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Playing through the pain

Wayne 'Buck' Shelford is not someone whose masculinity can be questioned © Getty Images

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If professional sport is ultimately all about winning, then perhaps it is unsurprising the lengths some players will go in the pursuit of success. The pinnacle of fitness might be a requirement of most mere mortals in order to achieve anything of note in their game of choice, but throughout history a number of special individuals have overcome otherwise excruciating injuries to achieve their goals in seemingly super-human fashion.

So after Rafael Nadal tried (but failed) to play through the pain barrier in his Australian Open quarter-final defeat to David Ferrer this week, ESPN thought it was time to look back on ten of the most impressive displays of sporting resilience...

Buck Shelford
'Hardness', thy name is Buck. Wayne 'Buck' Shelford was a dominating No. 8 for New Zealand at the best of times, but in 1986 - still just starting out in his All Blacks career - he really showed his credentials as one of the most formidable and fearless sportsman in the world. Thrust into a particularly violent ruck in a Test match against France, an errant opposition boot managed to catch Shelford across the groin, leaving one of his testicles hanging loose. Leaving the field under his own steam having also lost four teeth in a punch that preceded his suffering, Shelford held his crown jewels in place as he casually asked the physio to stitch him up and get him back out on the field. That the physio achieved - although it would prove a particularly futile repair job as Shelford would be knocked out of the game with concussion soon after. To this day the Rotorua-born remembers nothing of that game. Probably for the best.

Ronaldo
Unlike some other stories on this list, in this instance playing through the pain didn't exactly bring a worthwhile result. A revelation in France at the 1998 World Cup (having been a wide-eyed but unheralded squad member in Brazil's victory four years earlier), Ronaldo was deemed crucial to his country's chances of victory in the final against the hosts. Unfortunately, in circumstances still disputed over 12 years later, that proved to be the case. Whether it was an epileptic fit, an anxiety attack, an adverse reaction to medication or something more sinister, something was sufficiently wrong with Ronaldo on the day of the final for him to be left off the initial teamsheet for the game. Added back in at the last minute to widespread surprise, as rumours abounded about his issues, Ronaldo was a shadow of himself in a game the French thoroughly dominated. The holders had no answer for Zinedine Zidane and his side, eventually slumping to a 3-0 victory. Would things have been different had Ronaldo been left out - or even if 'O fenomeno' had been fully fit? We will never know - although Ronaldo did get his revenge in 2002 as he scored both the goals in the final to finally win a World Cup for his country.

Denis Compton
As a man with the temerity - well, ability - to play both football and cricket at the very highest level, Denis Compton unsurprisingly went through his career suffering from a series of ailments that always threatened to hold him back. The worst of them, a persistent knee complaint, would even result in the removal of his knee cap at the end of his career in 1955. Before then, however, Compton was a master of self-discipline, pushing through the pain of his damaged leg to play cup finals for Arsenal and Ashes-winning innings for England. It was on the way to one of the latter in 1948 that the legendary sportsman arguably showed his greatest determination - a deep cut to his face sustained from a bouncer early in his innings adding to his woes, but not preventing him from being stitched up and compiling an unbeaten 145 at Trent Bridge that would have won the Test had the weather not intervened. Two years later he would help the Gunners win the FA Cup with his knee subject to more tape than a series of Big Brother. A true giant of a man.

Bert Trautmann
Arguably the poster-boy for superhuman feats of sporting perseverance, Trautmann famously played the majority of the 1956 FA Cup final with a broken neck. That would be a resilient enough act for an outfielder (especially in the days when there were no substitutes) but Trautmann was City's award-winning goalkeeper. After being left dazed and confused following a collision with Birmingham's Peter Murphy, not only did the German-born shot-stopper survive the final 15 minutes of the game, he made a number of crucial saves to keep the opposition at bay and preserve City's 3-1 win. Trautmann collected his medal, attended the evening banquet and suffered through a night's fitful sleep before he eventually decided to pay the doctor a visit. Only then did the diagnosis - five dislocated vertebrae, one of which had been broken - bring home exactly the pain he had been under.

Tazio Nuvolari was a driver who wouldn't let something as trivial as a cast on his leg prevent him from racing © Getty Images

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Tazio Nuvolari
The Italian - widely regarded among his peers as the greatest driver they ever saw - was also, not to put too fine a point on it, completely crazy. As a motorcycle rider he once raced in a specially modified cast after suffering lacerations to his back, and in a later four-wheel race around the hills of Italy he turned off his headlights in order to sneak up and overtake the complacent (and unaware) leader. The former was a trick he'd repeat as a Formula One driver in 1934; after breaking his leg in a crash he quickly began complaining of boredom, and just four weeks after sustaining his injury decided to enter a race in Germany. With the cast still on and his Maserati altered so Nuvolari could control all three pedals with his left leg, the Italian put in a very respectable display and eventually finished the race fifth. It could have been higher too - if he hadn't struggled horribly with cramp in his one fit (and overworked) leg.

