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PARIS - Question: What have the All Blacks, Czech tennis player Jana Novotna, NFL side the Buffalo Bills and a host of red-faced English footballers got in common?
Answer: When the pressure's on, they've all choked and the meltdown has been public, painful and impossible to forget.
Just ask New Zealand's rugby players.
They routinely trample all before them but when the World Cup comes round every four years, the All Blacks are all a tremble.
Overwhelming favourites once again, the world's most complete side crashed out of the 2007 edition 20-18 to France on Saturday.
New Zealand rugby commentator Murray Deaker said the result, the first time the All Blacks have failed to make the semifinals, was a disaster.
"Sadly we are a dumb rugby nation, we don't play the big matches well," he said.
"We were a bunch of boofheads. On the big occasions we choke."
It's no comfort to the All Blacks, but they are not alone.
Step forward the Buffalo Bills who reached four successive Super Bowls from 1991-1994 and lost them all - 20-19 to the New York Giants, 37-24 to Washington and twice to Dallas, 52-17 and 30-13.
"Sometimes the weight of a quarterback winning the Super Bowl is too great," said the Bills' Jim Kelly, the only quarterback to lose four Super Bowls.
At least tennis player Jana Novotna became a champion but it was a painful road to the Wimbledon title.
In 1993 Novotna led Steffi Graf 6-7 6-1 4-1 (40-15) in the women's final.
But suddenly her nerve failed her and Graf reeled off five games in a row to snatch the title and leave Novotna to famously sob on the Duchess of Kent's shoulder in the middle of Centre Court.
"Jana, I believe that you will do it, I know that you will do it, don't worry," the Duchess told Novotna, whose frail temperament had earned her the nickname of "No-No-Novotna".
She did do it, five years later with a 6-4 7-6 win against French veteran Nathalie Tauziat.
For Wakefield Trinity rugby league player Don Fox, there was not to be a second chance.
In the 1968 Challenge Cup final at Wembley, Fox collapsed after missing a simple conversion in front of the posts that would have given his unheralded side victory over mighty Leeds with the last kick of the game.
His team lost by one point.
"I won the man-of-the-match award that day, but nobody never mentions that. They only remember me as that old lad who missed that goal," said Fox.
The miss was voted one of the top 10 television sports moments in a recent poll along with TV commentator Eddie Waring's memorable description - "He's missed it, the poor lad".
English footballers have made a habit of missing vital kicks losing penalty shoot-outs in European championships and World Cups while South Africa's cricketers twice threw away winning World Cup winning positions.
In 1999, a bizarre run-out led to defeat in the semifinals to Australia while, on home soil in 2003, they were knocked out by Sri Lanka when they misread the rain rules.
On the world's golf courses, there is no hiding place as Frenchman Jean van de Velde knows only too well.
He was on his way to winning the British Open at Carnoustie in 1999 but he blew a three-shot lead, carded a triple-bogey seven at the 72nd and final hole and lost a play-off to Paul Lawrie.
The abiding image is of the Frenchman wading in the water of the Barry Burn, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, trying desperately to retrieve his ball.
"I look at it now and I smile," says van de Velde.
Three years earlier, Greg Norman squandered a six-shot lead to lose the Masters to Nick Faldo by five strokes.
"Obviously, I didn't play as well as I could," said the Australian.
"Things just didn't go my way."
- AFP
