Former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh and swimming legend Kieren Perkins, both liaison officers with their country’s Olympic delegation, clashed over the controversial use of sledging Saturday. Waugh, who once referred to sledging as ‘mental disintegration’, insisted that there was a role for the tactic, whereby an opponent is subject to a constant barrage of insults aimed at undermining his confidence. “There is always a role for sledging,” Waugh said on Saturday. “In any sport there are mind games but cricket is a bit different to most sports because you’re out in the field for seven hours but most of these sports are shorter.” However, Perkins, the 1992 and 1996 Olympic gold medallist in the 1500m, said that the ploy was a sign of weakness on the part of the sledgers. “The people who do the sledging generally aren’t good enough, so they have to find other ways to slow us down,” said the 38-year-old. “Those of us that are good enough just get on with it.” Meanwhile, Waugh revealed that he had to point out the finer points of the home of cricket, Lord’s, where the Olympic archery is taking place next week. “I gave some advice to one of the archery team the other day because she didn’t really know what Lord’s was,” he explained. “I asked her which end is she shooting from and she said, ‘The end where there is an old, red building behind us’ and I said, ‘That is actually the Lord’s Pavilion’.”
