The Worst Sports Outfit Fails of All Time

We have seen some truly bizarre and horrendous outfits in our time following sport, but it's the ones that are entirely unsuitable or faulty that cause the biggest problems. Often athletes spend their dream occasions on the biggest stage bemoaning a nightmare situation with a wardrobe malfunction or left with regrets that haunt them forever. Here's a selection of some of the most memorable cases.

Manchester United grey shirts

Sir Alex Ferguson reportedly burst into the Manchester United dressing room at half-time and bellowed: "Get that kit off" with his side struggling against Southampton in their horrible grey shirts. Not bothering to tinker with the design of the shorts or socks, Umbro's famously disgusting shirts looked entirely out of place. They were gone before anyone could really appreciate them *cough*.

Speedo LZR Racer

Ah yes, Speedo's infamous LZR Racer. Described perfectly as 'doping on a hanger', this outfit had to be banned after it caused even average swimmers to shatter records left, right and centre. FINA were forced to issue new rule stipulations as a result in what was at least a triumph for style over the 'Speedo Surfboard'.

Maia Shibutani wardrobe malfunction

American ice dancers Maia Shibutani suffered an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction that disrupted her performance in Sochi. Maia's dress somehow became attached to her brother's costume during a lift midway through their free dance, causing her tights to snag and rip apart. The tights were torn virtually the entire way around her right leg.

Gillian Cooke’s Lycra suit

British bobsledder Gillian Cooke’s skin-tight Lycra suit tragically split as she bent over before boarding her sleigh at a 2010 world championship event in Switzerland. The video racked up over 1.5 million views on YouTube and made her an overnight sensation for all the wrong reasons. How did she perform?

Cathy Freeman outfits

It's so sad when stars have their biggest moments blighted by their outfits, and Cathy Freeman will no doubt look back on the time that she won her famous 400m gold at her home Sydney Olympics with some regret. The unnecessary onesie with attached hoodie has left her special moment memorable for reasons other than her stunning performance under extreme pressure.

High-tech 'Mach 39'

After failing to medal in the first six of 12 events at Sochi, the US speedskating team pleaded with the Olympic committee to let them change their outfits. The skaters successfully ditched their brand new, high-tech 'Mach 39' custom-made outfits to return to an old model they had knocking around.

The Flyers and the Whalers Cooperalls

Back in 1981 and 1982, the Flyers and the Whalers of the NHL proudly unveiled their new trousers, called Cooperalls (named after manufacturing company Cooper). What ensued was an utter disaster as unhappy players found them to be far too slick, and every time they fell over they would keep sliding. The outfits caused numerous injuries until they were banished from sight altogether.

Bobsled suit

The unlikely hero showing some flesh is Canadian bobsledder Christopher Spring, who was born in Australia but chose to represent Canada after becoming hooked by bobsled when visiting the country on a one-year work visa. He thought he'd try on his bobsled suit a day before competition began - and it was lucky he did, as he promptly burst out of it. Oh dear, that gut...

Venus Williams dress

Venus Williams could have made multiple entries into this piece with her very borderline outfit choices and numerous costume disasters. Always pushing the boundaries in terms of what is acceptable, Venus wore this dress/top without the trousers in an earlier match amid much derision. Here is the more tasteful version.

Lisa Pavin ill-fated raingear

Lisa Pavin, wife of team captain Corey Pavin, was given an unlimited budget to design this ill-fated raingear, but due to some dodgy embroidery work the waterproofs were... well... just not waterproof. Tiger Woods et al were forced to splash out £4,000 on new gear at the merchandise tent after being left soaked through and shivering.

Liverpool goalkeeper shirt

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so Liverpool keeper Simon Mignolet should be feeling pretty happy after a rather bizarre, and inadvertent, ‘tribute’ in Egypt. The goalkeeper shirt worn by Mahdi Soliman looked a bit dodgy and that's because it was actually a Liverpool shirt with a sponsor's logo glued on the front!

