The crying game

By BBC Sport Online's Alex Perry.

To be able to perform at the highest level when championships and trophies are at stake, the top sportsman has to be focused and removed, oblivious to the immense pressure on him.

The likes of Tiger Woods and Stephen Hendry have often been portrayed as emotionless machines who mercilessly grind away at their opponents until they one by one melt in the spotlight.

So it is somewhat disconcerting when Michael Schumacher, surely one of the most ruthless of all today's sportsmen, shows he is human after all by breaking down in a flood of tears in front of the cameras.

But Schumacher is not the first sporting great who has let the emotion of the day get to them: who can forget Paul Gascoigne at Italia 90?

The tears of a clown?

He falls into a category of blubbers who first lose their dreams of glory, and then say goodbye to their dignity.

Alongside Gazza at the top of this illustrious group is Jana Novotna who wept all over the Duchess of Kent after spectacularly blowing her lead in the Wimbledon final.

Fortunately for Novotna, and the Duchess of Kent for that matter, she was victorious when she reached the final again.

Diego Mara-blubber

Then there was Mika Hakkinen who showed that Schumacher isn't the only fragile soul in Formula One when he thought he had blown his chances last year.

And I'm sure the world was crying along with Diego Maradona when he wept the tears of god as Argentina were beaten in the World Cup final of 1990.

Mind you, you'd expect better of a burly rugby player, so when Gavin Hastings sniffled his way through a post-match interview with Dougie Donnelly you had to laugh.

Olympic crying champion Gary Herbert (r)

Admittedly Scotland had just lost the Calcutta Cup to England with the last kick of the game, but Donnelly described it as the most embarrassing moment of his career.

Then there are those who get a little too excited by the emotion of winning.

Golfing great Nick Faldo, Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello and cyclist Richard Virenque have all cried their eyes out after emotional victories.

Michae Johnson also had an Olympian moment in 1996 but the prize in this category must surely go to Gary Herbert, the cox to the Searle brothers at the Barcelona Olympics.

As the national anthem played, the tiny Herbert stood with the giant brothers towering over him, crying his eyes out like a first-former who has just had his dinner money taken by the school bullies.

Hurricane blows up

Rubens Barrichello should be happy after winning in Germany

Alex Higgins could fall into this category too, but he also crosses over into a group whose tears could be put down to a temporary loss of sanity.

Chief among his contenders in this arena is Oliver McCall who not only cried at the end of his bout with Lennox Lewis in 1997, but also sobbed his way through most of the five rounds of boxing that preceded it.

The referee had to stop the fight because McCall could barely see through his floods of tears to protect himself - surely this man was in the wrong profession.

Jana Novotna helps to water the Wimbledon turf

Of course there are times when sportsmen have a perfectly good reason for letting it all flood out, when a personal tragedy has recently struck them.

Pete Sampras was unable to hold himself together at the 1996 Australian Open knowing that the late Tim Gullickson, his coach, was suffering from brain cancer, and Ben Crenshaw broke down when he won the US Masters in 1995 the week after the death of his mentor.

But if anyone does not deserve our sympathy it's Martina Hingis who threw a strop after losing the final of the French Open in 1999.

But that's what happens when youngsters get over excited - just like your mum told you when you were young, it was always likely to end in tears.