Wallace Williams ran in the 1979 Pan-American Games marathon, but was so slow that by the time he reached the stadium it was locked and everyone had left.

To fight the heat in the 1950 Tour de France, Abd-El Kader Zaag drank a bottle of wine and promptly fell off his bike.
After sleeping it off by the side of the road, he got back on and rode off - in the wrong direction.

Russian athlete Ivanon Vyacheslav was so excited to win a medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics that he threw the medal high into the air in jubilation. Unfortunately it landed in Lake Wendouree where, despite a frantic search, it remains to this day.

Preparing for a bout at the 1992 New York Golden Gloves Championships, boxer Daniel Caruso psyched himself up by pounding his gloves into his face. In doing so, he broke his nose and was declared unfit to box.

After beating 1,000 rivals in a 500-mile race, Percy the racing pigeon flopped down exhausted in his Sheffield loft and was promptly eaten by a cat.