ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the metaphors journalists use to describe rankings in Sports Discourse. In order to clarify what is meant by ‘rankings,’ we will illustrate it with an example-taken from Spanish-as this is the language we are investigating-and from a sports competition (although rankings can be found in many areas other than sports, from hit parades and beauty contests to university rankings) (Example 9.1):
Original: Romain Sicard se impone en la Subida al Naranco
This example reports on a stage of the Vuelta a Asturias cycling race; it names the winner (Romain Sicard) and the winning time (3.56.27); it recounts the course of the race, especially the competition for the lead (the winner attacks early, together with two others, who then fall back; he subsequently overcomes an attack by a group of three); it gives the distance between the winner and the runners-up in the middle and at the end of the race (five minutes to the pack, then two minutes to the trio of followers) and describes the result from the perspective of the winner’s career (his first victory). The metaphors in this text mix the themes of pursuit-seguir (to follow), perseguidor (follower), escaparse (to escape) , and fighting-ataque (attack), embestidas (onslaught), imponerse (to overwhelm), triunfo (triumph) .
