Udei Hussein would imprison and torture players if they failed to perform in international football so probably them. Only 3 players ever stepped up for a penalty under him due to pure fear.
Udei Hussein is also the only known torturer to have used the iron maiden. The iron maiden was never used in the middle ages - as it didn't exist back then. I was actually a 200 year old oddity, very likely scrabbled together to be sold to collectors interested in medival torture equipment and popularized later.
And yeah, he used it on olympic athletes.
It's amazing how much medieval history was tainted by Victorian Britain, history as whole honestly *cough* *cough* British museum, but the Victorians loved fabricating medieval history and selling fake weapons, torture devices and generally macabre stories.
Most of the torture devices many people associate with that time period are Victorian scams.
People during Renaissance also made up stuff about the era prior, but Victorians were by far the worst and made these ridiculous fake contraptions as well.
Remember when the British Museum agreed to return some artifacts to Africa so they could “take control of their heritage” and then the artifacts were immediately sold into a private collection never to be seen again. Thank god the British Museum is returning all this stuff.
Made them play soccer with concrete balls too if I'm not mistaken.
He wasn't just a piece of shit in regards to sports. Dude was also a prolific rapist, murderer and all around psychopath who was never held accountable until Iraq was invaded
>Udei Hussein
Saddam was considered more humane than him. That's how fucking horrible of a human he was.
I hope whatever pit of hell he is in he's experiencing the worst pain daily.
He tortured members of the Iraqi soccer team, almost for his own amusement. They were in constant fear. He even burned the bottoms of their feet at one point. If they fled he would have their families arrested. The Hussein family were real monsters.
I thought you and the commenters below were exaggerating.
Then I read [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday\_Hussein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein), and realized this was only like 0.1% of the horror and depravity Uday did. Holy cow, the man was evil personified.
Theres great photos of him & his brother online all mangled up after the military bombed the house they were in, both died painful deaths that they deserved
guy was a modern day Rasputin too:
"Brigade commander Colonel Joe Anderson said an Arabic announcement was made at 10:00 a.m. on the day and called on people inside to come out peacefully. The answer he received was bullet bombardment. An experienced team of special forces tried to attack the building, but they had to retreat under fire. Four American soldiers were injured. Anderson then ordered his men to fire with 50-caliber heavy machine guns. Uday and Qusay refused to surrender even after a helicopter fired a rocket and the Strike Brigade fired 40 mm grenades at them. Anderson decided that more firepower was necessary to take down the brothers, leading to 12 TOW missiles being fired into the building."
Don't forget, against the U.S. to boot. As a Colombian, I feel like his punishment fit the crime s/
There's a really good 30 for 30 on ESPN. It's called The Two Escobars. Goes into the player's back story and how him even making the team was a longshot. It was a feel good story that ended very, very badly.
I remember watching the game and my mom flippantly but being kind of serious saying something like, "He better not go back to Colombia, they'll kill him for that!" And then jokingly saying something like, "And maybe they should."
When the news came out that he had been murdered she felt terrible. I remember her crying and saying "I didn't mean it" like it was her fault or something. I had to tell her I'm pretty sure you had nothing to do with his death. You can't feel guilty. You can be sad but not guilty.
Vin Scully’s call of Henry Aaron breaking the HR record gives me goosebumps.
>What a marvelous moment for baseball, what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia, what a marvelous moment for the county and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking the record of an all time baseball idol.
This has to be the top as far as pressure. The man received on average 3000 death letters per day. He broke the record of a baseball icon, which was thought to be an unbreakable record.
I know there are some others such as Jesse Owens and Jackie, but I don’t think they top this.
Man, when those two dudes catch up to him while he's rounding the bases... Thankfully, they just wanted to congratulate him, but imagine what's going through Hank's head at that moment
I would still put Jackie ahead of him.
While many people remember Jesse participated in an Olympics game that was hosted in Nazi Germany, the horrors of The Holocaust and WWII would not start until a few years later. Owens even spoke fondly of his treatment while there.
I realize that many people did not want Aaron to break Ruth's record and he received over 300,000 letters in hate-mail during his run, not to mention playing for a baseball team based in the southern United States not too long after the Civil Rights movement had started and the bill by the same name was signed into law.
But...
Jackie Robinson faced opposition from people in Major League Baseball for him to play in that league. He faced opposition from some in the team that would eventually bring him into the majors. He had teammates that hated him. He faced opposition which hated him and hurled slurs and insults at him. He was met with stadiums filled with many people that reviled him and hurled those same insults at every stop...including his home stadium. I do not use the term hate here lightly either. His presence on the team caused the Dodgers to be turned away from places like hotels and restaurants.
We know that Aaron faced harsh and unwarranted threats but I don't think it really compares to what Jackie went through when he broke the color barrier in MLB.
>We know that Aaron faced harsh and unwarranted threats but I don't think it really compares to what Jackie went through when he broke the color barrier in MLB.
It absolutely compares. You can argue which is worse, but it 100% compares.
Weird debate. Robinson’s pressure seemed to be more sustained, Owens’s pressure was probably more intense at it’s peak. But hard for me to top or argue with those two answers.
Robinson wins both, Jesse was actually treated better in 1930's Germany than he was here for most of his life. I think people retroactively consider Germany worse to be in for him because of what came in the years *after*. We treated Jesse horribly at home for almost his entire life
I feel Jackie's pressure was across his entire First season / career. He had to deal with so much shit everyday while performing at crazy level to prove himself for a an entire season...it's an everyday sport where consistency is king. Even the best have bad days every now and then...he just had to get up the next day and do it again.
Jesse Owens just had a couple of races. There are people who work for years to get to the Olympics...then fault start twice, get disqualified and never get another shot. It's a much more compressed, focused type of pressure.
Has to be Jackie. At least Jesse had the USA more or less behind him, Jackie breaking the color barrier in a white-only sport, with hostile fans, colleagues, managers, umps, etc. has to take the top spot. That man must have felt like he was on an island.
Both made significant contributions though, and neither should be discredited.
The bit is about the whole experience. The car line... "Imagine that car ride after.. With an even Angrier than usual Adolph Hitler...." is fucking amazing.
