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Sky Sports looks through the archives to pick the top ten nearly men in world of sport

They're the good guys who we all want to do well and who at times look unbeatable but are just unable to grab hold of their sport's greatest prize - let's meet our top ten nearly men.

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Richard Johnson The main problem of being in a sporting era dominated by a genius is that someone has to come second, and for AP McCoy that man is Richard Johnson - who is second on the list of all-time winners behind the 18-time champion jockey. Johnson would have been a multiple champion had it not been for McCoy, and although he has won all the big races at Cheltenham, the Grand National has eluded him. Chris Amon New Zealand Formula One driver Amon is regarded as one of the best racers never to win a Grand Prix, with him also being labelled as the most unfortunate. On multiple occasions strange retirements such as a stone in the radiator when he was in the lead cost him a victory, and he was so unlucky that the great Mario Andretti famously once said: "If he became an undertaker, people would stop dying". Frankie Fredericks The Namibian sprinter did wonders for his country in the Olympics, grabbing their first - and thus far only four medals - but all of them were silver and, especially coming with such small margins, that epitomises the life of the nearly man. Fredericks finished second in the 100m and 200m in both the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics, and just a few hundredths of a second here and there could have seen him remembered as one of the best Olympic champions of all time.

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