Relationship goals: You want these sporting spouses in your corner

Here's to the spouses of sports stars who get behind their other half when it really matters

The video below features the wife of Lyon defender Marcelo, reacting to Marseille's Adil Rami who decided to confront her husband in the tunnel. It's exactly the kind of conjugal support we should all aspire to. 

Pure relationship goals.

In many respects being the partner of a major sports star must be quite tough. Getting up early with them, possibly taking on extra jobs during training or tournaments, having to eat kale for every meal. It must take a lot of sacrifices.

Yet the vociferous support and unflinching loyalty of a long-suffering partner can take an athlete the extra mile. Here are some of those who really have their partner's backs:

Serena Williams’ marriage with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian really is sickeningly aspirational. It was announced earlier this year Serena would be making her return to the women's tour (after becoming a mother) at Indian Wells, California.

To welcome her back, doting hubby Alexis Ohanian had these four billboards put up along the Palm Springs highway - we guess inspired by the film, although the content is quite different.

Lots of sportspeople end up going out with people in similar fields. In this case, the story goes that Ohanian had never actually watched Serena play a single match before meeting her. In fact, after watching her for the first time, he added what he thought was a supportive post on Instagram, but seemed to be a picture of her committing a foot fault. 

Heart was in the right place though, Alexis.

It's been a rocky few months for Sir Bradley Wiggins - but through thick and thin, his biggest champion has been his wife Cath. 

Every now and then, her support may stray into what some might call, er, over-enthusiasm…like when she called his former Team Sky team-mate Chris Froome a 'slithering reptile', external, back in December, continuing a long-standing feud between the Wiggins and the Froomes.

She's since apologised and deleted those comments.

If Cath Wiggins is a strong voice, Michelle Froome is her equal. The pair have engaged in public spats with one another a number of times. In 2012, Chris Froome’s wife Michelle had another heated exchange with Cath Wiggins after an argument over loyalty, external.

“If you want loyalty, get a Froome dog . . . a quality I value . . . although being taken advantage of by others.” 

Tom Daley’s husband Dustin Lance Black had an interesting method for motivating his then fiancé through different stages of the Rio Olympic finals in 2016. It involved giving him treats for every successful dive completed.

Basically classical conditioning, or Pavlovian training – a method that’s been used to train and domesticate dogs for years now. We now know it also works for humans.

Tom has spoken about the support he gets from Black - an American screenwriter, director, film and television producer.

"He gets the hard work, the dedication and the commitment you have to put into it and I get the commitment that he has to put into his work. Having someone that understands, that has taken off a massive amount of pressure,” Tom said.

Another strong female voice. Roger Federer’s wife Mirka appears has been appearing courtside at every one of his matches for years now and is a passionate spectator. Her vocal support for her husband upset fellow countryman Stan Wawrinka at the ATP Tour semi-final in 2014, when she apparently called him a ‘cry baby’, external from the stands.

He possibly didn’t do much to disabuse anyone of that particular slur when he threw a bit of a tizzy on court and appealed to the umpire to get her to stop being nasty.

Anyway, you can't fault her passion.

In 2014, when French midfielder Samir Nasri was left out of the provisional World Cup squad, his girlfriend of the time, Anara Atanes was possibly more upset about the whole thing than Nasri himself,.

She expressed her feelings about the team and French boss Didier Deschamps on Twitter in an expletive-filled rant.

Hardly building bridges.

It must take a certain kind of selflessness to be married to one of the greatest sportspeople of all time. Especially when their talents aren’t even confined to just one sport. Mildred ‘Babe’ Didrikson Zaharias won two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics, before going pro at golf and winning 10 major LPGA Championships. 

Her husband, George Zaharias, was a wrestler, who gave up the sport after meeting her and spent the rest of the couple's lives helping Babe achieve her sporting goals and acting as her manager.

In 1939, the couple’s marriage was reported in Time Magazine as:

“Married. Mildred ("Babe") Didrikson, famed woman athlete, 1932 Olympic Games track & field star, expert basketball player, golfer, javelin thrower, hurdler, high jumper, swimmer, baseball pitcher, football halfback, billiardist, tumbler, boxer, wrestler, fencer, weight lifter, adagio dancer; and George Zaharias, heavyweight wrestler; in St. Louis.”

A report from her victory in the Women’s Western Open golf tournament in Chicago in 1944 told of George following Babe around the course and blowing smoke from his cigar to show her the wind direction. 

Dedication, 100.

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