Roger Federer footwear

Roger Federer may be the prince of tennis, but even he cannot get away with sporting a touch of colour at Wimbledon. The All England Club were not remotely impressed by his choice of footwear at SW19 in 2013 and he was forced to change his shoes midway through the tournament in an upheaval that was a definite distraction. How dare he have a splash of orange!

Cameroon Team shirts and shorts

Back in 2004, Cameroon took to the field wearing quite appalling all-in-ones. FIFA were forced to dust off and promptly enforce their famous 'all shirts and shorts must be separate items' ruling and Sepp Blatter hastily had his say. Surely it should have been banned on grounds of taste, rather than anything silly like an itemised clothing rule, though.

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Kate Upton Amazing Defy Gravity Video In a Bikini

Kate Upton defied gravity for the 50th Anniversary of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.

The 21-year-old got into her itty bitty bikini and hopped on a zero gravity plane off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida for the magazine’s issue to get the gorgeous shot.

While posing for the famous magazine might be a daunting task, the super model managed to make it look simple in the behind-the-scenes video.

Sergei Tretyakov, Russian Double Agent

Sergei Tretyakov was a Russian spy who defected to the United States in October 2000. During his time in Russia, Tretyakov was a colonel in the Russian intelligence service (S.V.R.) and oversaw covert operations in New York City and at the United Nations.

Starting in 1997, Tretyakov became a double agent and passed secrets to the Americans. After moving to the United States, he was given a package worth $2 million and placed in the Witness Protection Program.

In 2008, Tretyakov provided information about the SVR. He said that the Russian intelligence program is just as active today as ever. Tretyakov warned that the world should “wake up” to the danger.

He told NPR that his “defection was a major failure of the Russian intelligence.” Some of his revelations include the suggestion that Eldar Kouliev was an SVR spy.

He said that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, was influenced by Russia, along with Canadian Alex Kindy.

According to Tretyakov, the KGB fabricated the nuclear winter story to stop the development of the Pershing missiles in Europe.

He said that the SVR developed a list of influential political figures that were assassinated in order to bring Vladimir Putin to power.

He also recounted a conversation in which a man (Vladimir K. Dmitriev) discussed privately owned nuclear weapons.

Sergei Tretyakov also exposed the Russian warfare program known as Active Measures. The program uses misinformation, propaganda, hoaxes, and political persecution to influence world events.

Active Measures has been called the “heart and soul of Soviet intelligence,” and is being used to discredit the United States.

Some have speculated that Russia orchestrated the Edward Snowden media leak in order to create anger in the United States and Europe, specifically Germany.

On June 13, 2010, Sergei Tretyakov died at his house in the United States. The medical examiner reported that he suffocated after choking on a piece of meat.

However, rumors persist that he was assassinated by the SVR.

Sidney Gottlieb, CIA "Black Sorcerer"

In 1918, Sidney Gottlieb was born in New York under the name of Joseph Scheider. He received a PhD in chemistry from Caltech and became an expert on lethal poisons.

In 1951, Gottlieb joined the CIA and was given a job on the top secret biological warfare program MKULTRA. Project MKULTRA was a now-infamous series of experiments used to study human mind control and modification.

During the project, Gottlieb organized experiments in which humans were used as guinea pigs. For this reason, he was given the nicknames “Black Sorcerer” and “Dirty Trickster.”

Gottlieb helped organize Operation Midnight Climax, which was a program where the CIA purchased houses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York in order to watch people.

For the project, the CIA hired a large group of prostitutes that lured subjects back to a house, drugged them, and then had sex while Gottlieb and others observed from behind two-way mirrors. The experiments gave results in sexual blackmail, surveillance, and mind-altering drugs.

Gottlieb was also involved with the Cuban Project, in which he developed ideas to poison Fidel Castro.

During his career, Gottlieb worked for Lockheed, DARPA, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence.

