Being a professional athlete seems like the best ticket to a wealthy life of fame and adoring fans. But it takes effort unlike any other. You have to actually be good at a certain sport. And everyone knows that in order to be a good athlete you have to put in hours and hours of work, always stay in shape and keep being the best in your field to stay where you are. It’s hard work, but the payoff seems worth it. However, nothing is more fragile than an athlete’s careers, an injury could set you back for years and in some cases can take you out of the game forever. That’s probably every professional athlete’s nightmare. However, there are some who have lost their career in a matter of seconds in worse ways than that. There’s a whole list of athletes who ruined their career because of their own stupid actions.
1. Lamar Odom
Lamar has enjoyed a very successful NBA career and 14 years in the league, which is quite a long time. But he’s had a lot of issues with drugs, which probably had an effect on his fitness levels and sports achievements. After his career ended that drug problem only continued, and at one point he was even found unconscious in a brothel. He recovered but his career never did.
2. Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods was such a legend until his career went up in flames due to his cheating scandal. Once it was revealed that he cheated on his wife, and over a hundred women said they’ve slept with him, all the sponsors dropped him, his marriage ended and his career was never the same. He publicly apologized, reached a settlement with his wife and even went to rehab for his sex addiction but it was just never the same after that.
3. Lance Armstrong
Being a professional cyclist was synonymous with Lance Armstrong for so many years. You literally couldn’t hear about Tour De France and not mention Lance Armstrong. He even won an Olympic bronze medal. But all that came crashing down once it was revealed that he was doping in order to achieve such results. In the end, he was stripped of his Olympic medal and lost all of his Tour De France titles.
4. O.J. Simpson
This is probably the most famous of cases when a sports career went up in flames. It all went wrong when his ex-wife and friend were murdered. He was charged with first-degree murder and refused to admit to it, the trial was long and heavily televised. It was all super suspicious and evidence pointed to him being guilty but the expensive lawyers Simpson hired got him off the charge at the end of 8 months of trial. He wasn’t found guilty in the criminal trial, but 2 years later he was pronounced liable for the wrongful death of his ex-wife and friend in civil court. As you can imagine – no one comes back from that.
5. Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson was a big name in boxing. Having grown up in a rough part of Brooklyn, boxing was a golden ticket for Mike. He became really famous and popular, but then he was convicted of raping a college student and was sentenced to 10 years of prison, in the end, his sentence got cut down to 3 years. Tyson still claims he’s not guilty.
6. Tonya Harding
Tonya was a promising figure skater, but her career ended when her ex-husband and his friend orchestrated an attack on another figure skater who was Tonya’s competitor. They injured her leg in the lead up to the winter Olympics, so that she wouldn’t stand a chance. The ex-husband and his friends went to jail. Tonya originally pretended she knew nothing of this plan, but in the end, admitted to being part of it and knowing the plot, she did community service and paid a fine. The injured skater, Nancy Kerrigan, got better and won the silver medal.
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