Tempting Fate/Real Life/Sports

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Examples of Tempting Fate in Sports include:

  • Baseball: On August 12, 1951, with his Brooklyn Dodgers sitting comfortably on a 12½-game lead in the NL standings over the rival New York Giants and having just completed a three-game sweep of the latter team, manager Chuck Dressen happily declared, "The Giants is dead!" By the time the season ended on September 30, the Giants had tied Brooklyn in the standings, forcing a three-game playoff series which ended in Bobby Thomson's immortal "Shot Heard 'Round the World" to give the Giants the pennant.
  • In Britain, this sort of thing is sometimes known as the Murray Walker Curse, after the Formula One commentator who had a reputation for observing that a particular driver's victory was inevitable mere moments before their car suffered some catastrophic failure that put them out of the race. Frequently led to commentary along the lines of "Unless I'm very much mistaken... I am very much mistaken!"
    • Walker himself called this the "commentator's curse," saying that it happens to everybody in his profession, but pop culture particularly associates it with him.
    • American sportscaster Curt Gowdy was sufficiently known for this that the term "getting Curt Gowdyed" became part of the sports vernacular here in the 1960s and '70s, and is still occasionally used today.
  • Figure skating: Michelle Kwan, heading into the 2002 Winter Olympics having choreographed a program to the song "Fields of Gold" as the massive, overwhelming favorite. She promptly fell in the final round to slip from a gold to a bronze medal. What makes it worse? She should have known better, after having ALREADY lost as a heavy favorite in the final round four years earlier in the 1998 Olympics.
  • Soccer: Brazilian team Cruzeiro was in the Copa Libertadores final against Estudiantes, a team which they met in group stage. First game of the finals, a draw in Argentina. Second and final game is at home, a draw gives the title, the game during the group stage ended 3-0. So, the team president did a reunion to discuss the player's prizes, and the supporters went mad, making "Champion" ribbons -- one even started paying the ticket to Dubai, where the FIFA Club World Cup would occur! In the actual game, Cruzeiro scored first, but Estudiantes went on to win 2-1.
  • Rugby: This advert proclaimed England to be the 2011 Grand Slam winners in the six nations. For those not in the know, the six nations is an annual tournament between England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy. A country wins a grand slam when they win all their matches. Trouble is, it was made before their final match against Ireland. Ireland won by 24-8.
  • Australian Rules Football: Speaking at the 2010 Grand Final Breakfast, following the hung parliament in that year's election, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, "Please, we cannot have a draw!". Guess what happened?
  • "Commentator's Curse" (complimenting a player on their performance right before they screw up) is an established technical term among BBC commentators (also quite prevalent Stateside, esp. among commentators talking about field goal kickers). A typical exchange would be:

Guest commentator: Davis really is producing some brilliant snooker tonight.
[player misses a colour off the spot]
Main commentator: That's a nice case of commentator's curse you've got yourself there, Gerald.

    • In January 2012, ESPN covered a Clippers game in back-to-back weeks. In both games, color commentator Hubie Brown mentioned Clippers guard Chauncey Billups being among the top-5 leaders in free throw percentage in NBA history as Billups headed to the line. In both games, Billups missed the very first FT after Hubie put the whammy on him, something lampshaded by his play-by-play partner Mike Tirico.
  • In January 1973, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau said "The Montreal Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby". Cue the 1976 Montreal Olympics going $1.6 billion into debt, which wasn't paid off until 2006.
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