In sports, determined athletes train and pain their bodies, forsaking the comforts of life
for athletic prowess.
They strive for goals that many people couldn't dream of.
Sadly, calamity strikes the hardest in triumphant moments.
These athletes passed while playing the sports they loved.
Dale Earnhardt Sr. was on the final lap of the Daytona 500 when he crashed in
2001.
Over the course of his career, the 49-year-old husband and father of four had won 76 races,
seven Winston Cup championships, and widespread adoration.
"Dale Earnhardt was a man of extremes.
Friend, foe. Everyman, superman.
And he was a hero lost too soon."
In his final race, Earnhardt helped his son Dale Jr. finish in second place.
He blocked an advancing vehicle to ensure that Jr. and his other teammate Michael Waltrip
clinched the top two spots.
But the blocked car made contact, causing Earnhardt's vehicle to veer into a wall.
Then another out-of-control car careened into Earnhardt's.
Dale Jr. witnessed his father's accident in his rearview mirror, mere moments before
he crossed the finish line.
Sr. lost consciousness and never woke up, pronounced gone at the hospital.
Volleyball fans worshiped Flo Hyman.
Imposingly tall and strong, she would've thrived on any team.
Her impact on American volleyball made her an icon.
Before she came along in 1974, the U.S. women's team was in tatters.
They tanked at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics and didn't even qualify in 1972.
With Hyman's help, the U.S. took fifth place in the 1978 world championships and seemed
like shoo-ins for gold in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
It didn't end up happening, when America boycotted those Games due to Cold War tensions with
the Soviet Union.
But four years later in Los Angeles, Hyman led the women's team to a silver despite being
the oldest player on the roster.
"As you grow older, there's some things you have to deal with and face and come to terms
with.
It wasn't an easy thing, I think in some ways volleyball helped me a lot."
In January 1986, Hyman was 31 and still going strong.
She joined a Japanese team in an elite league and dominated.
But during a game in Tokyo she subbed out, sat down, and "slid silently to the floor."
Up to that point she had looked and played well.
Not a single doctor had spotted a problem throughout her career.
But an autopsy revealed that she had Marfan syndrome, a hard-to-diagnose illness that
damages the aorta.
It turned out that her heart had a dime-sized defect that caused her aorta to rupture.
When asked to comment on the passing of 26-year-old Fran Crippen, Coach Bill Rose told the LA
Times,
"I don't know of a swimmer that is any more popular with his fellow athletes."
Crippen had a reputation for perseverance.
When he fell short of his dream of swimming in the 2008 Olympics, he picked himself up
and kept competing.
His persistence paid off countless times in his life.
He was an 11-time All-American and two-time ACC swimmer of the year for the University
of Virginia.
But in October 2010, his never-quit attitude may have finished him.
At the FINA Open Water 10-kilometer World Cup in Dubai he raced in nearly 90-degree
water on a 100-degree day.
Multiple swimmers suffered heat exhaustion and had to be hospitalized.
Toward the final stretch of the event, Crippen informed his coach he wasn't feeling well,
but he pushed himself to continue.
He never reached the end, drowning probably due to heat exhaustion.
When Jose Flores took up horse racing, he was following in his father's footsteps.
The son of a Peruvian jockey, Flores watched races as a boy and resolved to win them as
a man.
After settling in Pennsylvania, he started a stellar run, winning his first title in
1992.
Over the course of his 30-plus-year career, he became one of the winningest jockeys in
the state's history, with 4,650 victories and over $64 million in earnings.
In March 2018, the 56-year-old Flores was closing in on win number 4,651 when something
went horribly awry.
He and his horse were leading when the steed suddenly fell.
Flores slammed head-first against the ground.
He left behind a wife, their 7-year-old son, and two older sons from an earlier relationship.
During the early 1980s Soviet fencer Vladimir Smirnov was arguably the best in the world.
In 1980, he earned gold at the Moscow Olympics by breaking a three-way tie in the men's individual
foil.
He also earned silver and bronze medals in team competition.
The following year he pulled off an impressive comeback win at the World Fencing Championships
after seeing his teammates eliminated in the preliminaries.
In 1982 he sought to extend his dominance at the Rome World Championships.
Instead, his reign reached a gruesome end.
Smirnov squared off with German Matthias Behr.
During their fateful match, Behr's blade broke against Smirnov's chest.
The blade pierced Smirnov's mask, went into his head, and punctured his brain.
Though placed on life support, doctors said he had "no brain reflexes."
Smirnov was 29.
The horrifying incident ushered in a new era of safety precautions for fencers.