Misconduct | The worst injustice in the history of sport: your answers

We received several excellent suggestions, but one injustice has outraged you more than all the others… What is it?

How can we ignore the most obvious theft in NFL history, the January 20, 2019 NFC Championship game between the Rams and Saints? Tied score, less than 2 minutes to play, the Saints in control and threatening to run out of time before a victorious field goal that would lead them to the Super Bowl against the Patriots, and one last chance for Drew Brees to win a final championship… but… officials ruled otherwise. A pass from Brees to his receiver TommyLee Lewis, the latter is knocked down by a tackle before the ball even reaches him, and the official close to the game who remains stoic. The Saints will lose on a field goal in overtime. Cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman will admit his fault and his disbelief that he got away with it, and the NFL will do its mea culpa later. Certainly the most flagrant injustice as far as I am concerned.

— Francois Robillard

How to silence the no call for obstruction during the championship game between the LA Rams and the Saints in January 2019? The play was instrumental in the outcome of the game that eventually put the Rams in the Super Bowl. A few days later, the League admitted that there had been an error and that a penalty should have been imposed. The following year, the NFL changed its rulebook to allow coaches to challenge decisions in situations similar to the one that happened in New Orleans.

— Pierre Vocelle

They are not the only ones. Sylvain Dufresne, Philippe Dutin, Pierre Chevalier, Gilles Bouchard, Jean Savard noted this moment as the most flagrant injustice in the history of sport. Closer to us…

There are several of them ! I could tell you about the blatant obstruction of uncalled Robey-Coleman in the Rams–Saints Conference Finals in 2019. But closer to home is the (arranged) split decision of the Eric Lucas–Marcus Bayer fight in Germany (arranged too)! We learned in the days following this fight, from the voice of Yvon Michel, all the negotiations from start to finish. Even the contract awarded to the German promoter was biased! A flagrant injustice towards the 2 million Quebec listeners, comparable to the disallowed goal of Alain Côté.

— Francois Savoie

As far as I’m concerned, Eric Lucas was a boxer with mixed talents, but through his work ethic and his steely courage in the arena, he became world champion in his category. But, one evening in Germany, in my humble opinion, he was simply robbed of his championship title and, by the same token, other tempting scholarships that he would have amply deserved.

—Yvon Bilodeau

Or…

Without a shadow of a doubt, the mistake of the Brazilian judge during Sylvie Fréchette’s performance at the Olympics… and the refusal of the American chief judge to let her correct her mistake.

— Jocelyne Dube

I propose the category “Injustice repaired”. Just before the Barcelona Games, Sylvain Lake, Sylvie Fréchette’s lover, commits suicide. Courageous as possible, she achieved a performance worthy of the gold medal. But due to a technical error by a judge, she slips to second place. Despite the grossness of the error, the officials ignore it. Despite this, she remains dignified. Sixteen months later, after several appeals led by Canadian Dick Pound, the IOC finally decided to right this “error” and award Sylvie another gold medal. The enduring injustice is that of having deprived her of glory at the Games.

—Pierre Levert

In 2010, before Major League Baseball’s video replays, Armando Galarraga was robbed of his perfect game by a very poor call by first base umpire Jim Joyce, by 12 inches, I believe. The video replays were very clear. I saw the end of the game live because the broadcasters who were showing other games joined in the end of the Tigers game. Jim Joyce quickly admitted his mistake by calling into a Detroit sports call-in after the game. He was crying on the air. I remember seeing that the next day in the news bulletins.

—Hugues Lavoie

The suspension of Maurice Richard for all series in 1955, a total injustice based on prejudice and politics.

—Yves Lachance

There is no doubt that the greatest injustice goes to the supporters of the Montreal Expos… In 1994, we are first, an incredible team… The players declare the strike… It was the beginning of the end! We can’t guess from the story, but we would certainly have been entitled to great baseball, we were rather entitled to the dismantling of the team which will lead to its move… From the top of the rankings to the absence of professional baseball, it there is injustice!

—Simon Poirier

The greatest injustice is, in my eyes, and by far, the discriminatory treatment of women’s sport, amateur and professional alike. Examples abound. According to UNESCO, 40% of the sporting population is female, but women receive only 4% of media coverage. NBA players receive some 50% of their league’s revenue while their fellow WNBA players receive 22.8%. In 2020, according to Forbes, only one athlete ranked among the 50 highest paid athletes in the world, Naomi Osaka (29^and). It was not until 2007 that the organizers of the Wimbledon tennis tournament decided to offer equal financial bonuses to female and male athletes. The World Surf League did the same in 2012. Too few examples, it goes without saying.

—Claude Laporte

Perhaps not the greatest injustice in sports history, but certainly one of the greatest in international hockey. In 1972, during the famous Series of the Century. After five games, the first four in Canada and the first of four in the USSR, Canada’s record is one win, three losses and one draw. There were then three games left in the USSR and the Soviets only needed one more win, or two draws, to claim the series. During the sixth match, John Ferguson, assistant coach of Canada and former hard badass of the CH, whispers in the ear of Bobby Clarke, proud “Broad Street Bully”, that Valeri Kharlamov, one of the best players in the world at the time , would really need a “smack” on an ankle. Message well received, Clarke then fractured Kharlamov’s ankle bone, holding his stick in both hands like an axe, in a voluntary, premeditated, violent and terribly ugly gesture. In addition to being handicapped to complete this sixth game, Kharlamov will then miss the seventh game and return for the eighth, but a shadow of his former self. Would Canada have won the Series of the Century without this tactic worthy of organized crime? Maybe not. This should never be forgotten when speaking of the Canadian “victory”.

—Donald St-Pierre

A settlement can sometimes be the source of great injustice! Argentinian golfer Roberto De Vicenzo officially finished one stroke behind winner Bob Goalby in the 1968 Masters Tournament. a score of 66 instead of the 65 he had actually played! The regulations of the time were ruthless: impossible to correct the error. He thus lost the chance to play a playoff round against Goalby the next day. The poor man’s reaction has become a classic. ” What a stupid I am “, he said after the tournament.

— Guy Regnier