In Which Sport Can You Win Despite This Grotesquely Swollen Ankle?

None. But you can win in NASCAR, as Brad Keselowski proved yesterday at Pocono, taking the checkered flag with a broken left ankle that looked like someone stuck a softball under the skin. (On race day, it looked more like this.)

Keselowski suffered the fracture in a practice crash earlier in the week, and, let's be honest, a foot injury is one of the very few injuries that can actually affect a driver's performance. The left foot is used for braking and shifting, so perhaps Keselowski's lucky the race was at Pocono's triangle, which makes for 200 fewer turns than on a standard oval. Or maybe he's just the greatest sports hero of all time.

A Speed.com recap puts Keselowski's feat up there with Willis Reed and Kerri Strug, people who actually had to do athletic things on their gimpy limbs. Not to take anything away from Keselowki — teammate Kurt Busch nailed it when he called it "an ironman-type day" — but having to regularly press down with a sore body part isn't exactly the same thing. When playing through pain is the norm rather than a momentous day in NASCAR history, maybe then we won't laugh so hard at this "Profile In Courage" headline.