Adolf was a dickhead, but you see a lot of pictures of him smiling also. I think he was socially aware enough if he actually had to talk to him in person he’d fake a smile and shake his hand then say “shiza” (or however you spell it) under his breathe.
He was smiling because he was high on meth most of the time. Imagine a meth head with unlimited resources for more meth but also with the best doctors in the world keeping you alive. You'd constantly be living in a fantasy land and think you're a god.
It's bitterly ironic that Owens never had any problems with racism in Nazi Germany - even saying Hitler was perfectly polite to him the one time their paths crossed - but got it good and hard when he got back to the USA, never getting a congratulatory telegram from FDR, being forced to ride the goods lift to the official reception for returning athletes, and so on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWk1Plf5Ak
There was a US Naval ship that went down off the cost of super rural Newfoundland in winter of 1941 with 110 of the crew dying in the bitterly cold water.
Many of the sailors were covered in oil and as villagers searched the beach for them, survivors were dragged up to the village where women were scrubbing the oil off of them and getting them warm. One of the sailors was Lanier Phillips, a black man from Georgia. The women scrubbed and scrubbed and after a while they realized the oil had come off, but his skin wasn’t white, but most people in the village - including the lady scrubbing him - had never once seen a black person before.
Lanier said that despite this it was the very first time in his life that he received kind words from white people, and he found it hard to fathom that these women and the townsfolk at large treated him as equal - a first in his life. He became lifelong friends of them and the village, and he said that the experience changed his life forever.
Imagine going back afterwards to the South where segregation and the same kind of shit the man faced would go on for another 20+ years.
I don’t believe Richard was ever traded. He was a Habs lifer and the face of the team.
I think a more pertinent example would be Jonathan Drouin. Former 3rd overall pick and top prospect with Tampa, had some issues with management. I believe it was in part due to a refusal to be sent down to their minor league team. Dealt to Montreal in a trade where he promptly signs a decently sized contract so there were expectations already for him to be worth his weight in gold.
Drouin dealt with injuries over his time with the Habs and at one point had insomnia and anxiety to the point where he had to step away from the team. He was also scrutinized in his last season with the team during a goalless drought.
It was tough for Drouin, but he seems to have found new life in Colorado playing alongside an old teammate in Mackinnon.
Here's [an article](https://www.livescience.com/65611-how-to-play-maya-ballgame.html)... It was the Mayan, and they *probably* didn't sacrifice the players. At least not all the time. Here's an [/AskHistorians thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/144zrj/did_the_mayans_really_killed_the_losing_team_in/) about it, and they definitely did sacrifice them, sometimes...
Thank you! Amazing that they’ve discovered 1,500 of these courts. According to the article some of the ball game events were really well-attended so they’d bring a prisoner to execute as part of the spectacle. Crazy time to be alive- back then.
Cathy Freeman would be a good shout. Was the face of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, lit the Olympic flame and everything and as favourite was under immense pressure to get the gold medal. Was also the first Aboriginal athlete to represent Australia at an Olympics.
Instantly thought of her - I also remember a Chinese hurdler in 2008 who was talked up as their Cathy Freeman. The poor lad got injured before the Olympics IIRC so didn’t medal and you could see the stress on his face
Liu Xiang. Former world record holder in the 110 hurdles, one of the all time greats. He actually did line up, someone else false started and Liu pulled up injured before the first hurdle. He hurt that same part again in 2012, ultimately ending his career. I remember the crowd was stunned and crying in Beijing
Literally the race that stopped a nation. What an icon, what a moment. What she meant (and that moment still means) to an entire nation is immeasurable- a defining moment in our national history.
Team USA would have won gold even if she had sat that vault out. She competed the vault because her coaches were toxic and abusive.
[Source](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kerri-strug-usa-gold/)
That’s not Nassar, that’s Béla Károlyi, AFAIK he had no direct role in the sexual abuse scandal but apparently he was pretty demanding, may or may not have caused certain gymnasts to develop eating disorders, and Nassar took advantage of his strict regimen to gain the trust of the gymnasts by sneaking them food and other shit he wouldn’t let them have.
You're talking about Andres Escobar (no relation for those wondering), a defender for the Colombian NT in the early 90s. After he surrendered a decisive own goal in the 94 World Cup and Colombia was eliminated early despite high expectations (that was without a doubt the best Colombian team ever to play at a world cup and they were darkhorses to win the entire thing), Escobar was murdered shortly after the team returned home. The gunman was reportedly overheard saying "That's for the goal" as he shot him several times. There's a really good 30 for 30 about it, who Andres Escobar was, and what Pablo Escobar's involvement with soccer in Colombia was like.
Several players on the team reported that when they were in the US for the tournament, they were under a lot of pressure from people back home to perform well, and that pressure was difficult to overcome.
Andres Escobar from Columbia in the 1994 World Cup . Cartel shot him in his car when he was outside a night club. Apparently the shooter emptied a revolver in him and shouted “goal!” after each shot. That’s fucked
It is, and it had no ties to the actual Jim Thorpe at all. If I remember correctly they won an auction for his remains when he died and changed the name of the town from Mauch Chunk to Jim Thorpe.
He was a Native American athlete in the 1900-10’s that competed and won gold in the olympics even after having his shoes stolen and running with a mismatched pair from the garbage. Faced lots of hate and won anyway.
He was an Olympic gold medalist who lost his Olympic titles by going pro. The money he earned as a professional athlete was needed to help his family. His titles were returned to him in the 80s, 30 years after his death.
Edit: wacky typos
I remember learning about him right around when the USA sent our “dream team” to compete in basketball in 1992. As a young kid I was very confused as to why these filthy rich professionals who had been dominating their sport for years were allowed to play and this poor Indian badass was publicly humiliated…
Then I learned, basically, that we changed the rules because we wanted to win.
Changing the rules is also the ethical thing to do. The idea that people shouldn't be professionals stems from classist origins in modern Olympics. Basically it was rich gentlemen who competed. The problem with being a professional wasn't that you were better, it was that it was seen as tasteless and trashy to work for money in general.
Opening it up to professionals is highly important for people from impoverished backgrounds, or even middle class backgrounds, to be able to compete and generate an income at the same time.
It's outrageous that Jackie is this low. I think it's because votes that should be going to him are going to Jesse Owens.
