Nailed On Winners That Lost
If there is one thing that every bettor has learnt over the years, it is that there are never any guarantees in sport. Even when it seems as though your bet cannot possibly lose, punters will have seen themselves lose out on a sure thing too many times to take anything for granted. Throughout the history of sport, there have been some almighty collapses that have seen what was considered to be a nailed on winner fail to actually get across the line and enjoy the sweet taste of success and the associated sense of victory.
There are some collapses that are personal, such as when Fernando Torres scored 24 goals in 33 games when playing for Liverpool before going 24 games without a goal after securing a £50 million transfer to Chelsea in 2011. Most of the time, though, there is at least a team of losers that ensures that no one has to take on the hit on their own. Here we will take a look at the ‘nailed on’ winners that, in the end, actually failed to get a win under their belt when it seemed like it would be harder to miss out on the victory than achieve it.
Devon Loch
If you’re going to talk about sport’s nailed on winners that ended up losing, there is no other place to start but with Devon Loch. The scene is the 1956 Grand National, with Aintree Racecourse packed out and ready to watch the World’s Greatest Steeplechase. Once the race was underway, it looked as though it would actually be one that lacked drama, with the horse owned by the Queen Mother, Devon Loch, appearing to be set to win the Grand National for a member of the Royal Family for the first time since 1900.
Dick Francis had taken the horse on a brilliant ride, overcoming two previous favourites and another horse that would go on to win the race in the future in order to get well out in front. Must, the favourite, had fallen at the first, as had Early Mist, a previous winner of the race, so there was a sense that the National was opening up for a surprise winner. Speaking about the moment that Devon Loch jumped the last and took the lead, Francis would later write, “Never had I felt such power in reserve, such confidence in my mount, such calm in my mind.”
Just ten horses were left to run down the final straight, with Loch commanding such a lead that it seemed as if his victory was assured. He was five lengths clear of E.S.B. when he inexplicably collapsed onto the floor, with his rear legs splaying out and his stomach hitting the ground. Francis did what he could to get him back up, but it was too little, too late as E.S.B. rushed past and claimed the win. Had he won, it is likely that Devon Loch would have set a new record for the Grand National, instead being remembered for entirely different reasons.
Willie Shoemaker & Gallant Man
William Lee Shoemaker was an American jockey who held the world record for the most wins by a professional jockey for 29 years. He won the Kentucky Derby for the first time in 1955 and would go on to win it another three times before he retired, with his final victory coming 31 years after his first. Yet for all of his accomplishments, most people will remember him most vividly for his performance in the first-leg of the American Triple Crown in 1957, when he raced into the lead but lost the race in remarkable fashion.
Having taken a lead running up the final stretch, Shoemaker was a shoe-in for the win in the Race For The Roses. Gallant Man had a lead that was too much for any of the other runners to catch, only for Shoemaker to make one of the biggest errors of his career. Mistaking the 16th post for the finishing line, he stood up in his stirrups to celebrate, removing the momentum from his mount. It was only for a second, but it was long enough to allow Iron Liege to sneak past him and claim the win, consigning Shoemaker to the record books.
A.C. Milan
In footballing terms, the Champions League final is the pinnacle of club competition. It is the biggest match that a non-international team can play in, having been formed as the European Cup in 1955. Typically speaking, the matches are close-run affairs, with the three finals before 2005 having six goals between them in normal time, with the same being true of the two that followed. When A.C. Milan took a 3-0 lead over Liverpool before half-time, therefore, the vast majority of people considered that to be game over.
Not only were A.C. an Italian side, famed for their defensive abilities, but most people thought that Liverpool were lucky to even be there. To all intents and purposes, the match was over. Even when Steven Gerrard scored after 54 minutes, it was considered to be little more than a consolation goal. Six minutes later, however, the Reds had scored two more, taking the game to extra-time and, eventually, penalties. They won the penalties 3-2, completing the most remarkable comeback that the European Cup had ever seen.
Jean Van de Velde
Any golfer will tell you that a match is never over until it is truly over. Too much can go wrong for a player to ever feel truly comfortable. Speak to a golfer about an unassailable lead and they will almost certainly mention the name of Jean Van De Velde, which will be enough to send shivers down the spines of even the most confident of players. The Frenchman was leading by three shots when he stood on the 18th tee, knowing that the claret jug attached to the British Open was his, provided he could scored a double-bogey six or better.
