Exclusive
AMAZON WORRIER
I needed 9 operations after my leg was torn apart in horror Gladiators accident – two games would never be allowed today
Olympic star claims her plans to come back were scuppered by show bosses
FORMER Gladiator Sharron Davies has revealed producers' demands forced her off the show after a horror injury that left her knee in pieces.
The 61-year-old athlete needed nine operations over the years after all her ligaments snapped while tackling a contender as Amazon on the hit Saturday night TV series in 1995.
7
7
As the BBC reboot is praised for bringing the games back, Sharron, who is best known for winning an Olympic silver medal aged just 17, says she received little or no training for some of the dangerous challenges she faced on the 1990s Gladiators.
And it was the notorious Pyramid game which ended her time as Amazon.
Her job as a Gladiator was to prevent contestants getting to the top of the 32ft challenge, but when she tackled one of them the fall snapped the cruciate ligament in her right knee.
She recalls: “I was pulling and I pushed the contender off and she fell on top of my leg and snapped all the ligaments on my knee. It did get to a point where a lot of accidents happened. She landed really awkwardly on my leg and it snapped.”
READ MORE IN GLADIATORS
Sharron hoped to return after surgery, despite not having totally recovered. Her medical team told the athlete it would only be safe to compete if she was wearing a special leg brace.
But Sharron claims the producers wouldn’t let her wear the device, leading to her departure.
She reveals: “I only did one series because I was injured. I was going to come back in the new series but my physio said to me you need to wear a knee brace but the TV company didn’t want me with a brace so I decided that my knee was more important than the TV show.
“That was my choice.”
Most read in News TV
7
7
Gruelling stunts
Tearing her cruciate ligament, which aggravated a childhood injury, led Sharron to have nine operations over the following years and facing the prospect of knee replacement surgery.
The mother-of-three was shocked by the serious injuries regularly suffered by her fellow Gladiators.
Sharron says: “There were a lot of injuries, some of them serious, neck injuries, back injuries.”
They included Diane Youdale, appearing as Jet, who nearly died falling from the Pyramid when her spinal cord was compressed.
And she said lack of practice on the games meant accidents were inevitable.
“They were more interested in making sure we had plenty of time for make-up and less time to practise on the games,” she says.
“But I was more interested in getting the practising on the games so I can be the best that I could be - that was the mentality I had as an Olympian.”
7
Sharron thinks that the BBC will have to take a lot more care about both the contenders and Gladiators on the rebooted series, which kicked off on Saturday.
She says: “Now BBC have all the rights to the Gladiators show and it is interesting to see what they are doing now because Gladiators of the 90s would never be allowed on TV nowadays because of health and safety.”
Sharron doesn’t believe the BBC can bring back challenges such as Pyramid or Poll-Axe, where contenders and Gladiators raced to the top of a rotating pole, because they are too dangerous.
She explains: “There are a few games that they’re not going to be able to use that wouldn’t meet health and safety records and standards today unfortunately.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
“Things like Poll-Axe, possibly Pyramid where we did get a lot of injuries.”
Unfair Play by Sharron Davies is available in hardback now and paperback soon
7
7
Topics