{"id":296359,"date":"2023-05-14T01:16:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T01:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=296359"},"modified":"2023-05-14T01:58:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T01:58:32","slug":"great-spills-on-extraordinary-pre-olympics-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=296359","title":{"rendered":"Great spills on 'extraordinary' pre-Olympics arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aussie tennis<\/a> great Todd Woodbridge<\/a> has recalled his night in an Atlanta jail cell after his arrest in the days leading up to the 1996 Olympics.<\/p>\n

Woodbridge was arrested after a "misunderstanding" with a security guard outside the athletes village.<\/p>\n

Woodbridge – and his doubles partner Mark Woodforde – went on to win their only Olympic gold medal.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Legends pay tribute to Aussie 'champion' after death<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Star's triumphant return after 10-month Russian detainment<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Racer's failure among 'top five dumb ways to lose'<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

"I spent the night – I was handcuffed, chucked in the back of the car, taken to the courthouse," he told the panel on Nine's Sports Sunday<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"1996<\/p>\n

"I was processed, as they like to say in the United States, with the full mugshot [and] sat in the room with all of that night's takings of Atlanta, Georgia, which is a rough room.<\/p>\n

"Eventually I got out and back to the village at four in the morning."<\/p>\n

In his self-titled 2005 autobiography, Woodbridge said he had been out for dinner with his wife and her parents.<\/p>\n

"I stepped over a plastic barrier and was about to enter the village when an officious female guard rushed up shouting and blocking me," he wrote.<\/p>\n

"When she grabbed my pass, digging the chain round my neck into my flesh, I grabbed it back. 'You tried to hit me', she yelled. 'I certainly did not', I replied."<\/p>\n

"We argued until one of her colleagues came up and pulled me by the shirt. 'He hit me', the woman said. 'Yeah, I saw him', her colleague added."<\/p>\n

\"Todd<\/p>\n

Woodbridge was lucky to not be charged with a felony, which would have seen him thrown out of the Games, and potentially banned from ever competing in the US again.<\/p>\n

He pleaded non-contest and was fined $1000 (USD). He maintains his innocence to this day.<\/p>\n

Woodbridge told the Sports Sunday panel he felt the effects of the arrest throughout the early part of the tournament.<\/p>\n

"I was handcuffed so tightly on my left wrist it pinched a nerve and my thumb went numb for three days," he said.<\/p>\n

"My ball toss was all over the place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"The other difficult part was my dad was a copper. I had to ring him up and say, 'I've been arrested and put up in the lock-up overnight'.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"I didn't do it, but it was an experience that made me a lot tougher."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aussie tennis great Todd Woodbridge has recalled his night in an Atlanta jail cell after his arrest in the days leading up to the 1996 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":296361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296359"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296364,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296359\/revisions\/296364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/296361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}