At its very purest level, sport is physical exercise. It’s a way to get your heart pumping, your blood flowing, and your muscles strengthened. Playing sports is also a way to channel your competitive energy, by trying to prove you’re faster, stronger, more agile, or more skilled than your friends, teammates, or opponents.
But, above all of this, sport is a story. A head-to-head battle between two (or more) teams or athletes who push their physical, mental, and emotional limits to the edge in their quest for glory.
At a professional level, when global fame and great fortunes are at stake, tensions can boil over for these athletes leading to outbursts, both physical and verbal. Similar behaviour can be seen in their respective fans who will often share in the triumphs and tribulations both at the games in person and watching at home on TV.
All of these elements add to the story and they provide opportunities for photographers to capture the waves of emotions being experienced by both sides. Some stories get lost to time but others are so compelling and memorable that they acquire their own level of fame.
Poker – The First WSOP Winner
The World Series of Poker is, today, the biggest live poker tournament in the world. It attracts thousands of players who dream of beating the biggest and best names in the sport and to claim a coveted WSOP bracelet.
Many of these aspiring poker pros get their start online using digital card rooms. Some of the biggest of these sites offer qualification routes into the WSOP, usually in the form of tournaments with the prize being a ticket to the main event in Las Vegas.
This was popularised by the popular platform PokerStars, which offers its players a wide range of different poker variants and game types, catering to all skill levels. Back in 2003, it ran the first qualification tournament through which an online player would go on to win the WSOP Main Event. This monumental piece of history helped to spark huge interest in both the sport and playing online that lives on today.
But in 1970, this wasn’t the case. This was the year of the inaugural tournament which took place at Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas. It was a much smaller affair, so small in fact, the winner was decided by a vote cast by all the players, rather than the free-out tournament format used now.
That winner was Johnny Moss. At 62, he had already been playing poker for quite some time but age didn’t get in his way. His win was immortalised in a now famous photo of Moss, another player, and Becky Binion, the daughter of the WSOP organiser. It shows just how different the event was back then, with no sponsors, no ‘bling’, and no carefully practised poses.
Athletics – Usain Bolt Cruises to Victory
Usain Bolt is the undisputed fasted person alive, holding the record for the fasted 100m sprint. He also holds a hattrick of hattricks, having won three gold medals at three separate Olympic Games.
This was immortalised in a photo from the Rio Olympics in which he’s captured several strides in front of his competition. This on its own shows just how much faster Bolt is compared to many other top athletes but the picture reveals much more of this story.
There are four faces visible in the frame, Bolt’s and three other runners. The trailing three are looking forward, laser-focused on the finish line, and clearly pushing their bodies to the limit. Bolt, on the other hand, looks relaxed, has turned to face the camera, and is smiling.
So not only is he winning, he’s doing so with barely any effort on his part.
Formula 1 – Michael Schumacher / David Coulthard Bust Up
Formula 1 is a sport where the cars run fast and the emotions run high. Driving on the edge, lap after lap, risking life and limb in the pursuit of glory can force these emotions to begin to simmer.
The 1998 Belgian Grand Prix was very much one of these occasions. The Spa Franchorchamps circuit is regarded as being one of the best, most exciting, and most dangerous tracks on the F1 calendar and that danger compounds when the Belgian clouds burst over the track.
The race began and immediately stopped again after more than half of the drivers crashed into each other within metres of the start line thanks to low visibility creating a chain reaction of collisions.
This turned up the heat on an already hot pan with Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen locked in a close battle for the championship with just four races left to run. Hakkinen had retired from the race in that first lap accident and, following the restart, Schumacher was leading by over 30 seconds on lap 24.
However, when attempting to lap David Coulthard, the teammate of Hakkinen, Schumacher ran into the back of him, ending both their races. Schumacher then limped his car back to the pits, furiously threw himself out of the car, and stormed down the pitlane to confront Coulthard.
The German came close to punching the Scot, accusing him of trying to kill him. Thankfully, the situation was defused by the mechanics from both teams, but the whole affair was captured on camera, leaving us with shots of a snarling Michael Schumacher that have gone down in motor racing history.
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