Robert DiPierdomenico playing with broken ribs, ironmen crawling across the line — they are among sport’s bravest moments
THEY are the moments that are part of sporting folklore. The incredible pain athletes push through to compete.
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THEY are the moments that are part of sporting folklore.
The pain athletes bravely push through to win a match, get a medal or even just complete their event.
The ironmen who have literally crawled across the finish line.
Broken bones and extreme heat have been no impediment to these incredible athletes.
Polish cyclist, Bartosz Huzarski, recently posted an image of his bulging, vascular legs after finishing the 18th stage of the Tour de France.
Like many before him, he pushed through the pain to finish.
Here are some more heroic performances.
Dean Jones, 1986 Madras Test
The Australian batsman put his life on the line for his country when he made a rousing 210 in a tied Test against India in Chennai in 1986.
Jones pushed himself into a delirious state, losing 4kg and control of his bodily functions on the way to the most famous innings of his career.
He was taken to hospital after the innings.
A quarter of a century later, Jones’s hands still shake and his body recoils on hot days, as if sending him a silent message not to return to hell’s kitchen.
“When it hits 36C my body starts to wind down,’’ Jones said recently.
Chris Legh, 1997 Hawaii Ironman
After more than 225km of racing, Aussie Chris Legh was in fifth place and struggling badly when he collapsed just 50 metres from the finish line. The 24-year-old couldn’t even crawl across the finish line. Legh lost part of his intestine and nearly died.
Julie Moss, 1982 Hawaii Ironman
Legh wasn’t the first person to struggle to cross of the finish line of a Hawaii Ironman race. In 1982 Julie Moss took part in the race to help with research she was conducting for an exercise physiology thesis. She was leading and just metres away from the finish line when she collapsed. Moss was overtaken, but bravely crawled across the line.
Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham, 1997 Hawaii Ironman
Moss’s crawl across the line was repeated in 1997 when Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham both collapsed just metres from the line. Both tried to stand, but were unable to. Ingraham crawled across the line and Welch followed not long after.
Dermott Brereton and Robert DiPierdomenico, 1989 VFL grand final
One of the great grand finals of all time began with Dermott Brereton being felled by a bone-crushing bump from Geelong’s Mark Yeates. Brereton lay vomiting, but played on.
He passed blood at quarter-time from broken ribs and a bruised kidney. DiPierdomenico suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung in the first quarter. After the game he was rushed to intensive care and spent eight days in hospital.
Azizulhasni Awang, 2011 World Cup cycling race
During a crash at the Manchester Velodrome, a 20cm piece of wood went through Malaysian Azizulhasni Awang’s leg. Awang, 23, remounted his bike after the crash in the keirin final to wobble across the line to win bronze.
Malaysia’s head coach John Beasley said: “He was in a lot of pain, but he’s a really tough kid, all these keirin riders are.”
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