WHAT ARTICLES WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ? LET US KNOW : EDITOR @ GEMCELL . COM . AU
THE FAULT ISSUE
GMASONOZ
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE ?!
THERE ’ S NO ESCAPE IN PRO SPORT – PEOPLE LIKE US HAVE VERY LONG MEMORIES .
B eing a professional sportsperson is just all upside , right ? The bright lights , the fame , the stacks of cash and the adulation – not to mention the adoration . And , if you do things right , you never have to buy a beer again . What ’ s not to love ?
Well , things don ’ t always go right . In fact , you can do something completely unintentionally that has devastating consequences for you , your team and your opponents .
And , when that happens , you face the scrutiny of the world – eyes are on you , cameras follow you , news headlines are about you . There ’ s no escape . And , decades on , people still remember . Oh , they remember .
So , in tribute to all of those sporting greats who ’ ve cocked up big-time at least once in their careers , we ’ ve put together five of our favourite faux pas that left us all leaping up while shouting ‘ What have you done ?!’.
1984 OLYMPICS : BUDD DASHES DECKER ’ S GOLD-MEDAL HOPES Zola Budd was the ‘ bad guy ’ at the LA Olympics when she ended Mary Decker ’ s chances of claiming gold in the 3000m run .
Decker , the American middle-distance athlete , had bowed out of the 1500m because – ridiculously – its timing overlapped with the 3000m final , so her hopes of gold lay solely on this event .
After winning gold at the 1983 Helsinki World Championships in both the 3000m and 1500m , she was expected to claim her first Olympic gold medal in this event , but Zola Budd – inadvertently , we think it ’ s fair to say – had other ideas .
Three laps in , Budd , who ’ d been running with Decker neck and neck , moved ahead . In a bid to keep up with her South African rival who was representing the UK ( see , they do that in other sports too ), Decker upped the pace , but Budd cut across slightly , causing them both to collide . Decker fell into the curb and injured her hip – gold-medal chances over .
Decker blamed Budd for the collision for many years , saying Budd had robbed her of gold – however more recently she said Budd didn ’ t deliberately trip her , and that it was her lack of experience of running in packs that was the issue .
Either way , Budd was not the most popular person among Americans for quite some time .
1999 BRITISH OPEN : VAN DE VELDE CHOKES ON THE 18TH The sight of Frenchman Jean Van de Velde wading through Carnoustie ’ s Barry Burn – shoes and socks off , with trouser legs rolled up – to retrieve his golf ball when he should have been lifting the Claret Jug is an iconic image , whatever your sporting persuasion .
For those in need of a refresher , Van de
APR – MAY 2021 GEMCELL . COM . AU 35