Death of a Sports Star Crowd Stories+

Where were you, when you heard? In the opening episode of the series, we tell the story of the final act of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant – how it unfolded, what it meant, how we all felt about it. It’s Kobe, but as you’ve never heard him before. 
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WARNING: this episode includes reference to suicide.

The first million-pound black footballer, a pioneer, an unstoppable goalscorer. But Justin Fashanu was more than that too: an adopted kid, a gay man in straight world, a lost soul looking for answers. It’s a story that touches you, troubles you. Did it have to end this way? 
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When you saw it, you couldn’t forget: a jet plane, flying by itself through an empty sky, a sporting superstar on board and no way of reaching him. This is the story of Payne Stewart, a golfer who was brash and brilliant and different and shook up his sport and the world around it: how he lived, and how he died. 
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Marco Pantani was a bike rider who seemed to have reached the summit of his sport. Fans loved his panache, his style, his vulnerability. But with Pantani it was always about the descent rather than the climb - and he would fall further than anyone dared fear.
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She was the skinny kid from the poor part of LA who grew up to be the fastest woman in history, smashing world records with a look and style that made her unforgettable. But there were many who struggled to believe in her remarkable transformation - and more than two decades after her shock death, the unsettling questions and mysteries around Flo-Jo refuse to disappear.
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He was the smiley, lovable kid from the country whose cricketing talents took him all the way into the Australia team. But a tragic sporting accident on a seemingly ordinary day meant he would never fulfil that rich potential - and left a sport-obsessed nation devastated.
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