Ronaldo and David Beckham will be on the same team once again at the Commonwealth Games.
Glasgow is hosting the event, which began on Thursday and is set to run until next weekend.
And those who attend the track cycling event at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome may well have their ears pricked up by the mention of two footballing greats of the 1990s and 2000s.
Actually it’s more Ronaldinho than Ronaldo
Hoho, but of course, it’s not actually going to be the footballers David Beckham and Ronaldo! That was just misleading!
In fact, it’s two Indian cyclists who are both named after the famous footballing duo: David Beckham Elkatohchoongo and his teammate Ronaldo Singh Laitonjam.
Amusingly, the latter is reportedly not even named after Ronaldo, but in fact Ronaldinho.
David Beckham Elkatohchoongo holds national records (including a sub-10 second Flying 200m), and made the quarterfinals at the Asian Games, and won gold at the Indian National Games.
Ronaldo Singh Laitonjam became the first Indian cyclist to win an individual silver medal at the Asian Track Cycling Championships and previously held the junior World No. 1 ranking across sprint disciplines.
While they are breaking national records and raising India’s profile internationally, pushing onto the podium in Glasgow alongside Olympic-tier opposition at the Commonwealth Games would require an exceptional, career-defining performance from both.
The cycling duo are far from the only sportspeople with famous footballing namesakes.
Ronaldinho himself is so named because his first name is Ronaldo, but he came through when R9 was Brazil’s megastar – hence the suffix ‘-inho’, making him ‘little Ronaldo’.
There’s Kiwi cricketer Beckham Wheeler-Green, if we’re staying purely in the lane of the former Manchester United midfielder: he was born in 2002, at the absolute peak of Beckham’s popularity.
West Indies cricketer Romario Shepherd is of course named after the Brazilian forward Romario, who had been awarded the World Cup Golden Ball at the 1994 World Cup just a few months before the bowler was born.
Similarly, American boxer Diego Armando Magdaleno is, meanwhile, of course named after the much more famous Diego Armando – the late great Maradona, who had inspired Argentina to the World Cup trophy earlier in 1986.
Brazilian middle-distance runner Altobeli da Silva is meanwhile named after Italy’s 1982 World Cup winner Alessandro Altobelli, despite having been born in 1990.
This writer meanwhile has the middle name Alan, after Liverpool’s great centre-back, Alan Hansen. Fun fact to amaze your friends.
