Although we don’t normally expect it, things can and do go wrong in sports.
It’s not really ideal for the athletes, but it makes for some great entertainment
for those of us watching.
Ready to see some of the most entertaining fails that the world of sports has ever seen.
Let’s get it on!
It’s not so much about what goes wrong during a sports match - how you handle it is really
the thing that counts.
This ball boy knows that better than anyone, even better than some of the players.
When things go wrong, you need to keep your head in the game.
Just look at his serious face as he gets back to his feet, as if to say nothing’s wrong
here, keep your head in the game.
Now all he needs to work on is not laughing at himself after - even though he’s right,
it was funny.
When you fall, you need to get straight back up again.
That’s what they say anyway.
But let’s face it, it’s not always that easy.
After all, you might be a hockey player.
You might even be Andrew Shaw, and then you’re really going to have problems getting back
on your feet - just look at him frantically crawling to the bench to avoid the mortal
peril that he faces if he stays on the ice too long.
Yeah, getting back up again isn’t that simple when you’ve lost a skate blade, and whoever
came up with that phrase should’ve considered that.
Of course, you don’t have to be one of the players to be accidentally injured.
There are so many moving parts on a professional sports ground that it’s actually really
easy to find yourself in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, as this unfortunate
sound guy found out.
It’s anyone’s guess if he didn’t realise what time it was, or if he thought he could
get to the other side before the huge men trained, but he effectively put himself in
front of a stampeding herd of Vikings.
Oops.
Some accidents are worse than others.
Every now and again, someone innocent gets caught up in the action and goes down hard,
just like these poor nachos.
What did they ever do to anyone?
I apologize, I should’ve warned you to look away.
Still it’s in moments of tragedy that you discover who the men of true character are.
Addison Russell is one of those men, correcting wrongs by delivering new nachos to those who’ve
lost their own in the past.
At least the story had a happy ending.
The difficult part of professional sports usually ends only in one very specific moment:
when you win.
Manchester City knew for a few moments what that felt like when they lifted the Premier
League trophy back in 2018.
Well they should’ve kept it lifted, because if the trophy was in someone’s hand, this
wouldn’t have happened.
All that work just to throw it away - literally!
Luckily it didn’t look too damaged, but that was nearly a fail for the ages, and they
knew it.
Ice hockey is one of those sports that are likely to end in some pretty bad injuries.
It would be some kind of miracle to make it off the ice without at least a few bruises.
But while players watch out for incoming injuries from other players, they don’t expect the
ref to try and take them out mid-match.
Sure it was an accident, but it really looks like a very well planned and expertly executed
hit.
Jamie Benn laughs it off, but he’ll be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.
You would think skating elegantly on ice would be difficult enough on its own, but the world
of figure skating decided to add complex glittery costumes into the mix just to make sure all
kinds of unexpected wardrobe malfunctions can happen too.
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were attempting this move at the Canadian figure skating championships…
when her hair got caught in his shirt button.
Amazingly, they kept going and he managed to untangle her while skating.
Jokes on their opponents though, because even with that fail in the middle of their short
dance, they went on to win.
Your teammate is traditionally your ally.
That means that their health is your concern, because they’re more helpful to you at their
peak fitness.
Basically what I’m saying is, you definitely don’t want to injure them in the middle
of a match, especially when it’s at one of the most important tournaments in your
sport.
Someone needs to tell Jelena Ostapenko about this, because what she did to her poor mixed
doubles partner is pretty much exactly the opposite of what she was meant to do.
Poor guy never saw it coming.
If there’s one thing that you expect a hockey team to be able to do really, really well,
it’s ice skate.
That’s a very fundamental part of the sport after all.
This youth team didn’t get off to the best start though.
By my count, only one of them actually manages to stay on their feet as they hit the ice.
So that’s all it takes to make a whole hockey team come unstuck?
A slightly high step?
I dunno about you, but I kind of expected more than that.
The equipment is always going to be a vitally important part of whatever sport you play
- and you find out just how true that is when you suddenly don’t have it anymore like
Elena Nikitina in this clip.
She just went for it with a little too much gusto and shot out ahead of her skeleton sled,
totally missing it.
Then she had a 100 foot slide down the ice to think about just how embarrassing that
kind of fail is for a world champion.
And when she got off, she had the bruises to remind her just how much she loves that
sled.
The problem with being a referee is that you have to have your eyes on pretty much everything
a lot of the time.
No seriously, you can’t just have your eye on the game, I really do mean you have to
be watching everything, or you end up bumping into a courtside waitress carrying a huge
tray of drinks.
And then this happens.
The poor waitress clearly feels responsible, but that wasn’t really her fault.
I guess refs need eyes in the back of their head in a more literal sense than the phrase
is usually used.
Cricket is a fairly slow sport, one where it seems fairly easy to keep track of all
the moving parts, so I kind of understand why they took a gamble on giving a cameraman
a segway.
But seriously, have we learnt nothing from almost killing Usain Bolt?
Segways are dangerous pieces of equipment, they shouldn’t be anywhere near sporting
events.
Even if the players make it, the person holding the camera will never make it out alive.
Alright so I’m being dramatic, but just look at him - it’s like he knew it was coming
all along.
Crashes are almost expected between fast cars driving against each other, but this isn’t
a crash.
This is a whole new level.
This is the kind of fail you need a disaster management team to sort out.
They hadn’t even completed a single lap!
You can almost hear the calculators being whipped out by the managers to try and work
out exactly how much money they’re going to need to fix this.
And that’s before the heavy machinery was brought in to try and lift the cars out of
the wreckage.
I'm sure you know the phrase: when the wheels come off.
It’s a common term used to describe something suddenly going horribly wrong, but it’s
never, ever used literally - unless you’re Sebastien Buemi.
He understands that phrase in a much more literal way than most because his wheels actually
did come off.
Did you know that could happen?
‘Cause I didn’t.
Lucky for everyone that happened during a practice race - but still not so lucky for
the person who came up with the new design that caused the problem.
I have another phrase, especially for that guy: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
More than anyone else, referees are the people that sportsmen need on their side the most.
You really want to get into the refs good books.
You definitely don’t want to hit them in the face with a tennis ball.
Denis Shapovalov learnt that the hard way.
Sure this was an accident, and he was very upset, but sometimes you need a disqualification
to learn not to hit umpires in the eye, even by mistake.
Before you ask: yeah he was fine… eventually.
The athletic prowess required to become a world class sportsman is beyond what most
of us can imagine.
With skills like those, it’s safe to bet that these extraordinary people never stumble
over their own feet or struggle to do simple things like… open a banana?
No seriously, that’s not a thing.
Bananas are among the easiest fruits to deal with!
You’re competing in the Australian Open and a banana is the thing you find difficult
to handle!?
There are so many things wrong with this I don’t know where to start.
With so many moving parts to any sport, even before the players set foot on the sports
ground, some would say that they’re asking for things to malfunction with expertly comic
timing.
So even though this really isn’t something you see every day, it shouldn’t come as
too much of a surprise to anyone except the poor players who were fire-hosed out of their
seat by the rogue sprinkler.
The guy who tried to stand on it also got a bit more than he bargained for when it blasted
him to the next tennis court.