James Bond is the greatest spy the world (of cinema) has ever seen. On Friday the first full-blown trailer of "SPECTRE," the 24th installment of the 007 movie franchise, was online.
It hints at unraveling some of the myestery surrounding Bond's past, answering questions that were presented in "Skyfall." Now, we know Bond has always been a physically imposing man so he must have a background in athletics.
But was he good enough to have gone pro in a sport instead of saving the world every few years or so?
Not much is known about Bond's formative years aside from schools he attended after the loss of his parents. But, a man who has been as successful in sports as he has been must have played something at some time, and played it well.
Perhaps the most obvious sporting pursuit of 007 is skiing. James has taken to the slopes in multiple films (and the picture accompanying this story suggests he does it again in "SPECTRE") with great success.
Bond briefly attending the University of Geneva (as did the character’s creator, Sir Ian Fleming) before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel, a world-renowned ski resort in Austria. Between 1950 and 1960, the peak of Fleming’s Bond works, Toni Sailer, Ernst Hinterseer, Hias Leitner, Anderl Molterer, Fritz Huber and Christian Pravda dominated skiing, winning 27 medals in the Winter Olympic Games and World Skiing Championships.
All of them were from Kitzbühel. So, for Bond to have held his own on those slopes at that time, he must have been pretty good. Focusing on that sport instead of joining British intelligence could have put 007 on the cover of a Wheaties box.
Perhaps the only things Bond has been on as often as skis are horses. Bond has raced on horseback in “Quantum Of Solace,” “The Living Daylights,” and “A View To A Kill.”
But, those are far from his only sporting endeavors. A brief look at the games he’s participated in over the years (and none of this includes any of the countless car and boat races or card games like poker or blackjack he’s become famous for):
Goldfinger
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Bond has to play golf against Dr. Auric Goldfinger for a bar of Nazi gold. He holds his own but only wins when he switches balls and DQ’s the evil doctor. The ball, however, does not enjoy the ruse when Oddjob crushes it in his fist.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Going back to his winter sport roots, Bond tries his hand at bobsled racing. James and Ernst Stavro Blofeld (played by Telly Savalas) are in a battle when they find the starting line of a bobsled track. Blofeld takes off first but Bond proves to be the superior pilot, catching up to Blofeld, climbing in to his sled for a fistfight, and sticking the villain on a low-hanging tree branch. A lesser athlete would have never been able to pull that off.
A View To A Kill
Before it became cool and Shaun White took it global, James Bond was snowboarding for survival. When his skis are shot off trying to escape from a Siberian mountain, Bond takes the metal runner from a blown-up snowmobile, straps it to his feet, and boards away (fittingly, with 'California Girls' by the Beach Boys playing in the background).
Die Another Day
Once again, Bond’s version of sports usually involves trying to avoid mortal wounding. He engages in a fencing match against Gustav Graves, a North Korean warlord who had his look and voice changed to pass as a well-do-to Brit (surprisingly NOT the most far-fetched aspect of this regrettable Bond film). Bond draws Graves in to a, “first blood drawn from the torso!” duel, taking the fight through a lovely home before Miranda Frost (in the film debut of one Rosamund Pike), an Olympic fencing gold medalist, breaks it up and declares Bond the victor.
That’s a fairly impressive resume, and one would have to assume Bond also played soccer while attending school. A man of his obvious athletic ability and mental toughness would have been a natural on the pitch.
Plus, it’s kind of interesting that when David Beckham, one of the most well-known figures in England’s football history, played for Manchester United, one of the world’s most well-known teams, he wore #7. Put a couple of 00’s in front of it and Bond would have delivered the United Kingdom a World Cup title years ago.