In one incident, he attempted to contaminate Iraq’s General Abdul Karim Qassim’s handkerchief with botulinum.

He was also involved with the Phoenix Program, in which the U.S. performed mind control experiments on the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.

In 1960, he played a role in America’s attempt to kill the Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba.

On November 28, 1953, biological warfare specialist Frank Olson died under mysterious circumstances while working under Sidney Gottlieb.

Alexander Solonik, Infamous Russian Assassins In History

In 1960, Alexander Solonik was born in Kurgan, Russia. In the late 1980s, he was arrested for rape and sent to prison.

In jail, he became targeted for death due to his association with the police. However, Solonik fought off multiple attacks and earned the respect of his fellow inmates.

After escaping from prison in April 1990, Solonik became one of the most infamous Russian assassins in history.

He murdered a large number of organized crime figures and gained the nicknames “Alexander the Great” and “Superkiller.”

The exact number of people Solonik murdered is a mystery, along with much of the details surrounding his life.

In the early 1990s, he gained a reputation for being a lethal contract killer who had the ability to shoot ambidextrously.

Solonik confessed to killing a large number of criminals, including Viktor Nikiforov, Valery Dlugach, Vladislav Vinner, and Andrey Rura.

In 1994, he was arrested at Moscow’s Petrovsky marketplace. He was taken to Detention Center 1 in Moscow, but eventually escaped.

Solonik fled to Greece and set up a criminal organization in the area. He purchased a large amount of real estate in Athens and was placed on Russia’s Top 10 Most Wanted list.

In 1997, a Greek newspaper reported that a Russian mafia boss had been found dead 15 miles from Athens.

The man had been strangled to death and it was concluded that the corpse was Alexander Solonik, despite the fact that his fingerprints in the Interpol database were not accurate.

The Greek authorities insisted that the body was not Solonik. However, he was officially declared dead.

He’s never been heard from since, and the true influence of Solonik’s criminal network during the mid-1990s remains unknown.

Arnold Paole, Famous Examples of Vampires

In the early 18th century, people in southeastern Europe started to believe in the existence of vampires. They were seen as a major problem to society, especially in Transylvania.

People took to digging up graves and staking dead bodies that were deemed to be vampires. Some individuals even reported seeing their dead relatives walking the streets and attacking living people.

The panic spread around Europe, and many publications speculated on the phenomenon.

Two of the most famous examples of vampires from this time are Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole.

In 1726, Arnold Paole died in the village of Meduegna, which was near the Morava River.

Immediately after his death, people started seeing his undead body. The situation caused panic in Serbia and officials called for the help of two Austrian military doctors, Glaser and Flückinger.

The investigation and report produced by Flückinger was named Visum et Repertum and confirmed the existence of vampires.

The report said that Arnold Paole’s dead body was responsible for the deaths of four separate people. His corpse was dug up and found to be “quite complete and undecayed, with fresh blood from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.”

Based on this, it was concluded that Paole was a vampire. His heart was staked and his body burned. Five years after the initial outbreak, the deaths of 17 people were attributed to Paole and vampirism.

His story was published in the London Journal on March 11, 1732, in which it was proclaimed that vampires were drinking the blood of the living in Hungary.

Lawrence E. King Jr., The Child Sex Ring Allegations Scandal

Lawrence E. King Jr. is the man who was at the center of the child sex ring allegations involving the Omaha, Nebraska, branch of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union (FCFCU) that emerged in the late 1980s.

Despite the high-profile case, little information has been published on King’s activities.

In 1988, Lawrence King was an active Republican politician that managed the FCFCU, which was a credit union used to help the poor.

After several tips, it began to emerge that $38 million was missing from the organization’s funds, which spawned an investigation that found evidence of physical and sexual child abuse.

The sources of the reports were initially deemed credible, and information emerged that young boys and girls from foster homes were being transported around the country by plane in order to provide sexual favors for rich people.

A large number of victims came forward and said that they were sexually molested. The reports were examined by the Executive Board of the Nebraska Legislature, and many cases of sexual abuse were recorded.