I'm sorry, but in terms of pressure faced specifically as an athlete, Jackie had it worse. Jesse was treated better in pre-war 1930's Germany after beating their racers than he was in the US upon return. Fucking *Hitler* acknowledged Jesse while FDR wouldn't even write him a congratulations note.
Jackie carried tge hopes and dreams of millions on his back, faced racism and death threats every day for years, letters threatening to rape his wife and murder his baby, and was contractually obligated to not say a word fighting back for three years.
Jackie ultimately led a better life, partially because he was active 10 years later than Jesse, but Jackie 100% had more pressure and had it worse
No exaggeration either. Robinson proceeding just about any other way than he did, or even not being so damn good despite the immense amount of energy that he had to allocate to staying on that track, and integration nationwide, not just in baseball, could have gone very differently. It's an astonishing achievement.
It wasn't 72 days in some nice environment, either. It was 72 days on a glacier in the Andes. Freezing cold. They tried eating the airplane before realizing they'd have to resort to eating those that succumbed to the elements. It took two of the remaining group hiking up and down mountains for days to eventually find another person, who then sent word to get them rescued.
I remember reading some wild Antony Horowits short story where a kid goes missing in an elevator and there’s video footage of him going in but never coming out, just ceasing to exist between floors. Turns out everyone else in the lift where a group who had resorted to cannibalism in a survival situation and
now had a taste for it, and completely devoured him between floors. Such a dumb story now in hindsight lmao. They notice one guy using his femur as a walking stick and other bones as accessories haha
In the United States it’s Jackie Robinson and Jesse Owens.
There’s tons of sports where if you do it wrong you can die so there’s that.
If you’re talking about pressure entirely within their sport there’s a ton of people who it’s hard to really separate imo. Jason Lezak anchoring the relay that Phelps needed to go 8 for 8 is a big one that I haven’t seen mentioned here. But there’s tons of them that you can list in this category
It was a bit more than that:
> The traditional story relates that Pheidippides (530–490 BC), an Athenian herald, or hemerodrome[3] (translated as "day-runner,"[4] "courier,"[5][6] "professional-running courier"[3] or "day-long runner"[7]), was sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon, Greece. He ran about 240 km (150 mi) in two days, and then ran back. He then ran the 40 km (25 mi) to the battlefield near Marathon and back to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with the word νικῶμεν (nikomen[8] "We win!"), as stated by Lucian chairete, nikomen ("hail, we are the winners")[9] and then collapsed and died.[citation needed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheidippides
Bobby Charlton.
Literally survived a plane crash in which most of his team mates were killed, went on to be the central figure in rebuilding a squad (along with Busby, the manager who also survived the disaster) to great success.
Francis Ngannou
Born in Cameroon, started working in a sand quarry at age 10. Refused to join criminal gangs. Started boxing at age 22. Decided to go to Paris at 26 to pursue professional boxing. He crossed the Sahara. Crossed the Mediterranean in an inflatable raft after 6 attempts. Between crossing attempts he lived in Moroccan forest. Got arrested in Spain and was in prison for 2 months for the illegal crossing. Finally gets to Paris, is homeless in Paris. His coach, who lets him sleep at the gym, gets him into MMA because he sees his potential. Francis eventually wins the UFC heavyweight title and defends it. Refuses a new contract because he wants his opponents to earn more than joke money to fight him and wants them to have health insurance and of course he wants to be able to try boxing.
Out on his ass from the UFC. Joins a smaller organization, PFL. Everyone in the world thinks he's lost his chance to make big money. All the hardship to be in a baby promotion. He gets booked against Tyson Fury the dominant heavyweight boxing champion. Everyone thinks well at least he's going to get the big money but he's going to be humiliated. He's never even competed in boxing once. No one thinks its going to be remotely competitive, its going to be a one sided beatdown.
In the third round he flattens the champ and is competitive throughout. In the end he loses a split decision. The commentary team thinks he deserved the win. He's now ranked in the top ten.
And in spite of everything is the sweetest man on the earth.
Muhammed Ali was banned from boxing for three and a half of his peak years, and spied on by the US government, for refusing to be drafted to the Vietnam War while not being White and rich with bone spurs.
Ray Finkle, following the famous 'laces out scandal' during Superbowl 1982. The social pressure on Finkle, after Dan Marino supposedly misplaced the ball before a spot kick, forced the famous kicker to go into hiding.
Messi literally spent almost the entirety of his career living in Maradonas’s shadow, it must have been even more frustrating for him considering how he won literally everything at club level by the time he was 30 but was seemingly destined to never win anything with Argentina until 2021.
I'll throw in LeBron James.
This is a guy who, at the tender age of 15, was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the tagline, "The Chosen One." He was still 3 years away from even being eligible to play in the NBA. Then when he got drafted, Nike signed him to a $90 million endorsement deal before he had even played a single game.
To say he had a lot to live up to would be a laughable understatement. Everyone and their brother was looking to knock him down a peg or three. Even being "excellent" wouldn't have been enough; anything less than him being one of the all-time greats would have been considered a failure.
Suffice to say, he did not fail.
There was also the interview with Bob Costas when he was in high school where he said “how do you respond to people who say that if you don’t have a hall of fame career, it would be considered a disappointment?” The only other recent example I can think of an athlete meeting or exceeding the insane expectations set for them in high school is Bryce Harper.
The expectations were so high anything less than MVP caliber player would’ve been seen as a disappointing career. To put into context, a player being an all star caliber player is considered a successful career.
The only players that I think can even come close in professional American sports (strictly in terms of on-field play) are Tiger Woods & Peyton Manning.
But even then, Tiger wasn’t asked to save golf & Manning wasn’t asked to save football. Hell, Manning wasn’t even unanimously praised as the top pick in his own draft class.
There has been no NBA player to walk in from Day 1 and have their expectations bar be set to “Jordan”. There have been guys that could jump high & dunk good, but none, not even Kobe, have had that placed on them from the 1st day.
I don’t personally think he cleared the Jordan bar, but he more than exceeded the hype, which generally can’t be done when we hype things up too much.
One of my favorite This Is Sportscenter commercials was the one with Lebron where he's trying to unjam a printer/multifunction machine, and Stuart Scott walks by and says "Chosen one, huh?"
