40 Sports Photos That Athletes Don’t Want Us Seeing

Timing is everything, especially when it comes to sports photography. The click of a camera at the right time can capture anything from moments of disaster to moments of complete and utter athletic perfection. The painstaking hard work these athletes go through and the crazy risks they take are all revealed with a snapshot of the most epic millisecond. These moments range from a ball to the face, or some contact that is a little bit too close for comfort when out on the court.

Keep scrolling to see some of your favorite athletes in some rather compromising positions- You are guaranteed to laugh out loud, when you see these athletes caught on candid camera by the sports photographers on the field with them.

Ball Games

Tennis requires a lot of concentration. You just never know when the next ball can come flying. Every tennis player has to wait for that fateful serve, when the green ball comes flying down the court, and hopefully right into the sweet spot on their racket. If you’ve ever tuned into a game of tennis, then you know there are a lot of funny sounds that accompany the game.

The faces tennis players make are even better though, and you don’t normally get to see those during play. This shot could not have been more perfectly timed if you ask us. That squinting eye, the mouth movement, we wonder what happened next.

Court Romance

Teammates create lifelong bonds, and players can get to know one another on a very personal level. Basketball teams are particularly close knit, because not only do they tour together, but they also spend hours at the gym, and learning plays together. Kobe Bryan and fellow Laker had just scored a big shot, when they decided to embrace for a victory hug.

Unfortunately, that hug was rather ill-timed, and instead of going face to shoulder, they went nose to nose. It appears these two Lakers teammates are particularly close, maybe even a little too close. Was this really an accident?

Tongue Tied

Slam dunk the funk. This is a classic basketball image! Jeremy Lin was in the process of grabbing the basketball straight out of thin air, when a point guard decided to try and grab the ball from him. Instead of grabbing the ball the player got a nice big lick of Lin’s armpit.

The photographer caught the two players at the perfect moment. This unfortunate incident must have left a pretty awful taste in that poor guy’s mouth. We don’t know who will be more scarred from it, the man who tasted Lin’s armpit or Lin having his armpit licked. Either way, it makes for some great playing, and some great camerawork.

Ball Contact

This one is great. Um hello, guys, you are supposed to play with your hands. These two basketball players seem to have forgotten that they are playing basketball. You can totally touch the ball, this isn’t soccer! This is definitely not in the basketball handbook, as no coach would ever advise players to attempt to catch a ball with their nether regions.

This might be a hilarious photograph, but it must have hurt both players quite a bit. We wonder how that played out for their pain threshold. Not well we imagine. This was definitely a moment of learning. Always use your hands.