It was speculated that the abuse was performed by prominent political figures in the Republican Party.

The allegations were investigated by two different grand juries, who found the information to be a “carefully crafted hoax.”

Many people were shocked by the decision; they thought the accusations were “scripted by a person or persons with considerable knowledge of the people and institutions of Omaha.”

After the decision, a Nebraska Senator called the grand jury release “a strange document.”

The second grand jury also found the material unsubstantiated and sentenced an alleged victim, Alisha Owen, to 9-15 years in prison for perjury.

Eventually, Lawrence King was convicted of embezzling over $38 million and served 10 years in prison.

The scandal produced a large number of conspiracy theories that include tales of devil worship, political sex parties, cannibalism, CIA gun smuggling, and the first Bush administration.

Karl Koecher, CIA Double Agent

In 1934, Karl Koecher was born in Czechoslovakia. When he was 28, Koecher joined the Czech intelligence agency.

In the mid-1960s, he moved to the United States and received a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University.

Koecher then obtained a position with the CIA and became a spy for the USSR. He is one of only a few people to have penetrated the CIA for the Soviet Union. A large percentage of information on his life has never been revealed.

It is unclear what tipped the CIA off that Koecher was a double agent, but in 1984 he was arrested and accused of being a spy.

The CIA attempted to make him turn against the USSR, but Koecher was eventually deemed to be unreliable.

After the FBI made mistakes in his case, Koecher was set free. On February 11, 1986, he was part of a spy exchange that involved Anatoly Shcharansky.

Upon his return to Czechoslovakia, Koecher was named a hero and given a job with the government.

In 1989, it was suggested that Koecher was involved with the Velvet Revolution, but he denied the claims.

After the fall of communism in the USSR, little information was published on his life. However, he has been accused of being connected to the CIA.

It was alleged that Koecher was involved in a defrauding scheme that provided Mohammed Al-Fayed with false documents that supported the conspiracy surrounding the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.

"Lee Harvey Oswald", A Series of Conspiracy Theories

On May 5, 1979, a man named Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested by the Secret Service for concealing a loaded starter gun only 10 minutes before President Jimmy Carter was set to give a speech in Los Angeles.

Harvey was arrested only 15.2 meters (50 ft) from where Carter was going to talk.

After being interrogated by the police, Harvey admitted to being part of a four-man plot to kill the president.

His role in the attack was to shoot into the air, while another assassin killed Carter.

Harvey conspired with a 21-year-old named Osvaldo Espinoza Ortiz, who was arrested by the police. Ortiz admitted to being with Harvey, but denied a plot to kill the president.

Raymond Lee Harvey had a history of mental illness. His story was initially thought to be fabricated, however, after investigators found corroborative testimony, the claims were taken seriously.

The assassination attempt was reported by the mainstream media, but then quickly disappeared. Many of the details surrounding Raymond Lee Harvey remain a mystery.

After a series of revelations, Harvey and Ortiz were held on bond, but the charges were eventually dropped.

As you would expect, people have connected the fact that the potential assassin was named Raymond Lee Harvey and his conspirator was Osvaldo Ortiz.

In Spanish, Osvaldo is the equivalent to Oswald, which makes the pair “Lee Harvey Oswald.”

The coincidence has spawned a series of conspiracy theories that say the assassination attempt was fabricated in order to scare the Carter administration.

Who's Wolf Messing, Teacher For The KGB!

In 1899, Wolf Messing was born in the town of Góra Kalwaria, which is located 25 kilometers (15 mi) southeast of Warsaw, Poland.

As a teenager, Messing claimed to be a psychic. He could alter people’s perceptions and predict future outcomes based on mental telepathy and body language clues.

During his shows, Messing would enter a trance-like state and attempt to find hidden objects.

He performed in front of large crowds and became famous after World War II. Messing even caught the attention of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.

