing match ends with one of the contestants dying of concussive trauma suffered during the course of a brutal, losing match. But boxing matches aren’t so widely televised anymore.

Other rough televised sports like mixed martial arts, American football, professional hockey and rugby feature dramatic collisions among players, but the worst that anyone really expects to happen is a particularly bloody or gruesome injury.

A baseball player died from taking a pitched ball to the head during the 1920 World Series. That was a century ago. While baseball and other sports are now played with so much more intensity by players so swift and powerful that equipment safety standards are constantly being upgraded, serious injuries remain relatively rare.

Players don’t just drop dead on the playing field.

But that’s just what Ericksen did on the weekend toward the end of the first half of what would become a huge upset as Finland won 1-0.

Ericksen, one of the most skilled passers at the top levels of world soccer, had recently celebrated a stirring Serie A championship in the top Italian league with his Inter Milan teammates, ending a long run of titles strung together by Juventus of Turin.

Now playing as leader of a talented but overlooked Danish team expected to challenge for a top finish in Europe’s quadrennial national competition, Eriksen was at the centre of most of the Danish team’s creativity for 42 minutes.

His performance was reminiscent of his seven seasons as the creative mastermind and assists leader for Tottenham in the English Premier League. Teamed with high-scoring players like Wales’ prolific scorer Gareth Bale, England’s current captain Harry Kane and South Korean ace Son Heung-min, Ericksen routinely dissected the defences of Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea as Spurs won consistently in the English Premier League and barely lost in the Champions League final just two years ago.

Now, on Saturday, Ericksen lay motionless on the Copenhagen field, quickly surrounded by medical staff and teammates shielding him from news cameras and spectators’ cell phones.

Thousands of spectators, viewers, opponents and teammates held their breath while Ericksen’s heart stopped beating. Later, doctors would confirm he had suffered a sudden, massive cardiac arrest and, in effect, died.

But this is a highly-conditioned athlete who is trained, conditioned and nourished by highly-skilled professional assistants. After collapsing on the field, Ericksen was immediately attended by his team’s doctors and trainers, who administered CPR and used defibrillators to literally get Ericksen’s heart restarted and revive his heartbeat.

Still in hospital undergoing tests this morning, the Danish star has reassured fans he is “doing well – under the circumstances”.

Shocked players and spectators alike may face a longer recovery. Someone doesn’t just die on an internationally broadcast sporting event. There’s no script for a broadcaster or viewer caught by complete surprise as a top competitor literally suffers clinical death before their eyes.

It looks like Ericksen will recover his health, doubtless with some lifestyle changes mandated by what the doctors ultimately diagnose as the causes of his cardiac arrest. Perhaps in time he will again torment top opposing defences.

Recovery for some of those who witnessed his near demise may take longer.