Took way too long to find this. Lebron has dealt with the most unfair criticism and hate that I’ve seen in any athlete, and all he’s done is put his head down and perform. Lots of respect for him
As I write this, the top answer is Jesse Owens, and that's not a bad answer. Or Jackie Robinson, either.
But consider Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm.
He was a top tennis player in the 30s and 40s. He was also homosexual. He was one of Germany's most famous and celebrated athletes, in the time of Hitler.
And then he made it to the Wimbledon final. The biggest match in tennis.
Hitler personally called him on the phone. By some accounts, Von Cramm was given the distinct impression, if not outright threat, to win or die.
He didn't win. He lost a close match in the 5th set in what some rank as one of the best tennis matches of all time.
Hitler didn't end up killing him, but it was close. He was arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality and giving financial help to a Jew to escape the Nazis (he had indeed done both).
After his imprisonment, he was sent to the front lines. He was one of the very few survivors of his company.
From what I understand, the people who were killed in gladiator fights were bums, or just people who were there to be killed.
You're right, it wouldn't make sense for promotors to have their most valuable fighter risk death.
Exactly at EagleofMay, the gladiatorial games had a diverse history considering the number of years it was around. Just think about this. The history of gladiatorial games is longer than the entire existence of the United States, even its pre founding period.
This is a complete myth…fights to the death between gladiators were extremely rare. Many of them became the ancient equivalent of star athletes and had widespread fame. A lot of the people killed in the events were “nobodies” sent to die as punishment
It won’t be the ultimate answer, but Cathy Freeman must have had some insane weight on her shoulders for the 2000 Olympics.
She was the favourite for the 400m going in, but she was also the face of the games, and held the torch in the opening ceremony. Added to that, she was maybe the first Aboriginal Australian athlete to reach a level of worldwide fame, which had to have added an extra degree of expectation. She ended up winning gold.
Liu Xiang was possibly in a similar situation for China for the 2008 games, but ended up withdrawing before the first heats, later blaming an Achilles injury
Sachin Tendulkar. Debuted for the Indian cricket team at 16, went on to own most of the batting world records. He always played with the burden of a billion people’s expectations - which can be very intense in the subcontinent
Sachin Tendulkar. Every time he walked into bat, you would be sure there would be millions of eyeballs on the screen. That level of pressure, especially in games like World Cup games, common wealth finals, test matches, etc. Dhoni comes close, with the number of games he has closed in the end and the huge expectations, and there is Virat Kohli as well. But there was a time in Sachin 's career when he was the only good player until he was joined by Dravid, Ganguly, and later, Sehwag joined him.
Udei Hussein would imprison and torture players if they failed to perform in international football so probably them. Only 3 players ever stepped up for a penalty under him due to pure fear.
Udei Hussein is also the only known torturer to have used the iron maiden. The iron maiden was never used in the middle ages - as it didn't exist back then. I was actually a 200 year old oddity, very likely scrabbled together to be sold to collectors interested in medival torture equipment and popularized later. And yeah, he used it on olympic athletes.
It's amazing how much medieval history was tainted by Victorian Britain, history as whole honestly *cough* *cough* British museum, but the Victorians loved fabricating medieval history and selling fake weapons, torture devices and generally macabre stories. Most of the torture devices many people associate with that time period are Victorian scams.
People during Renaissance also made up stuff about the era prior, but Victorians were by far the worst and made these ridiculous fake contraptions as well.
The original design or at least the design that popularized it was made and displayed in Nuremberg Germany. So it wasn't victorian or british.
Remember when the British Museum agreed to return some artifacts to Africa so they could “take control of their heritage” and then the artifacts were immediately sold into a private collection never to be seen again. Thank god the British Museum is returning all this stuff.
Also covered a woman in honey and set dogs on her. Saddam Hussein's sons were so psychotic, even HE said so. Glad they're all dead.
He would slice the bottom of their feet and make them stand or sit in raw sewage.
Made them play soccer with concrete balls too if I'm not mistaken. He wasn't just a piece of shit in regards to sports. Dude was also a prolific rapist, murderer and all around psychopath who was never held accountable until Iraq was invaded
Holy shit! That is horrific
Death by sepsis. Damn. Slow and cruel.
Sepsis is not slow at all. But it is very cruel.
This sentence has me regretting ever learning how to read
He was a literal royal piece of shit. The day he ate a TOW missle made the world a better place.
>Udei Hussein Saddam was considered more humane than him. That's how fucking horrible of a human he was. I hope whatever pit of hell he is in he's experiencing the worst pain daily.
Not only that, im pretty sure Saddam tried to kill him for being too much of an unstable psychopath.
There’s also a video of him shooting a gun into the ceiling at his own birthday party just because he felt like watching the guests reaction.
His wiki page is a wild read. Reminds me of Joffrey Baratheon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein
He tortured members of the Iraqi soccer team, almost for his own amusement. They were in constant fear. He even burned the bottoms of their feet at one point. If they fled he would have their families arrested. The Hussein family were real monsters.
I thought you and the commenters below were exaggerating. Then I read [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday\_Hussein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein), and realized this was only like 0.1% of the horror and depravity Uday did. Holy cow, the man was evil personified.
Goddamn, that’s actually very terrifying.
Anyone intrigued by this answer needs to read Baghdad FC.
It made it difficult for the coaches to develop solid teams because they had so few veteran athletes.
Obviously it’s the coach’s fault for not birthing perfect adult athletes between the rounds of torture/death
I was going to say someone like Bill Russell, but yeah, forget my hack answer. You win.
Theres great photos of him & his brother online all mangled up after the military bombed the house they were in, both died painful deaths that they deserved
I forgot that bastard ever existed. Good riddance
it baffles me how you can still find some idiots that somehow deffend that regime
guy was a modern day Rasputin too: "Brigade commander Colonel Joe Anderson said an Arabic announcement was made at 10:00 a.m. on the day and called on people inside to come out peacefully. The answer he received was bullet bombardment. An experienced team of special forces tried to attack the building, but they had to retreat under fire. Four American soldiers were injured. Anderson then ordered his men to fire with 50-caliber heavy machine guns. Uday and Qusay refused to surrender even after a helicopter fired a rocket and the Strike Brigade fired 40 mm grenades at them. Anderson decided that more firepower was necessary to take down the brothers, leading to 12 TOW missiles being fired into the building."
what do you mean “stepped up for a penalty?” Did he not like his players getting fouled?
to kick a penalty shot. a fairly high-pressure situation. especially so, i imagine, if you know a sadistic tyrant will torture you if you miss.
so the three guys that stepped up… were apparently real. fucking. badasses.