AP McCoy
No rehabilitation from injury is easy, but champion jockey Tony McCoy went to extraordinary lengths to ensure he would return from a serious back injury to compete at the Cheltenham Festival in 2008. McCoy subjected himself to temperatures of minus 149C in a specially modified chamber in order to accelerate the recovery of his back and make it back in time for the big event. "Cheltenham is the highlight of the year," McCoy said, by way of explanation.

David Haye
Before the birth of Jesus David may have beaten Goliath - but he did it with a trusty stone and sling, not a broken hand. That was the impressive condition in which the second David, Haye, managed to beat Nikolai Valuev - unoriginally called 'Goliath' due to his daunting height. Attempting to punch the seven-foot slab of granite, Haye cracked his right hand in "either the first or second round", having already tweaked his elbow inside the first three minutes. Undaunted, the Englishman circled his Russian opponent for the rest of the fight, picking him off with quick jabs from his working left hand when the opportunity arose. A disciplined display was enough to give him a unanimous points victory and the WBA Heavyweight belt - who needs a sling?

Terry Butcher
If Trautmann is the poster boy for footballers playing through the pain, then Terry Butcher surely isn't far behind. The England captain led by example as the Three Lions searched desperately for the point they needed to qualify for the 1990 World Cup against Sweden, continuing to play on after suffering a deep cut to his head early in game. Persisting in heading the ball throughout the rest of the 90 minutes - a decision that repelled Swedish attacks, but also continually re-opened his hastily-created stitches - Butcher eventually saw the game out and helped win the all-important point England needed. Pictures of Butcher afterwards, wide-eyed and with a shirt covered in blood, would quickly become iconic. Unsurprisingly.

Jim Peters
As a general rule of thumb, running 26 miles on uncompromising and undulating tarmac generally takes some sort of toll or another on the body. But for Jim Peters, competing in the 1954 Commonwealth Games, such effort all began too much to bear. Running in the sweltering Vancouver heat (whose idea was that?), Peters set a remarkable time as he entered the stadium for the final few laps of the race a full 15 minutes (around three miles) ahead of his nearest competitor. Unfortunately, Peters was utterly spent - suffering with horrible heatstroke and dehydrated to the point of exhaustion having not so much as had a sip of water since starting out. Collapsing after entering the stadium, he picked himself up, staggered on a few steps and then fell again in an agonising pattern that went on for 15 minutes and saw him cover only a handful of metres. Eventually - still some way short of the finish line, although it was later suggested the course was incorrectly measured - he was rushed to hospital, and would subsequently retire from the sport. "I could never forget what I suffered in the sun - it cost me my killer instinct," he said afterwards.

Even in victory, Tiger Woods continued to smile through the pain © Getty Images

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Tiger Woods
Woods - unsurprisingly for someone who has won 14 majors at this point in time - has a career littered with breathtaking performances and memorable triumphs, but his victory in the 2008 US Open might just top the lot. Competing in just his second tournament after undergoing surgery following the Masters earlier in the year, Woods teed off at Torrey Pines having only just returned from the repair of his anterior cruciate ligament, a provess that had not been completely successful. It was an unfortunate coincidence, then, that the tournament would go on to be the toughest test of his professional career. Woods, soon revealing the ligament remained torn, winced and screamed his way through the 72 holes, ultimately holing a clutch 10-footer on the last to make his way into a playoff with qualifier Rocco Mediate. The pair returned on Monday for an 18-hole playoff, as the rules dictated, with Woods once again playing off virtually one leg as he bid to shake off his well-liked challenger. That he would struggle to do, again needing to birdie the last to match Mediate's 71 and force a sudden-death playoff. Fortunately that wouldn't drag out too long - Woods winning on the first extra hole and declaring it his greatest ever victory.

"I don't know how it even got this far but I'm very, very fortunate to have played 91 holes and come out on top," Woods said afterwards. "I think this is the best, just because of all the things I had to deal with. I dealt with a few things this week and just had to keep plugging along. It's unbelievable."

Two days later, Woods revealed what those 'few things' actually were. He had played the entire tournament with a double stress fracture of his left leg, injuries sustained during his rehab from the earlier problems. Rehab on that, and surgery to again repair his ACL, would keep him out of action for the rest of the season.

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