The Olympic Games are many things, but when it comes to sporting competitions, anything can happen. As the world’s top athletes test themselves against the best on sport’s biggest international stage, audiences around the world can only tune in with bated breath. Sure, there are those athletes we always want to win and will support through anything, but there’s also the underdog – the person everyone thought wouldn’t make, the story that’s as surprising as it is heartwarming, the tale of challenges and overcoming obstacles simply to make it to the very starting line.
If sports are a theatre of triumph and celebration, they are also one of heartbreak and searing loss. It’s what makes it all so human. There, be it on track, field, or in the swimming pool and arena, we see the human spirit in all its glory. For the athletes, nothing is ever guaranteed and as we’ve seen over the years, across a range of sporting disciplines and events, upsets can always threaten to steal victory from the “safe bet”.
From team events to individual competition, athletes have come from unbelievable circumstances to clinch victory in upsets that have become as iconic as they are memorable. As the Tokyo 2020 Games gets underway in coming days, we’re looking back at some of those moments that left the world stunned and shocked into silence, those scenes where the underdog triumphed, where the upset came to rewrite the Olympic narrative.
These are six of the biggest upsets in Olympic history.