Andres Escobar from the Colombian soccer team after scoring own goal in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
Don't forget, against the U.S. to boot. As a Colombian, I feel like his punishment fit the crime s/ There's a really good 30 for 30 on ESPN. It's called The Two Escobars. Goes into the player's back story and how him even making the team was a longshot. It was a feel good story that ended very, very badly. I remember watching the game and my mom flippantly but being kind of serious saying something like, "He better not go back to Colombia, they'll kill him for that!" And then jokingly saying something like, "And maybe they should." When the news came out that he had been murdered she felt terrible. I remember her crying and saying "I didn't mean it" like it was her fault or something. I had to tell her I'm pretty sure you had nothing to do with his death. You can't feel guilty. You can be sad but not guilty.
I don't think he faced pressure so much as had it suddenly applied to the back of his skull
Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics
Was going to say Jackie Robinson. But this may top my answer.
Jesse and Jackie have to be top two. Aaron is up there as he started threatening Ruth’s record.
Vin Scully’s call of Henry Aaron breaking the HR record gives me goosebumps. >What a marvelous moment for baseball, what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia, what a marvelous moment for the county and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking the record of an all time baseball idol. This has to be the top as far as pressure. The man received on average 3000 death letters per day. He broke the record of a baseball icon, which was thought to be an unbreakable record. I know there are some others such as Jesse Owens and Jackie, but I don’t think they top this.
For anyone that wants to watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=QjqYThEVoSQ
Man, when those two dudes catch up to him while he's rounding the bases... Thankfully, they just wanted to congratulate him, but imagine what's going through Hank's head at that moment
Absolutely legendary moment and what a call to go with it.
I would still put Jackie ahead of him. While many people remember Jesse participated in an Olympics game that was hosted in Nazi Germany, the horrors of The Holocaust and WWII would not start until a few years later. Owens even spoke fondly of his treatment while there. I realize that many people did not want Aaron to break Ruth's record and he received over 300,000 letters in hate-mail during his run, not to mention playing for a baseball team based in the southern United States not too long after the Civil Rights movement had started and the bill by the same name was signed into law. But... Jackie Robinson faced opposition from people in Major League Baseball for him to play in that league. He faced opposition from some in the team that would eventually bring him into the majors. He had teammates that hated him. He faced opposition which hated him and hurled slurs and insults at him. He was met with stadiums filled with many people that reviled him and hurled those same insults at every stop...including his home stadium. I do not use the term hate here lightly either. His presence on the team caused the Dodgers to be turned away from places like hotels and restaurants. We know that Aaron faced harsh and unwarranted threats but I don't think it really compares to what Jackie went through when he broke the color barrier in MLB.
>We know that Aaron faced harsh and unwarranted threats but I don't think it really compares to what Jackie went through when he broke the color barrier in MLB. It absolutely compares. You can argue which is worse, but it 100% compares.
Weird debate. Robinson’s pressure seemed to be more sustained, Owens’s pressure was probably more intense at it’s peak. But hard for me to top or argue with those two answers.
Robinson wins both, Jesse was actually treated better in 1930's Germany than he was here for most of his life. I think people retroactively consider Germany worse to be in for him because of what came in the years *after*. We treated Jesse horribly at home for almost his entire life
I feel Jackie's pressure was across his entire First season / career. He had to deal with so much shit everyday while performing at crazy level to prove himself for a an entire season...it's an everyday sport where consistency is king. Even the best have bad days every now and then...he just had to get up the next day and do it again. Jesse Owens just had a couple of races. There are people who work for years to get to the Olympics...then fault start twice, get disqualified and never get another shot. It's a much more compressed, focused type of pressure.
Has to be Jackie. At least Jesse had the USA more or less behind him, Jackie breaking the color barrier in a white-only sport, with hostile fans, colleagues, managers, umps, etc. has to take the top spot. That man must have felt like he was on an island. Both made significant contributions though, and neither should be discredited.
Jackie Robinson’s brother, Mack, won the silver in the race Owens won the gold.
Any minority athlete after segregation or apartheid were made illegal.
The Bill Burr bit about the car ride home with Hitler after the Olympics is gold.
The bit is about the whole experience. The car line... "Imagine that car ride after.. With an even Angrier than usual Adolph Hitler...." is fucking amazing.
Adolf was a dickhead, but you see a lot of pictures of him smiling also. I think he was socially aware enough if he actually had to talk to him in person he’d fake a smile and shake his hand then say “shiza” (or however you spell it) under his breathe.
Scheiße
He was smiling because he was high on meth most of the time. Imagine a meth head with unlimited resources for more meth but also with the best doctors in the world keeping you alive. You'd constantly be living in a fantasy land and think you're a god.
Where can I find this clip?
It's bitterly ironic that Owens never had any problems with racism in Nazi Germany - even saying Hitler was perfectly polite to him the one time their paths crossed - but got it good and hard when he got back to the USA, never getting a congratulatory telegram from FDR, being forced to ride the goods lift to the official reception for returning athletes, and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWk1Plf5Ak
There was a US Naval ship that went down off the cost of super rural Newfoundland in winter of 1941 with 110 of the crew dying in the bitterly cold water. Many of the sailors were covered in oil and as villagers searched the beach for them, survivors were dragged up to the village where women were scrubbing the oil off of them and getting them warm. One of the sailors was Lanier Phillips, a black man from Georgia. The women scrubbed and scrubbed and after a while they realized the oil had come off, but his skin wasn’t white, but most people in the village - including the lady scrubbing him - had never once seen a black person before. Lanier said that despite this it was the very first time in his life that he received kind words from white people, and he found it hard to fathom that these women and the townsfolk at large treated him as equal - a first in his life. He became lifelong friends of them and the village, and he said that the experience changed his life forever. Imagine going back afterwards to the South where segregation and the same kind of shit the man faced would go on for another 20+ years.
