Things were getting a little too predictable at this year’s Wimbledon. Andy Roddick, gone. Venus Williams, gone. Andre Agassi, alas, gone. Roger Federer cruising. Maria Sharapova poised to dispatch Elena Dementieva in straight sets. Wake us up when we get to the men’s final … but wait … Don’t look, Ethel! There’s a naked man on Centre Court!
With Sharapova leading 3-0 in the second set of Tuesday’s quarterfinal, a 29-year-old fan wearing only sneakers and dark socks leaped from the stands and pranced about the grass, turning a cartwheel in front of the Royal Box. Sharapova scowled. Dementieva giggled. Security guards threw a blanket over the streaker and hustled him away. A few minutes later, Dementieva was gone too.
But fans were witnessing a comeback. Streaking is on the rise, especially at sporting events. Sander Lantinga, the Dutch disc jockey who interrupted Tuesday’s tennis match, was the fourth Wimbledon streaker in 10 years. At least two streakers–one wearing only a strategically placed rubber chicken–crashed the 2006 Winter Olympics. In June, a 25-year-old New Zealand woman was arrested after sprinting onto a rugby field clad in a teensy bikini, which she later sold for $4,000 on an online auction site called TradeMe.
The 1970s was streaking’s golden age. In 1973, Time magazine reported on an epidemic of naked men and women charging around college campuses and other public settings. The next year, a national television audience watched a grown man streak across the stage at the 46th annual Academy Awards ceremony, and Ray Stevens had a No. 1 hit song called “The Streak” about a fellow who was always making the news wearing only tennis shoes. (The song was peppered with a male character’s admonition to his wife: “Don’t look, Ethel!”) Pretty soon we were all sick of the song, and sick of streakers.
Now, though, they’re a breath of fresh air–especially at Wimbledon, with the Americans ousted in the early rounds and the usual suspects headed toward the finals. Ho hum. Which would you rather see– Federer’s 48th consecutive win on grass or Lantinga’s naked handstand on Centre Court?
There’s a lot of talk these days about the need to reinvigorate tennis, but not enough people are willing to take off their clothes and do something about it.
