From 'forgotten' Federer to hot dog heroics

A look back at six of the best offbeat sports stories that 2022 served up

After the hiatus of the COVID-19 years, the world of sports leaped out of the traps in 2022 to make up for lost time.

A Winter Olympics and World Cups in men's soccer, Twenty20 cricket, women's rugby union, men's and women's — and wheelchair — rugby league, as well as the women's Euros made for a busy 12 months, not to mention a full program of individual sports.

All serious stuff that filled the front and back pages. However, there were a number of other tales that were a touch lighter.

This is AFP's 'Six of the Best' bizarre stories to have touched the world of sports in 2022.

Bug-eyed Djoko

Scientists in Serbia created quite the buzz when they named a newly discovered insect species after tennis star Novak Djokovic, due to the bug's "speed and tenacity".

Biologist Nikola Vesovic described the insect on Instagram as "a specialized, blind, subterranean ground beetle found in a pit near the town of Ljubovija" in the west of the country.

"It is very quick and eats other small animals," he told AFP. "It is a predator in its underground environment, just as Novak is a kind of predator on the tennis courts."

It is the second such honor to be bestowed on Djokovic who has a habit of swotting away opponents on the court — a couple of months earlier a freshwater snail in Montenegro was also named after him.

Cellphone ban

Ugandan prison staff were banned from using their cellphones during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, apparently because inmates might exploit the "excitement" surrounding the soccer tournament to escape.

Frank Mayanja Baine, spokesman for the country's commissioner general of prisons, said that the prison officers' phones might "distract attention and interfere with the level of alertness".

Their cellphones obviously did not have enough bars.

Roger who?

In his heyday, he was one of the most famous sporting faces in the world. Three months after his retirement, however, it seems Roger Federer is a forgotten man — at least in London SW19.

That's the postcode of the All England Club where Federer won the Wimbledon championships eight times.

That, however, counted for nothing to a zealous security guard who refused the great man entry as he went in search of a cup of tea because he didn't have his membership card.

"I'm like, 'Uh, we have one?'" Federer told American TV program The Daily Show.

"Because when you win Wimbledon, you become a member automatically.

"Honestly, I don't know about membership cards. They're probably at home somewhere.

"I look at her one last time and I'm in a panic now...And I say, 'I have won this tournament eight times, please believe me, I am a member and where do I get in?'"

Federer was finally allowed in at another gate thanks to the intervention of a member of the public who vouched for his record on the famous grass courts.

Record scratched

Cricket bible Wisden ruffled feathers when it announced that it was cutting two of WG Grace's centuries which it no longer considers first-class.

Given that the good doctor, arguably the sporting superstar of the 19th century, died 107 years ago in 1915, one might wonder who cares. Not WG at any rate.

It does mean, however, that his historic 100th century is no longer deemed to be the one he scored for Gloucestershire against Somerset — much celebrated at the time — on May 17, 1895, instead coming with no fanfare against Middlesex at Lord's two weeks later.

The change does not appear to have damaged the memorabilia market, though, with original souvenir plates, issued in 1895 to commemorate the feat, still selling on eBay for 1,020 pounds ($1,250).

Skiing in the sand

With the world trying to work out how to combat global warming, it may be that Saudi Arabia has found the answer: turn the deserts to snow.

That appears to be the plan at least after Saudi — which, let's be clear, has an average temperature by the coast of 27 to 38 Celsius — was chosen to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games.

It will be held at an under-construction $500-billion futuristic desert megacity that planners say will feature a year-round winter sports complex.

Hungry for glory

Just as the French play petanque and the English knuckle down to their marbles, so the Americans eat their hot dogs.

Boy, do they eat hot dogs. So much so that Joey 'Jaws' Chestnut wolfed down 63 — buns included — in just 10 minutes, to win the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island in New York.

Multiple champion Chestnut apologized to the crowd, though, as he fell some way short of the 76 he crammed down in 2020.

"Joey Chestnut is a force from beyond who defies the laws of physics," said competition host George Shea, who added that the contest is "arguably the most iconic sporting event in American history".

Miki Sudo, who missed last year's contest because she was pregnant, won the women's event with 40, eight shy of her own record.

AFP