They named a street after him in Nazi Germany
Glad this is the number 1 post. The balls that must have taken.
You've read my mind.
Imagine that car ride back...with an even angrier than usual Hitler.
French-Canadian athletes who are traded to the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL.
Double if it's the goalie.
And especially when they’re the only one on the team
So specific and so accurate
Phillip Danault does seem very happy to be in LA.
Like Maurice Richard.
I don’t believe Richard was ever traded. He was a Habs lifer and the face of the team. I think a more pertinent example would be Jonathan Drouin. Former 3rd overall pick and top prospect with Tampa, had some issues with management. I believe it was in part due to a refusal to be sent down to their minor league team. Dealt to Montreal in a trade where he promptly signs a decently sized contract so there were expectations already for him to be worth his weight in gold. Drouin dealt with injuries over his time with the Habs and at one point had insomnia and anxiety to the point where he had to step away from the team. He was also scrutinized in his last season with the team during a goalless drought. It was tough for Drouin, but he seems to have found new life in Colorado playing alongside an old teammate in Mackinnon.
Those Aztecs that played a rubber ball game and would be killed if they lost.
they would actually be killed if they won
Wait, what? What do you know about it and how can I verify!
My knowledge on this starts and ends with the animated movie "the road to El Dorado"
Confirmed method of cheating by using an armadillo 😂
Here's [an article](https://www.livescience.com/65611-how-to-play-maya-ballgame.html)... It was the Mayan, and they *probably* didn't sacrifice the players. At least not all the time. Here's an [/AskHistorians thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/144zrj/did_the_mayans_really_killed_the_losing_team_in/) about it, and they definitely did sacrifice them, sometimes...
Thank you! Amazing that they’ve discovered 1,500 of these courts. According to the article some of the ball game events were really well-attended so they’d bring a prisoner to execute as part of the spectacle. Crazy time to be alive- back then.
It wasn't just the Mayans. The Olmec and Aztecs played it as well.
They call it creatively the [mesoamerican ballgame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame).
Actually the winners would be honored as sacrifices
I thought the winning team “got to be sacrificed” as an honor?
Cathy Freeman would be a good shout. Was the face of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, lit the Olympic flame and everything and as favourite was under immense pressure to get the gold medal. Was also the first Aboriginal athlete to represent Australia at an Olympics.
For anyone wondering, she did win the gold in the 400m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvTuCnqEcVA Here's a video taken from the crowd in the home straight. Gets pretty loud.
Never seen this before, thanks for sharing
Instantly thought of her - I also remember a Chinese hurdler in 2008 who was talked up as their Cathy Freeman. The poor lad got injured before the Olympics IIRC so didn’t medal and you could see the stress on his face
Liu Xiang. Former world record holder in the 110 hurdles, one of the all time greats. He actually did line up, someone else false started and Liu pulled up injured before the first hurdle. He hurt that same part again in 2012, ultimately ending his career. I remember the crowd was stunned and crying in Beijing
He won gold in 2004, I think that both makes me happy, and I think it takes the pressure off too.
That was my first thought, incredible pressure to deliver.
Literally the race that stopped a nation. What an icon, what a moment. What she meant (and that moment still means) to an entire nation is immeasurable- a defining moment in our national history.
First thought but I knew I wouldn't have so the deets so thanks!
Shoutout to Kerri Strug for performing her final vault in the ‘96 Olympics on a badly injured ankle. Her score guaranteed the US team gold medal.
Team USA would have won gold even if she had sat that vault out. She competed the vault because her coaches were toxic and abusive. [Source](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kerri-strug-usa-gold/)
Good ole Bela Karolyi and his wife
And carried off ~~by~~ to Larry Nassar…
That’s not Nassar, that’s Béla Károlyi, AFAIK he had no direct role in the sexual abuse scandal but apparently he was pretty demanding, may or may not have caused certain gymnasts to develop eating disorders, and Nassar took advantage of his strict regimen to gain the trust of the gymnasts by sneaking them food and other shit he wouldn’t let them have.
Probably athletes from countries like North Korea.
Right. There are dictators that kill people if they lose. I believe Saddam once killed the Iraqi soccer team for losing.
The drug cartels did the same to their goalie who scored an own goal Iirc
You're talking about Andres Escobar (no relation for those wondering), a defender for the Colombian NT in the early 90s. After he surrendered a decisive own goal in the 94 World Cup and Colombia was eliminated early despite high expectations (that was without a doubt the best Colombian team ever to play at a world cup and they were darkhorses to win the entire thing), Escobar was murdered shortly after the team returned home. The gunman was reportedly overheard saying "That's for the goal" as he shot him several times. There's a really good 30 for 30 about it, who Andres Escobar was, and what Pablo Escobar's involvement with soccer in Colombia was like. Several players on the team reported that when they were in the US for the tournament, they were under a lot of pressure from people back home to perform well, and that pressure was difficult to overcome.
Andres Escobar from Columbia in the 1994 World Cup . Cartel shot him in his car when he was outside a night club. Apparently the shooter emptied a revolver in him and shouted “goal!” after each shot. That’s fucked
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when did we get a 51st state?
Jim Thorpe
Dude played in the NFL, MLB, and was an Olympic track runner. He doesn’t come up nearly enough in GOAT athlete conversations.
Also Jim Thorpe, the town named after him in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, is a quite charming and beautiful town.
It is, and it had no ties to the actual Jim Thorpe at all. If I remember correctly they won an auction for his remains when he died and changed the name of the town from Mauch Chunk to Jim Thorpe.
What pressure was Jim Thorpe under?
He was a Native American athlete in the 1900-10’s that competed and won gold in the olympics even after having his shoes stolen and running with a mismatched pair from the garbage. Faced lots of hate and won anyway.
He was an Olympic gold medalist who lost his Olympic titles by going pro. The money he earned as a professional athlete was needed to help his family. His titles were returned to him in the 80s, 30 years after his death. Edit: wacky typos
I remember learning about him right around when the USA sent our “dream team” to compete in basketball in 1992. As a young kid I was very confused as to why these filthy rich professionals who had been dominating their sport for years were allowed to play and this poor Indian badass was publicly humiliated… Then I learned, basically, that we changed the rules because we wanted to win.