In 1937, Wolf Messing predicted that Adolf Hitler would die if he ever threatened Russia and “turned toward the East.”

The message angered Hitler and caused Messing to flee to Russia, where he continued to perform his act.

As the story goes, Messing was then forced to prove his psychic ability for Stalin by convincing a bank teller to give him cash with nothing more than a blank piece of paper.

After the successful demonstration, Messing became a teacher for the KGB.

Messing’s life was chronicled in an autobiography titled About Myself.

One quote from the book says, “My ability to see the future may seem to contradict the materialist understanding of the world.

But there is not a particle of the unknowable or supernatural about precognition.” Wolf Messing died in 1974.

Since that time, many facts attributed to his life have been questioned and deemed unsubstantiated by historical references—a fact which has only contributed to his mystery.

The Pimlico Poisoning Mystery

On the January 1, 1886, Thomas Edwin Bartlett was found dead at his home in Pimlico in the center of London.

He had been ill for some time, but when doctors performed a post-mortem, they discovered a large quantity of chloroform in his stomach and intestines.

They declared this the cause of his death, and blame fell on his wife Adelaide Bartlett.

There was a fair amount of circumstantial evidence against Adelaide. Her tutor (and probable lover) George Dyson confirmed that he had bought chloroform from a chemist on Adelaide’s behalf.

She had admitted her intention to us the chemical to knock out her husband should he try to claim his “marital rights.”

Adelaide apparently avoided sex due to her husband’s mental instability and the horrendous stink from his chronic gum disease.

The case went to trial and she was acquitted. The jury believed that no convincing case had been made about how she might have been able to murder her husband.

There were no burns to his throat, which would’ve been inevitable had he been forced to swallow.

After the trial, famed doctor Sir James Paget said, “Now that she has been acquitted for murder and cannot be tried again, she should tell us in the interest of science how she did it!”

History is silent on what became of Adelaide after the trial, and the passage of time has also failed to solve the mystery of how Thomas Bartlett met his fate.

The Origin Of The London Stone Mystery

The London Stone, also known as the Stone of Brutus, is an unassuming piece of history. It’s located at 111 Cannon Street in London, behind a grate in the wall of a disused office building.

You can see its resting place on Google Street View, directly underneath a “Shop To Let” sign. It’s an extremely understated home for an object that folklore deems to be necessary to London’s very survival.

The stone has been in London for thousands of years. Legend says it used to form part of an altar built by Brutus the Trojan, mythical founder of the city.

Poet William Blake portrayed it as a site of pagan sacrifice. Sir Christopher Wren suggested it may have been used by the Romans as the starting point for measuring distances from London, as it was located in the center of the city.

It’s been mentioned by Shakespeare and Dickens. A proverb about the stone says “So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish.”

It’s been moved many times, and survived disasters including the Great Fire and the Blitz.

Until recently, it was under the charge of Chris Cheek, who happened to run the sports shop in 111 Cannon Street’s lower floor.

The best view of the stone was from inside the shop, through a glass window just below the cricket equipment.

This was arguable quite fitting because understatement and cricket are about as English as anything can be.

As the To Let sign from Google Maps indicates, that shop is no longer open.

The future of the stone is uncertain, and it may well be moved to a museum, at least temporarily.

The building is due for demolition, so it can’t stay where it is.

Chris Cheek thinks the mystery of the stone’s origin is part of its appeal, saying “If it doesn’t have a beginning, then perhaps it doesn’t have an end either.”

The Natural History Museum Mystery Bug

London’s Natural History Museum has 28 million bugs on record, so when museum entomologist Max Barclay found one hanging around in the building’s grounds, he decided to check what it was.

It turned out to be a mystery—there was no record of where the insect had come from or what it was.

The creature’s closest relative was American, the box elder bug, though a similar specimen had also been found on the Mediterranean coast of France.

“I was surprised to be confronted by an unidentifiable species while having a sandwich in the museum’s garden,” Barclay said.

