2 days Ago By [email protected] (John Jones)
Gabby Logan has recounted the nightmare moment when she mistakenly told millions of viewers a boxer's mother and sister were dead live on TV. The Welsh presenter is one of the most well-respected broadcasters in the business and has fronted coverage of top sporting events including the Six Nations and the Olympic Games, while she will take over from Gary Lineker as one of three new Match of the Day hosts from next season. Logan is known for her expert knowledge on a range of sports, as well as her unflappable presenting style - but, as she found out, even those at the top of their game can occasionally slip up.
Appearing on Chris Hoy's Sporting Misadventures podcast , the 51-year-old was quizzed on any slip-ups she had experienced in front of the camera and admitted that one moment from the London 2012 Olympics sticks out for the wrong reasons. The host had been working on the BBC's Olympic highlights show throughout the Games, but on the final night - and with an A-list group of athletes alongside her in the studio - things went very wrong indeed. "I had a terrible one in London in 2012 when I was doing this amazing show, the highlights of the Games," Logan told Hoy and his co-host Matt Majendie.
"It had gone so brilliantly for 18 nights and the final night I had this amazing guest list. "Katherine Grainger was on and she'd won her first gold having won three silvers before, Ben Ainslie was on having just won his fifth gold, Tom Daley was on having that night won a bronze, Michael Johnson was on and then next to me was David Beckham, who was kind of the unofficial cheerleader of Team GB. "He came on and it was the final day of the Olympics, so you kind of lose track of everything that's going on.
," she explained. "We had a bit of boxing on and we were watching through this VT and I said to David: 'It's really tragic, this boxer, his mum and sister died this year in a car accident'. "We were going to move on and not talk about boxing at all, because we had no boxing guest - but David decided to bring that news to the public.
" Indeed, live on the BBC , Logan said: "Luke Campbell, Olympic champion. Very emotional actually because the story behind Luke, he lost his mum and his baby sister six years ago and he went into a boxing club at a very young age and stuck at the sport." Beckham then replied: "He has been through a really tough time in his life and boxing was obviously something that he wanted to go into and wanted to kind of prove to people how strong he is mentally and physically.
He's performed at the highest level and won us another gold and his mum and his sister will be smiling down and we are all so proud of what he has achieved." However, the error seemingly went unnoticed as the show continued - but Logan was later called back into the studio as new information came to light. "It's fine, we move on and we get to the end of the show and we we had these giant medals outside, we were about to say goodbye for the final time and the producer told me to go back in the studio," the presenter told Hoy.
"I honestly thought they'd got a cake or something for us as it was the final day of the Olympics, so I was thinking 'Oh, champagne, brilliant!'. We go back into the studio and the Olympic flame is still going and we're still on air - and they said in my ear 'Luke Campbell's mum and sister didn't die in a car accident'. "So I'm sitting on the sofa, out of vision, thinking 'Oh my god'.
Then somebody starts shouting 'It's Anthony Ogogo, no it's Anthony Joshua' and they're shouting all the British boxers names in the gallery, from the head of sport to the head of Olympic sport. "I decided the best way to finish was to say 'Ladies and gentlemen, some erroneous information made it to air tonight and Luke Campbell's mother and sister are alive and well, goodnight.'" After the show went off air, Logan issued another apology on social media while she also reached out to Campbell's mother to apologise.
However, with former boxing pros like Amir Khan and Audley Harrison poking fun at her, she admitted that she had a sleepless night after the show as she worried she had "ruined" her summer's work at the last minute. "David Beckham was walking down the corridor, saying 'Did anybody die, who died?'," she laughed." I ended up calling Luke Campbell's mum the next morning to apologise.
She was just so brilliant about it all. "It was my fault, I told David. But that took me a while to get over, that night I couldn't sleep.
I had just ruined 18 days of the Olympics, and you blow it up in your head, don't you? Amir Khan even put on Twitter after about three minutes saying 'Gabby Logan just killed off the Campbell family LOL'. As for how the mistake was made, it later emerged that Logan had confused Campbell with another Team GB boxer, Welshman Fred Evans, who had lost his mother Tracy and sister Scarlett in a car accident in 2006. "I think this is what happens after 18 days of the Olympics," said the presenter as she explained what had happened.
"We had this amazing office with banks and banks of monitors and we were live-streaming all sports at once, there was so much sport going on. "I was typing up and looking at my screen, and I was watching Luke Campbell. But one of the subs guys, who do stats, was sat behind watching a different monitor and saying 'Oh my god, this guy's amazing - his mum and sister died in a car accident'.
But he was watching someone completely different.".