Perhaps the history of becoming the first French golfer since Arnaud Massy in 1907 to win the Open got too much for him. Maybe it was the noise of the crowd that got into his head. It could just be that golf is a sport that will always bring people down to earth. Whatever the reason, Van de Velde took a driver off the tee which he mishit, struck his 2-iron into the grandstand with his second and ending up in the water with his third. He took off his shoes and socks and considered hitting it out of the water, with the ball barely submerged.
In the end, he took his penalty shot and still had a chance to be up and down for a six, which would have won him the tournament. Sadly, his fifth came up short and landed in a bunker, with his sixth landing about six feet from the hole. He eventually got down for a seven, which meant he still had a chance to win a play-off with Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard. Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, his head had gone and he went from being in a position where it was virtually impossible to lose to seeing Lawrie lift the claret jug.
Jordan Spieth
Whilst we’re on the subject of golf, it is worth mentioning what happened to Jordan Spieth in the 2016 Masters at Augusta. Sometimes golfers miss-out on a prize because someone else plays much better than them, meaning that they just have to shrug their shoulders and say ‘fair play’. Sometimes, though, the golfer in question only has themselves to blame, as is the case with Spieth back in 2016. Stepping up to the 10th tee in his final round, he boasted a five-shot lead over his rivals and was playing excellent golf.
When he bogeyed the tenth, he saw that lead slip a little bit but was still well-placed to go on and win himself a green jacket. Another bogey on the 11th meant that he was suddenly in his own head, struggling to get his game together. So it was that he somehow contrived to card a quadruple-bogey on the 12th, taking 7 shots to complete the par three and seeing his five-stroke lead disappear. Not only that, but he ended up his horror half-hour three behind the leader, missing out to Danny Willett’s respectable 67.
Houston Oilers
In American football, the post-season isn’t exactly exciting aside from the Super Bowl. The only games that really capture the imagination are the Wild Card games that essentially decide the Best Of The Rest for the play-offs. In the third-quarter of the American Football League wild-card game between the Houston Oilers and the Buffalo Bills, Bubba McDowell returned an interception in order to make it 35-3 for the Oilers. In the eyes of many, it was all but over for the Bills thanks to the work of the linebacker.
Frank Reich, the quarterback for the Bills, had other ideas. He helped them rebound from the interception, sending them on the way to four touchdowns and thrusting them right back into the game. It went to overtime, during which Steve Christie kicked the winning field goal, consigning the Houston Oilers to a footnote. They had suffered the biggest collapse in NFL post-season history, leading cornerback Chris Dishman to say, “It was the biggest choke in history. … When we had them down, we should have cut their throats.”
Newcastle United
The Premier League is one of the most competitive leagues in the world, so it is perhaps unfair to suggest that Newcastle were nailed-on to win the title during the 1996-1997 season. Even so, the millions invested in the club by Sir John Hall meant that the likes of Les Ferdinand, David Ginola and Faustino Asprilla were lining up in the black and white of the Magpies. Under Kevin Keegan’s management, they stormed to the top of the table and remained there from August until the middle of March, with many thinking the title was theirs.
Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United were on their tail, but towards the end of January they led the Red Devils by 12 points with 15 games remaining. The Geordie team couldn’t maintain their form, though, and lost five of the next eight games in the wake of a win over Middlesbrough. United beat them 1-0 at home on the fourth of March, ending their unbeaten home record and seeing their lead drop to just a single point. In the end, they missed out on the title by four points, seeing a sure-thing evaporate into a runners-up spot.
Daniil Medvedev
It is perhaps unfair to suggest that Daniil Medvedev completely blew his Australian Open final chance, with the argument possibly fairer that Rafael Nadal won it. Even so, when Medvedev was two-sets to love up against the Spaniard, who had missed months of tennis due to an injury and wasn’t even sure if he would be able to play again a month and a half before the tournament, many people thought it was a lock that he would emerge victorious. Nadal, of course, has spent most of his career refusing to admit he’s beaten and this was no different.
Medvedev won the first set 6-2 and the second 7-6 on a tie-break, taking a 2-3 lead and having three break points in the third. Nadal roared back into the match, winning the third set 6-4 and the fourth by the same total to take it to a fifth set. After five hours and 24 minutes, the Spaniard won the fifth set 7-5 to complete a glorious comeback in the second-longest final in Major history. He won it rather than Medvedev losing it, but the Russian really should have seen the game out when he had the chance.
