Excuses, excuses, excuses. After a loss a team can either live with the fact that they weren't the better team on the day, or they can come up with an excuse as to why they weren't the victors (which can include saying they were still the better team on the day).

Yesterday Moss Burmester tried to explain his poor performance at the World Swimming Championships by saying that lack of time in his new swimsuit lead to his downfall. A valid excuse? Possibly, but when the story starts to bring lost goggles into the equation then we're on the verge of a classic lame excuse.

Over the history of sport there have been some great excuses for a loss from Rotherham goalkeeper Chris Mooney blaming the glare coming off his team-mate's bald head to Finnish runner Kirsi Valasati blaming her masseuse for irregular techniques.

Here are some more of the worst excuses for losing:

It was the frogs
After going down to Spain 4-0 in their opening match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup you'd think Ukraine would have been hard pressed to come up with an excuse following such a drubbing. Nope. Defender Vladislav Vashchuk said the heavy defeat was not the team's fault but was down to the fact that frogs outside their Potsdam hotel croaked all night - leaving the side sleep deprived. "We all agreed that we would take some sticks and go and hunt them," Vashchuk told the media after the loss. No word on whether they did or not but Ukraine went on to win their following two games and reached the quarterfinals.

We're going streaking!
When Andrew Mehrtens missed a crucial penalty during a 2002 Bledisloe Cup showdown he could have used the excuse that streakers put him off. As Mehrtens lined up the kick two male streakers, with a Vodafone promotion painted across their bodies, ran onto the field disrupting play. The All Blacks went on to lose the match but the team refused to blame the streakers, Mehrtens instead verbally attacked referee Andre Watson after the game and was handed a $2000 fine. The streaking excuse has been used before though after snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan lost the 1997 Masters final, throwing away a handy lead. Following a female streaker running across the snooker arena, O'Sullivan lost his way going down to Steve Davis. He later blamed the streaker saying the shock interruption broke his concentration.

Playing games
Following a scrappy 1-0 win to open their Euro 2000 campaign Holland manager Frank Rijkaard blamed the team's poor performance on the fact that they spent too much time playing cards. "I watch a match and I see them playing cards or ignoring the match," he told the press. Rijkaard must have got the message through and the cards put away as Holland went on to reach the semifinals of the tournament before going down to Italy in a penalty shootout.

Which team am I on?
After throwing 35 interceptions in his second NFL season in 1988, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Vinny Testaverde claimed that colour blindness was the reason for all his mis-directed passes. Testaverde said at times he couldn't tell the difference between his team-mates and the opposition. At one point a Tampa radio station hired a billboard following a Buccaneers loss, painted it blue along with the message "Vinny thinks this is orange!". Testaverde went on to have a fairly successful career obviously working out which players to throw to.

It's my evil twin
After failing a blood doping test in 2005 cyclist Tyler Hamilton come up with the original excuse that the small amount of different blood found mixed in with his own came from his twin that died in utero. A scientific expert argued on Hamilton's behalf that before dying the twin contributed some blood cells to Hamilton that had remained in his body. The excuse didn't work and the Olympic gold medalist was banned for two years before returning in 2007, only to be caught doping once again this year. This time he left his twin out of it and retired from cycling.

If the shoe doesn't fit
Italy were full of excuses following their opening 0-0 draw to Denmark at the 2004 European Football Championships. Italian striker Francesco Totti blamed his new pair of Nike boots for his lack of performance, changing his boots at halftime. "It was like having your feet on boiling sand," he said. Totti's teammate Christian Panucci had no problem with his boots but instead lay blame on the team's socks saying: "The thread that these socks were made with is too rough". Although Italian midfielder Gennaro Gattuso put his teammates to shame saying their excuses were uncalled for. "Kenyans run hundreds of kilometres with bare feet. I also had to put on new shoes, in fact, the same brand as Totti's. My foot was 'smushed', so I put them back in the bag and put on my old pair. We have hundreds of pairs - what the sponsors pay us is not too shabby," Gattuso said. Italy ended up getting the 'boot' during pool play.

Too drafty
Rugby kickers have been known to blame the wind but what about darts players blaming a slight draft? Mervyn King came up with the original excuse following his semifinal loss to Raymond Barneveld at the 2003 world darts championships, poking blame at the venue's air conditioning. 'I asked for it to be turned off before I went up there and it wasn't. I asked for it to be turned off at the break - it wasn't. The air conditioning doesn't affect Raymond because he throws a heavier dart and a very flat dart'.

It's my mum's fault
After being sent packing from the 2003 Cricket World Cup for doping Shane Warne was quick to point the finger at his own mother. The spin maestro admitted to taking a banned diuretic, often used as a masking agent, but only at his mother's request who thought he looked a tad chubby on television. Warne was banned from one-day cricket for a year.

The king of excuses
Sir Alex Ferguson seems to have a long list of excuses that he picks from for each Manchester Utd loss. From the infamous excuse of blaming Manchester's grey strip for losing to Southampton in 1996 (which he had the team change at halftime) to the more recent excuse after a loss to Fulham this year, citing the small dressing room for affecting his side's performance. Maybe Sir Alex's head was too big for the small shed. When Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off for a second yellow card against Manchester City last year, Sir Alex came up with five different excuses for Ronaldo's inexcusable handball: 'He tried to stop the ball from hitting his face,' 'he thought he had heard a whistle', 'he got a little push', 'it was not as if he punched the ball’ and ‘the crowd played a part and he got sent off'.

But the best Sir Alex excuse must be the one he offered following Man Utd's 5-0 loss to Newcastle in 1996. After the embarrassing thrashing Ferguson said 'we could have scored five goals ourselves'.

Feel free to share your favourite worst excuses below.