The problem with live sporting events is that you don’t have a chance to cover up mistakes during the ceremonies. So here are five sporting blunders that we’d rather forget.
The London 2012 Olympics hasn’t even officially kicked off yet and already we’ve seen it’s first major c*ck up after the South Korean flag was raised for the North Korean Women’s football team. Quite a large mistake we think you’ll agree, but it’s certainly not the first of its kind so here are another five of the best blunders.
Kazakhstan gets the Borat treatment… yet again
Back in March of this year the Kazakhstan national shooting team took part in an event being held in Kuwait. The team did fairly well and even saw their star markswoman Maria Dmitrienko securing a gold medal. However, as she stood up on the pedestal she was welcomed with Borat’s version of the Kazakhstan national anthem and not the official one. May we remind you that Borat’s version includes the line: “Kazakhstan’s prostitutes are the cleanest in the region, except, of course, for Turkmenistan’s.” As if Kazakhstan didn’t have enough reasons to hate Borat.
South African hockey team receives a not so welcome a blast from the past
Before a field hockey match between Great Britain and South Africa earlier in the year the British organisers somehow managed to play the pre-1994 South African anthem, “Die Stem”. For those of you who might not know, “Die Stem” was the national anthem that was used during the apartheid, so it’s safe to say that some people were quite offended. The British organisers were quick to offer an apology after the blunder but they were also quick to blame it on “a contractor responsible for sports presentation at the event.”
Spanish national basketball team sees the funny side things
In a pre-Olympic warm up game between Brazil and Spain earlier last week the Spanish national team was played the Portuguese anthem by mistake. In fairness to the Spaniards, the majority of the team laughed it off, but a few still looked fairly annoyed. Check it out in the video below.
Ireland had “Danny Boy” played at the 1987 Rugby World Cup
Ireland is no stranger to having strange anthems being played for sporting events. Back in the 1987 Rugby World Cup Ireland was poised to take on Wales in their opening game in New Zealand when “Danny Boy” was played instead of “Amhrán na bhFiann”. The reasoning behind it was because there were some lads from Ulster on the team and we didn’t have an alternative anthem at the time (it’s now “Ireland’s Call”).
Canadian Figure Skaters see red
We don’t know much about figure skating but what we do know is that you don’t raise a Russian flag for a Canadian team no matter what sporting event it is. During the Trophee Eric Bompard 2011 in Paris, the Canadian duo of Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford came in a respectable third place and earned a spot on the podium. However, the flag that was raised behind them had a yellow hammer and scythe instead of a white maple leaf. The pairings that came first and second were both from Russia, so the organisers obviously thought the red army had taken a clean sweep.
So much for the French and Canadians being close friends.
