The freakiest injuries of the sporting year
Everyone else wade in for the weird and woeful excuses players have offered management for missing training. Some are more genuine than others.
Injury: Multiple face fractures
How: Stumbled in a pre-game team photo, fell and gashed her cheek against the corner of a dressing room bench. The metal bench went straight through her gum, damaging several teeth.
Injury: Torn knee cartilage
How: Fell on the stairs at his home while playing with his dog, knocking his knee off a step.
Injury: Broken veins in his testicles
How: Slid into a tackle in a Copa del Rey defeat by Barcelona then noticed one of his testicles had swelled alarmingly. Doctors discovered he had popped several veins.
Injury: Gashed calf muscle
How: The Frenchman climbed a tree in a mercy mission to rescue a cat, but lost his grip and fell heavily, cutting his leg on a branch.
Injury: Broken foot
How: Run over by a motorbike while walking down the street at home in Venezuela.
Injury: Broken leg
How: The 64-year-old stood in to catch the traditional MLB opening day ceremonial first pitch, thrown by retiring hitter Vladimir Guerrero. As Baylor knelt to catch, his ankle gave way and his leg buckled gruesomely beneath him, smashing his right thigh bone.
Injury: Torn lateral collateral ligament
How? Tripped as he walked down steps into the dugout before a win over the Baltimore Orioles. Two loud pops indicated a complete tear of the LCL.
Injury: Gashed finger
How? Forced out of an MLB clash with the San Diego Padres after he sliced a half-inch wound in his finger while making a pre-game sandwich in the clubhouse kitchen.
Injury: Light scratches and headache
How: The injury-prone frontman caused a scare in the Dutch World Cup camp after he and team-mate Daryl Janmaat were struck by a stray kitesurfer while strolling along Ipanema Beach in Rio. Fortunately, the injuries didn’t prove serious.
Injury: Broken ankle
How: Fell awkwardly when celebrating Daniel Sturridge’s goal against Italy. Ray Hodgson claimed he stood on a rogue water bottle, while an FA statement blamed pitchside astroturf.
Injury: Cut foot
How: Needed stitches in his heel and a tetanus injection after stepping on glass in the Páirc Ui Chaoimh showers after the Munster football final defeat by Kerry.
Injury: Damaged shoulder
How: Misjudged a celebratory hug as team-mates gathered to celebrate a goal against Calgary Flames. O’Reilly skated into the huddle, got his arm stuck, jarred his shoulder and needed surgery to repair the damage.
Injury: Gunshot wounds
How: Shot himself in the hand and upper thigh while cleaning his pistol.
Injury: Sustained erection
How: The unnamed competitive mountain biker slipped off his saddle onto the crossbar of his bike and sustained a knock to his perineum, causing abnormally high blood flow to the area which left him with priapism for seven weeks.
Injury: Locked back
How: Missed the PGA Championship after his back went into spasm while he drove around trying to find a water slide for his kids. Kuchar blamed gridlock and the item being out of stock at the first two shops.
Injury: Broken leg and knee ligament damage
How: Tried to restrain a spooked horse who was trampling a dog at Foden’s equine livery yard. “It double-barrel kicked me in the side of my knee, basically snapping my leg in half. It was hanging on by the skin,” said Foden.
Injury: Cut arm and minor nerve damage
How: When cutting a tree at his Florida property, a heavy branch knocked Norman’s arm onto his chainsaw blade. “I was very lucky. If the chainsaw was going at full speed my hand would have been cut off and it missed my ulna nerve and muscles by fractions of millimetres.”
Injury: Sprained ankle
How: Chased his puppy downstairs to catch it before it peed in the house. Missed the bottom two steps. Went down heavily.
Injury: Torn achilles
How: Ruptured an existing achilles injury when he slipped making a late-night pizza at his home.
