We’ve all been there. At some point in our careers, we’ve had to endure the colleague from hell. That person you can’t click with but somehow have to work with.
In most cases, you grin and bear it, right?
Unless you’re Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. When asked a simple question about whether they’ll buy each other a Christmas present they couldn’t even pretend to get along.
“Maybe a Christmas card,” Rosberg offered eventually. Hamilton wasn’t even prepared to commit to that.
Childhood karting buddies Hamilton and Rosberg apparently used to race each other in just about anything. Including eating pizza.
But as Formula One teammates, they’ve been doing a bang-up job of hating each other’s guts for the past two years.
When Hamilton won the US Grand Prix in October, wrapping up his third world title in the process, he threw the second place podium cap at Rosberg. Maybe he was giving a man a hat and maybe he was rubbing Rosberg’s face in his victory. Rosberg’s money was on the latter. He threw it right back.
Still, it’s not the worst feud between teammates. It’s not even the worst feud between Formula One teammates. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost’s spat got so heated they ran each other off the track at times.
At least they stopped short of hiring a hitman, which is what US figure skater Tonya Harding did in the lead-up to the 1994 Winter Olympics to improve her chances against teammate Nancy Kerrigan.
Harding’s ex-husband and bodyguard hired a bloke to break Kerrigan’s leg so she’d miss the Games. But the bloke stuffed up the assignment and Kerrigan recovered sufficiently from her wounds to win a silver medal at Lillehammer.
Harding got eighth place, three years probation, 500 hours community service, a $160,000 fine and a skating ban. She later sold a sex tape to Penthouse and took up boxing. There’s a moral to the story if you look hard enough.
Former Washington Redskin Michael Westbrook did his own dirty work in 1997 when teammate Stephen Davis taunted him with comments about his manhood. Westbrook thoughtfully rearranged his face.
North Melbourne AFL players Wayne Carey and Anthony Stevens had been teammates for 12 years and were absolute besties until Carey decided to spread the love to Stevens’ missus. Things blew up at a team barbecue in 2002. Both marriages ended and Carey had to find himself a new club.
When the two men met on the field a year later, Stevens wasn’t about to let bygones be bygones. Almost 14 years on, he recently revealed Carey has never apologised for the affair.
Manchester United and England teammates Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham had one of the longest running feuds, dating back to 1995 when Cole made his debut for England, coming off the bench to replace Sheringham, who wouldn’t shake his hand.
Cole revealed many years later: “I would rather sit down and have a cuppa with Neil Ruddock, who broke my leg in two places in 1996, than with Teddy Sheringham, whom I’ve pretty much detested for the past 15 years.”
Pakistan fast bowlers Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram were similarly disposed to each other. During the 2003 Cricket World Cup, they would only speak to each other through another teammate.
Sometimes a whole team can have it in for one player. Shane Watson knows what that feels like.
So does Sally Robbins, dubbed Lay-Down Sally after she stopped rowing in the 2004 Olympics.
Fine if you’re rowing solo but there were eight other women in the boat and they weren’t impressed. In a few hundred metres, Australia slipped from medal contention to a very distant last.
Robbins copped it at a team press conference, teammate Julia Wilson giving a withering assessment: “We had nine in the boat but only eight operating.”
It was later revealed it wasn’t the first time Robbins had failed to reach the finish line. Short of teammates willing to get in a boat with her, Robbins turned her attention to cycling.
And in the past week, it’s been revealed Aussie swimming golden girls and former besties Leisel Jones and Stephanie Rice are now in opposing corners.
In her new book Body Lengths, Jones claims during the London Olympics Rice made comments about her weight, clothes and the way she walked. According to Jones, Rice was “bitching to my coaches and reported on what I had eaten that day”.
Makes you feel good about the way you handle your own work differences, doesn’t it?
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