He suggested two explanations, that it may be a similar species called roeselii that’s started feasting on a different type of tree, or it might not be roeselii.

We suppose two options covers all bases, at least.

Mystery, Who Owns Witanhurst Mansion?

The most modern mystery on this list involves Witanhurst Mansion, which is the second largest home in London after Buckingham Palace.

While we know who owns the Queen’s residence (it’s our shape-shifting lizard overlords), no one has any idea which lucky person is in possession of number two.

The 65-bedroom mansion was purchased for 50 million pounds (a little over $80 million) back in 2008.

Yet the purchase was made by an offshore company, Safran Holdings, and the owners of that organization are a closely guarded secret.

Whoever the owners are, they have since almost doubled the size of the building.

Underground, they’re building a 20 meter (70ft) swimming pool, a spa, a cinema, and a parking lot with 24 spaces.

Their expenditure on building work has cost as much as they paid for the place.

One person that isn’t the owner is Russia’s richest woman, Elena Baturina. She successfully sued British newspaper the Sunday Times for libel when they suggested she was the one splashing out.

Butarina claimed the “blatant lie” caused a backlash in the press in her home country.

We’d like to make it absolutely clear we make no claims whatsoever as to what she may or may not have purchased with her payout from the suit.

The St. Pancras Walrus 44,000 Bodies Buried Mystery

“Who is the walrus?” is no longer just a question of interest to Beatles fans.

Archaeologists in London were excavating the graveyard of St. Pancras Old Church this past July, in preparation for the construction of a rail terminal.

The area had been used for mass graves during the first half of the 19th century. A number of epidemics meant 44,000 bodies were buried there from 1822 to 1854, yet the contents of one coffin were particularly unusual.

Scientists opened up the coffin to find the remains of eight people—and a walrus. No one knows how the sizable beast got to London.

Historians think it was likely dissected by medical students, yet there are no records of such a large and exotic animal in the city at the time.

Given that it would have needed to have been shipped from the Arctic, and the specimen was 4 meters (13 ft) long, it’s surprising that it didn’t make a stir.

To most people around at that time, walruses were essentially sea monsters.

The Mystery of Edmund Godfrey Death

Edmund Berry Godfrey, an English magistrate, was found dead in 1678. Though three men were convicted of his murder and hanged, many historians believe they may have been entirely innocent.

The late 17th century was a time of great religious tension in England. King Charles II was on the throne but had no children. First in line was Charles’s brother James, the Duke of York.

Yet Charles was Protestant, and James was Catholic. England’s Protestants weren’t keen on the idea of a Catholic taking power, so a man named Titus Oates forged a plan known as the Popish Plot.

Oates claimed—falsely—to have evidence that Catholics were planning to assassinate Charles in order to bring James into power.

Godfrey was dragged into the affair when Oates presented him with this “evidence.” Godfrey was a poor choice, as he had some Catholic sympathy and so failed to do much about the accusation.

Yet the strain of dealing with the case caused him to have a breakdown at the start of October 1678. He disappeared on October 12 that year, reportedly a very unhappy man.

Godfrey was found on October 17, strangled in a ditch. His own sword was sticking out of his back. A silversmith named Miles Prance claimed he’d witnessed Godfrey being strangled under the watch of Catholic priests—this was a claim many were happy to use to their political advantage. Prance later admitted to lying, and many had doubted him in the first place.

In 1682, three men were tried for libel for suggesting that Godfrey had committed suicide. That put anyone off talking about the issue until 1685, when King Charles died and James took power. James ordered another investigation, and suicide became the official story.

Subsequent historians have suggested Titus Oates and his co-conspirators may have killed Godfrey themselves. One person unrelated to the conspiracies, the Earl of Pembroke, has been suggested as a possible culprit.

Pembroke was a violent aristocrat that Godfrey had convicted of murder, a conviction the House of Lords later overturned. Truly, no one knows for certain, and this one’s going to remain forever unsolved.