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Home / Sport / Olympics

Top 5 Olympic celebrations

Herald online
9 Aug, 2012 11:33 PM4 mins to read

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Saori Yoshida does a backflip after winning gold medal during their 55-kg women's freestyle wrestling. Photo / AP

Saori Yoshida does a backflip after winning gold medal during their 55-kg women's freestyle wrestling. Photo / AP

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Athletes spend four years in pain building up to the Olympics. They torture themselves with constant gruelling training sessions and crazy diets; doing the same thing over and over until their skills are honed to near-perfection. So it's understandable that when they win gold, some of them get a little out of control.

The incredible hulk
German discus thrower Robert Harting won gold. Then the drama really began.

The two-metre-tall muscle bound giant's celebration started with him ripping his shirt off like the Incredible Hulk, letting out a blood curdling roar and grabbing the nearest German flag.

He then hurled his 127kg frame over nearly all the hurdles in the adjacent women's 100m course before heading to the Olympic cauldron and unsuccessfully trying to extricate one of its burning torches.

Undeterred, he gathered some friends and left the stadium for what was by all accounts an extraordinary bender on board a docked cruise liner.

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His night ended with him being robbed after falling asleep on a train, losing his accreditation and getting denied entrance to the Olympic Village.

'Puuh i just got robbed while I did some work to please athletic fans! I lost all my accredition [sic] for Olympic Village! - no entrance," he tweeted.

Serena's controversial crip walk
Serena Williams had just become the second woman in history to win a career golden slam - adding a gold medal to her titles in all four tennis majors.

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She went to the side of the court, raised her hands above her head and launched into a Crip Walk.

Her sister Venus was delighted. Conservative commentators were less impressed.

Reporter Jason Whitlock said performing a dance popularised by 1970s Crip gang members on the hallowed grass of Wimbledon was "immature and classless".

"What Serena did was akin to cracking a tasteless, X-rated joke inside a church," he said.

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Fox Sports' Reid Forgrave criticised Serena for "Crip-Walking all over the most lily-white place in the world".

They may have hated it, but Serena's dancing gained approval from one of the world's foremost Crip gang members - rapper Snoop Dogg,

"Shot out to Serena williams. C walking at the Olympics Cpt style hahahahah! Go girl," he tweeted.

For that she earns second place on the list of golden Olympic celebrations.

Backflips and piggybacks
Saori Yoshida has won every international competition she's entered since 2002, including three consecutive gold medals.

That didn't stop her pulling out a celebration for the ages after her win in the women's 55-kg freestyle wrestling competition.

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The acrobatic Japanese legend back flipped and cartwheeled across the canvas after beating Tonya Lynn Verbeek for gold.

She then tracked down her coaches, body-slamming one and hoisting another onto her shoulders, the Japanese flag flying high above their heads.

Doing it for the motherland
Kim Un Guk celebrated each backbreaking effort on his way to gold in the 65kg weightlifting at London.

After each successful lift, the North Korean champion's arms and legs flayed out to either side and his manically grinning face protruded forward.

He then launched into a star jump. That was followed by a series of fist pumps and a scream, none higher or louder than when he found out he had won.

Guk won gold with a world record total lift. But he could never have picked up the heavy things without the support of his supreme leader.

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"The secret is nothing but the support and encouragement from our supreme leader chairman Kim Jong-un, because he expects so much for all our athletes and he expects the highest performance from all our athletes," he told North Korean media.

Eric Murray erupts
Something came over Kiwi rowing great Eric Murray after a gold medal was hung around his neck at Eton Dorney.

The 29-year-old champion rower from Hastings walked forward a few steps, lifted both arms above his head and roared.

The picture of his screaming face raised to the sky will be a lasting London Olympics memory for all New Zealanders.

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