In World’s Strongest Man final (5th January, 2007)  the winner thanked God, as is becoming well nigh obligatory  in televised acceptance speeches. This still seems sacreligious to me. Surely God has better things to do than fix the result of a sporting contest? If we assume that He hasn’t, a few issues need to be explained.

1. Shouldn’t God be concerning himself with sick people’s suffering, starving babies, torture victims or at least the fall of single sparrows?
2. Does he have enough spare time to make sure that person x wins competition y? Maybe he should be encouraged to get some rest so he can  really concentrate on the day job. 
3. For instance, couldn’t he provide a bit more help with GCSE results then?
4. Would the score of a US vs Saudi Arabia baseball match prove that the Judeao-Christian god was more powerful than Allah? Or vice versa, depending on the result?
5.  What about India vs Pakistan cricket matches? Surely access to the huge  Hindu Pantheon gives a massively unfair advantage to India. Maybe the rules of the sport should be rewritten to level the playing field. (Lame pun clearly intended.) A montheistic team could bring in a thousand-strong praying section to compensate for every polytheist prayer.
6. Over the past ten to twenty years, the World’s Strongest Man title has passed from people all called things like Cnut Cnuttsson through Marius (Polish, so he may be Catholic but his first name suggests he may have secret access to the full set of Roman deities) to people called things like Jethro. Does this finally prove that the Norse gods have been defeated?
7. God might not draw the line at intervening in the Olympics – given its global signficance - but World’s Strongest Man?  Is there no sporting event too insignificant for his attentions? Pro-celebrity golf? Schoolboy football? Pub darts? Infant’s school Parents’ Day sack races? (In which case, I have along-standing grudge with His failure to act in one particular long-past Roscoe Juniors race, in which the writer of this post- who erroneously considered herself quite a good sprinter – was utterly trounced by some unlikely looking mums and dads.)
8. You notice that I suggested mainly amateur events in point 6.  Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. There is a big cash prize in WSM. Maybe God prefers to save his interventions for sports with decent prizes? In which case, he must spend so much time acting as an unacknowledged pools panel for the Premier League that he obviously has no time left for trying to bring about peace on earth.
9. Does this mean God had heard the prayers of the losing contenders and found them wanting in some way? Could Marius not rustle up enough Hail Marys? And those contenders who never even got through the heats must have been pretty lacklustre in their faith.
10. Is there a slight suggestion here that God may be engaging in a sporting version of  insider trading?  He had a side bet with the Archangel Gabriel and just tipped the odds so that his man won.  
11. He doesn’t play dice. Einstein said it (and obviously knew everything because he could do hard sums) It makes sense, who would play dice against someone who could make the dice land on a point in an alternate universe if he chose.  So, he’s obliged to get his sporting pleasures through secretly fixing other sports and games.
12. Ask nicely enough and make enough Eminem-style silly hand gestures when you win (as in WSM winner Pfiser) and God will treat your opponents’ prayers with the contempt they deserve?
13. And why did Don Pope only come third then? 

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