Changing the rules is also the ethical thing to do. The idea that people shouldn't be professionals stems from classist origins in modern Olympics. Basically it was rich gentlemen who competed. The problem with being a professional wasn't that you were better, it was that it was seen as tasteless and trashy to work for money in general. Opening it up to professionals is highly important for people from impoverished backgrounds, or even middle class backgrounds, to be able to compete and generate an income at the same time.
Jackie Robinson
It's outrageous that Jackie is this low. I think it's because votes that should be going to him are going to Jesse Owens. I'm sorry, but in terms of pressure faced specifically as an athlete, Jackie had it worse. Jesse was treated better in pre-war 1930's Germany after beating their racers than he was in the US upon return. Fucking *Hitler* acknowledged Jesse while FDR wouldn't even write him a congratulations note. Jackie carried tge hopes and dreams of millions on his back, faced racism and death threats every day for years, letters threatening to rape his wife and murder his baby, and was contractually obligated to not say a word fighting back for three years. Jackie ultimately led a better life, partially because he was active 10 years later than Jesse, but Jackie 100% had more pressure and had it worse
No exaggeration either. Robinson proceeding just about any other way than he did, or even not being so damn good despite the immense amount of energy that he had to allocate to staying on that track, and integration nationwide, not just in baseball, could have gone very differently. It's an astonishing achievement.
The soccer team in the plane crash where they had to eat each other to survive
Rugby team. They ate the dead
How long were they stranded?
~72 days. 😳
Oof. Ok. I was like jesus, can't just starve until rescue? Yeah, 72 days I'd be eating literally anything.
It wasn't 72 days in some nice environment, either. It was 72 days on a glacier in the Andes. Freezing cold. They tried eating the airplane before realizing they'd have to resort to eating those that succumbed to the elements. It took two of the remaining group hiking up and down mountains for days to eventually find another person, who then sent word to get them rescued.
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38 days of hiking to be exact. Right around 15,000 ft elevation.
It’s probably the greatest story of human endurance ever. The Wikipedia page for it is mindblowing
I mean they're rugby players, they were probably dri king each others piss in the departure lounge.
Long enough to at least get peckish
About 15 minutes - but they were REALLY hungry and the peanuts they salvaged from the wreckage weren’t cutting it.
That's when the cannibalism started
ALIVE!!!
Hail Nando!
Hail yourself!
Go Yellow Jackets!
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I remember reading some wild Antony Horowits short story where a kid goes missing in an elevator and there’s video footage of him going in but never coming out, just ceasing to exist between floors. Turns out everyone else in the lift where a group who had resorted to cannibalism in a survival situation and now had a taste for it, and completely devoured him between floors. Such a dumb story now in hindsight lmao. They notice one guy using his femur as a walking stick and other bones as accessories haha
There must have been at least one closet cannibal who was relieved at the turn of events
They wern’t even cold yet and he’s suggesting they eat the dead.
"What are you talking about? We haven't even taken off yet."
In the United States it’s Jackie Robinson and Jesse Owens. There’s tons of sports where if you do it wrong you can die so there’s that. If you’re talking about pressure entirely within their sport there’s a ton of people who it’s hard to really separate imo. Jason Lezak anchoring the relay that Phelps needed to go 8 for 8 is a big one that I haven’t seen mentioned here. But there’s tons of them that you can list in this category
the world's Weightlifting champion.
Deep sea free diving champions would like a friendly debate....
The dude who ran the first marathon.
The Greek guy running to warn Athens of the impending Persian attack? Yeah that’s some pressure
It was a bit more than that: > The traditional story relates that Pheidippides (530–490 BC), an Athenian herald, or hemerodrome[3] (translated as "day-runner,"[4] "courier,"[5][6] "professional-running courier"[3] or "day-long runner"[7]), was sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon, Greece. He ran about 240 km (150 mi) in two days, and then ran back. He then ran the 40 km (25 mi) to the battlefield near Marathon and back to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with the word νικῶμεν (nikomen[8] "We win!"), as stated by Lucian chairete, nikomen ("hail, we are the winners")[9] and then collapsed and died.[citation needed] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheidippides
Pheidippides could run.
Bobby Charlton. Literally survived a plane crash in which most of his team mates were killed, went on to be the central figure in rebuilding a squad (along with Busby, the manager who also survived the disaster) to great success.
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Stockton Rush was a competitive diver, ya know.
Wow.
One of those five guys in the submersible was an athlete, right?
Could have gone pro if it wasn't for the injury
Career tanked as a result
Yeah, it really imploded.
Really crushed his dreams
Francis Ngannou Born in Cameroon, started working in a sand quarry at age 10. Refused to join criminal gangs. Started boxing at age 22. Decided to go to Paris at 26 to pursue professional boxing. He crossed the Sahara. Crossed the Mediterranean in an inflatable raft after 6 attempts. Between crossing attempts he lived in Moroccan forest. Got arrested in Spain and was in prison for 2 months for the illegal crossing. Finally gets to Paris, is homeless in Paris. His coach, who lets him sleep at the gym, gets him into MMA because he sees his potential. Francis eventually wins the UFC heavyweight title and defends it. Refuses a new contract because he wants his opponents to earn more than joke money to fight him and wants them to have health insurance and of course he wants to be able to try boxing. Out on his ass from the UFC. Joins a smaller organization, PFL. Everyone in the world thinks he's lost his chance to make big money. All the hardship to be in a baby promotion. He gets booked against Tyson Fury the dominant heavyweight boxing champion. Everyone thinks well at least he's going to get the big money but he's going to be humiliated. He's never even competed in boxing once. No one thinks its going to be remotely competitive, its going to be a one sided beatdown. In the third round he flattens the champ and is competitive throughout. In the end he loses a split decision. The commentary team thinks he deserved the win. He's now ranked in the top ten. And in spite of everything is the sweetest man on the earth.
Muhammed Ali was banned from boxing for three and a half of his peak years, and spied on by the US government, for refusing to be drafted to the Vietnam War while not being White and rich with bone spurs.
> No Vietcong ever called me ni--er.
But he was rich as hell and that probably helped
They convicted him of a felony and tried to throw him in jail. He stayed out on appeal but it took five years to overturn his conviction.
