Ayrton Senna was more than just the greatest racing driver who ever lived. He made cars dance. One rival said he made cars move like raindrops on a pavement. So good, he made us all poets. But there wasn't anything poetic about Senna’s death. There usually isn’t in motor racing. 

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Duncan Edwards was the complete footballer. A comic-book hero leaping into the sports pages. He could’ve changed it all. Could've been the greatest footballer of all time. But we never got to find out. It was all lost in a mess of snow and fire and broken steel on a frozen German runway. 

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When you think about how Diego Maradona lived, and died - when you think about how he’s remembered, why there’s so much love and hate - it all comes down to the story of few short years in the city of Naples. How he came back, the miracles he pulled off, the price he paid. He gets higher than anyone else, and he falls faster. That’s Diego.

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Hansie Cronje was South Africa’s captain, endorsed by Nelson Mandela. But he was also a scam artist, mixing with criminals. His story has lies, greed, bribery, threats, corruption and ultimately a plane crash that ended his life.

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"Sarah's the reason we're all here. Without Sarah, none of us would be Olympians" - that's what Sarah Burke did for her sport, even after her death. She was a trailblazer, a daredevil and a star of the X Games.

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WARNING: this episode contains references to suicide.

Robert Enke needs to talk. But it's harder than it looks. Especially with all that baggage from the past and worries about the future. He's the kid from East Germany who made it to the Bundesliga. But he's also the man who's tormented by inner-demons - even if you can't quite see it.

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We all know that old line about football and life and death. But in Colombia in the 1990s - run by drug cartels - nothing makes sense. And when a footballer for the national side makes a critical mistake, the repercussions will echo around the world.

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Vitas Gerulaitis is the New York native turned global celebrity. The immigrant outsider shaking up an establishment sport. Living as large as the Times Square billboards. But when the money is spent, and the momentum slows, what’s left? And when you live as fast as Vitas, can you hold fast to anything?

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WARNING: this episode contains references to murder and suicide.

In professional wrestling, you don’t know where fantasy ends and reality starts. But Chris Benoit was a method actor. He liked realness. And after years of drugs and injuries, that had deadly consequences.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues spoken about in this podcast, please go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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If you were asked to design a super-hero to save America, he’d probably look like Pat. But what Pat looks like and who he really is are two very different things. He reads poetry and the Qur'an and the Communist Manifesto. He fights tooth and nail to make it in the NFL, so how did he end up giving it all up to join the army and risk getting killed?

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