The pick of the dark, devious and downright dumb sporting stories – and the antiheroes behind them
Alcohol, sportspeople and common sense are rarely seen together, and it’s been another year full of salutary stories. Take, for example, the South Korean three-time Olympic medal-winning speed skater Kim Min-seok, who in August gave three fellow skaters a lift home from a friend’s birthday party at the national training centre near Seoul, drove straight into a crash barrier and earned an 18-month ban from the sport (two of his passengers were banned for six months for abetting drink driving and a coach who wasn’t even there got a year for “lack of oversight”; Kim never got as far as a public road and thus avoided criminal prosecution). But the year’s most humiliating booze-related sporting incident came in Antalya in March, when the English snooker player Robert Milkins turned up for the opening ceremony of the Turkish Masters having already enthusiastically celebrated his birthday, drunkenly confronted a senior official, injured himself falling over in the toilets and ended up having his stomach pumped in hospital. “I genuinely don’t know exactly what happened, I was in a state where I didn’t know where I was,” he said. “When I got to the toilet I lost my legs and think I hit my chin on the sink or the ground, cutting it open. I was almost knocked out, and I’m pretty sure I have broken ribs. If I had my stomach pumped I don’t remember that either.” The bump on the head can’t have damaged him too badly – after 27 years as a professional in which he had never got his hands on a trophy, he won his next tournament – the Gibraltar Open.
Written by Simon Burnton
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/dec/20/the-anti-sports-personality-of-the-year-awards-2022 under the title “The Anti-Sports Personality of the Year awards 2022”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