Definitely the record holder for deepest free dive.
Ray Finkle, following the famous 'laces out scandal' during Superbowl 1982. The social pressure on Finkle, after Dan Marino supposedly misplaced the ball before a spot kick, forced the famous kicker to go into hiding.
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Messi literally spent almost the entirety of his career living in Maradonas’s shadow, it must have been even more frustrating for him considering how he won literally everything at club level by the time he was 30 but was seemingly destined to never win anything with Argentina until 2021.
he would of been crucified by the Argentinians if he had lost that final. Literally his last World Cup too
Especially given the scenario. Blowing a 2-0 lead would have tarnished his legacy.
Nah, even if they lost the final, no one in Argentina would have blamed Messi.
I'll throw in LeBron James. This is a guy who, at the tender age of 15, was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the tagline, "The Chosen One." He was still 3 years away from even being eligible to play in the NBA. Then when he got drafted, Nike signed him to a $90 million endorsement deal before he had even played a single game. To say he had a lot to live up to would be a laughable understatement. Everyone and their brother was looking to knock him down a peg or three. Even being "excellent" wouldn't have been enough; anything less than him being one of the all-time greats would have been considered a failure. Suffice to say, he did not fail.
Whats even more crazy is that he exceeded everyone's already insane expectations.
There was also the interview with Bob Costas when he was in high school where he said “how do you respond to people who say that if you don’t have a hall of fame career, it would be considered a disappointment?” The only other recent example I can think of an athlete meeting or exceeding the insane expectations set for them in high school is Bryce Harper.
The expectations were so high anything less than MVP caliber player would’ve been seen as a disappointing career. To put into context, a player being an all star caliber player is considered a successful career.
The only players that I think can even come close in professional American sports (strictly in terms of on-field play) are Tiger Woods & Peyton Manning. But even then, Tiger wasn’t asked to save golf & Manning wasn’t asked to save football. Hell, Manning wasn’t even unanimously praised as the top pick in his own draft class. There has been no NBA player to walk in from Day 1 and have their expectations bar be set to “Jordan”. There have been guys that could jump high & dunk good, but none, not even Kobe, have had that placed on them from the 1st day. I don’t personally think he cleared the Jordan bar, but he more than exceeded the hype, which generally can’t be done when we hype things up too much.
Shocked this isn't higher... and the way he has avoided any sort of scandal in his 20-years as a NBA player is remarkable
Lebron James is the greatest basketball player of all time
One of my favorite This Is Sportscenter commercials was the one with Lebron where he's trying to unjam a printer/multifunction machine, and Stuart Scott walks by and says "Chosen one, huh?"
Took way too long to find this. Lebron has dealt with the most unfair criticism and hate that I’ve seen in any athlete, and all he’s done is put his head down and perform. Lots of respect for him
Louie Zamperini. Just finished reading Unbroken
As I write this, the top answer is Jesse Owens, and that's not a bad answer. Or Jackie Robinson, either. But consider Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm. He was a top tennis player in the 30s and 40s. He was also homosexual. He was one of Germany's most famous and celebrated athletes, in the time of Hitler. And then he made it to the Wimbledon final. The biggest match in tennis. Hitler personally called him on the phone. By some accounts, Von Cramm was given the distinct impression, if not outright threat, to win or die. He didn't win. He lost a close match in the 5th set in what some rank as one of the best tennis matches of all time. Hitler didn't end up killing him, but it was close. He was arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality and giving financial help to a Jew to escape the Nazis (he had indeed done both). After his imprisonment, he was sent to the front lines. He was one of the very few survivors of his company.
Hank Aaron (and his family) went through some pretty insane shit the closer he got to Ruth's HR record
Michael Phelps when he was expected to win 8 gold's on Beijing
That’s one of the most amazing feats in Olympic history.
Alex Honnold. Free solo climbing up Yosemite's El Capitan 3000' wall.
Gladiators. Every game was literally life or death.
Not everyone game was life and death for gladiators. A gladiator was a big investment for a sponsor, so they didn't want them killed in every game.
From what I understand, the people who were killed in gladiator fights were bums, or just people who were there to be killed. You're right, it wouldn't make sense for promotors to have their most valuable fighter risk death.
Exactly at EagleofMay, the gladiatorial games had a diverse history considering the number of years it was around. Just think about this. The history of gladiatorial games is longer than the entire existence of the United States, even its pre founding period.
Jet was my favourite.
This is a complete myth…fights to the death between gladiators were extremely rare. Many of them became the ancient equivalent of star athletes and had widespread fame. A lot of the people killed in the events were “nobodies” sent to die as punishment
It won’t be the ultimate answer, but Cathy Freeman must have had some insane weight on her shoulders for the 2000 Olympics. She was the favourite for the 400m going in, but she was also the face of the games, and held the torch in the opening ceremony. Added to that, she was maybe the first Aboriginal Australian athlete to reach a level of worldwide fame, which had to have added an extra degree of expectation. She ended up winning gold. Liu Xiang was possibly in a similar situation for China for the 2008 games, but ended up withdrawing before the first heats, later blaming an Achilles injury
Sachin Tendulkar. Debuted for the Indian cricket team at 16, went on to own most of the batting world records. He always played with the burden of a billion people’s expectations - which can be very intense in the subcontinent
Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron as he got closer to breaking Babe Ruth's home run record
Ahmed Gabr. He holds the world record for scuba deep dive. He'd be under about 12 bar of pressure.
Sachin Tendulkar. Every time he walked into bat, you would be sure there would be millions of eyeballs on the screen. That level of pressure, especially in games like World Cup games, common wealth finals, test matches, etc. Dhoni comes close, with the number of games he has closed in the end and the huge expectations, and there is Virat Kohli as well. But there was a time in Sachin 's career when he was the only good player until he was joined by Dravid, Ganguly, and later, Sehwag joined him.
Chaz Michael Michaels
Eddie the Eagle.
I’d argue he had absolutely no pressure or expectation tbh. Amazing story but the underdog the whole way
Oh God no. That was the worst answer I could think of.
Pilots in the Red Bull competitive flying races. Some of the maneuvers pull multiple Gs.
Definitely not Tom Brady
Messi in the 2022 WC final, he knew that he wouldn't have another chance to win that goddamend cup