With just 12 days left until the Rio Olympics get underway, we thought it’d be the right time to look at some of the less fortunate moments from the past few Olympics. After all, everyone loves a good old fashioned fail, right?
Let’s get started in Sydney 2000. As with every Olympics since 1992, the USA men’s basketball team was loaded with stars, one of whom was the high-flying dunking maestro Vince Carter. No-one, however, had given France’s Frederic Weis the memo, and the big man decided he’d try to do the impossible and block a Carter dunk attempt.
Carter jumped over the Frenchman – all seven feet of him – slammed home the ball, then almost knocked out teammate Kevin Garnett in his celebration. Not the greatest move on Weis’s part.
The next Games saw a far more infamous fail – and it came without the saving grace of a phenomenal slam dunk. We are, of course, referring to Sally Robbins, who lay down during the women’s eight final.
Australia was duly shocked and outraged when ‘Lay Down Sally’ gave up, but perhaps we shouldn’t have been. Robbins had a history of stopping rowing prior to Athens 2004, with Peter Wilkins claiming it had happened up to nine times before that infamous Olympic final.
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As for Beijing, the 2008 Games played host to one of the most extraordinary acts of poor sportsmanship in Olympic history. Cuban Angel Matos took an injury timeout during the bronze medal match of the over-80 kilograms division in the taekwondo, but the referee decided he’d taken too long, and disqualified him.
Matos decided to prove his fitness by kicking the referee in the face. He was disqualified and later given a life ban by the World Taekwondo Federation. On a side note, the initials of taekwondo’s governing body are WTF. Fitting, isn’t it?
Finally, London 2012 saw a truly spectacular fail of the diving variety, courtesy of German Stephan Feck.
We’ll just leave this video here:
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Be sure to follow The Roar as we look back on some of the most memorable moments in Olympic history – be they weird and wacky or brilliant and significant – and count down the days until the Rio Olympics opening ceremony.