From heroes to zeroes

Foxes' fall from grace just the latest in long litany of sporting meltdowns

Leicester City's shambolic defense of its Premier League title leaves it in serious danger of relegation, but the Foxes would not be the first fairytale sporting success to quickly descend into a nightmare. Here are five other examples:

1 Cricket - Ashes to ashes: In a bizarre piece of scheduling, two Ashes series were contested in 2013.

England generally outplayed Australia in the series it hosted, winning 3-0 and coming close to a first ever 4-0 success. That Aussie side was labeled the worst to have toured England. Months later, England returned home shellshocked as the revitalized Aussies - not far removed from the same group humiliated earlier in the year - turned things round in remarkable fashion and whitewashed the tourist 5-0 Down Under in a series that stretched into 2014. Until the recent 4-0 series loss to India, it was probably the lowest point of the four-and-a-half-year tenure of captain Alastair Cook, who resigned last week to be replaced by Joe Root.

2 Boxing - Buster blows up: James 'Buster' Douglas tamed the fearsome Mike Tyson in their 1990 world heavyweight title bout when the 42/1 outsider scored one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. But Douglas, whose preparation was upset by the death of his mother, was unable to summon up that same intensity nearly a year later as his first defense ended in a third-round KO loss to Evander Holyfield. The only intensity he came up with was to balloon in size till he came close to dying. That sparked him out of his lassitude, but despite winning several bouts on returning to the ring there was never a likelihood he would regain the golden touch that for just one memorable night in Japan earned him his place in the history books.

3 Soccer - Merkel's mistake: Nuremberg made sporting headlines in 1968 when it captured the Bundesliga title under the guidance of coach Max Merkel. However, Merkel, unlike Claudio Ranieri with his Leicester squad this season, didn't retain faith in his league winners. Many were sold, including top scorer Franz Brungs, as Merkel brought in 11 fresh faces. However, it backfired in catastrophic fashion as Nuremberg, currently in Germany's second tier, struggled from the start and Merkel was fired with several matches remaining. His departure did not stop the rot, and relegation followed at the end of the season.

4 Golf - Aussie's sob story: Debonair Australian golfer Ian Baker-Finch looked to be on the trajectory to greater things when he captured the 1991 British Open at age 31. But it proved to be the peak as his game plummeted at top speed into the equivalent of Dante's Inferno. He won a couple of times on the less competitive Australian tour, but in the cauldron of the PGA Tour and the majors he was utterly drained of confidence. Baker-Finch reached his nadir in the 1997 British Open, where he shot an opening 92 and broke down in tears in the locker room before announcing tournament golf was over for him. "I felt like I was walking naked, like the grass was taller than me," Baker-Finch told the Golf Today website. "I tried to walk with my head high, but it was really hard."

5 Racing - Coin flip: Unglamorous 100/1 shot Norton's Coin rode to a fairytale win in the 1990 Cheltenham Gold Cup, steeplechasing's premier event. The gelding's trainer, Welsh dairy farmer Sirrell Griffiths, had only two other horses in his stable, which greatly impressed Britain's Queen Mother, an avid racing fan who presented the trophy. "She said to me, 'I think it's marvelous to think that you've only got two horses and you can win a race like this," recalled Griffiths in 2015. Norton's Coin won just once in 18 more starts. Not even legendary jockey Lester Piggott could conjure some magic out of him when he ran over the flat at Royal Ascot.