70 Fun Facts About Hardest Sports

Which pitcher threw a 1970 no-hitter against the Padres while, by his own account, on LSD?

Ellis later said he thought it was an off day and only learned he was pitching that afternoon. He walked eight batters and hit one, but no Padre got a hit.

Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 was played in which unlikely city?

The Warriors played several 'home' games away from Philadelphia that season. The arena was about half full, and no film of the game has ever been found.

How did Fred Lorz briefly 'win' the marathon at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics before being found out?

Lorz dropped out with cramps at nine miles, hitched a ride, and started running again when the car broke down at mile 19. He was crowned before the truth came out.

1904 Olympic marathon winner Thomas Hicks was kept going with brandy, egg whites and which poison?

In small doses the rat poison acts as a stimulant, and it was legal at the time. Hicks had to be carried across the line and nearly died.

After the 1980 'Miracle on Ice', which team did the US beat to clinch the gold medal?

The Soviet game was not the final: it was a medal-round game. Two days later the Americans trailed Finland after two periods and scored three times in the third.

Who is the only golfer to win all four majors of his era in one calendar year, in 1930?

He did it as an amateur, retired at 28, and then co-founded the Masters, which is why the pre-1934 Grand Slam has a different set of four events.

The only perfect game in World Series history was thrown in 1956 by which Yankees pitcher?

It came in Game 5 against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen had been knocked out in the second inning of Game 2 a few days earlier.

What was the score of the fifth set when John Isner finally beat Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010?

The match ran 11 hours and 5 minutes across three days. Wimbledon later introduced a final-set tie-break so it can never happen again.

Whose 400 not out against England in 2004 remains the highest individual score in Test cricket?

He also holds the first-class record of 501 not out, set for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994.

Roger Bannister was the first man to run a four-minute mile. Who was the second, just 46 days later?

He did it in Turku in a world-record 3:57.9. The two then met in the 'Miracle Mile' at the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver.

When Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990, what were the odds against him?

Douglas's mother had died 23 days before the fight. He put Tyson down in the tenth round, the first knockout loss of Tyson's career.

How many teams took part in the first FIFA World Cup in 1930?

Only four European sides made the sea voyage to South America. The hosts beat Argentina 4–2 in the final in front of 68,346 people.

In 1987 Ron Hextall became the first NHL goaltender to do what?

He hit an empty net against Boston. The next season he did it again in the playoffs, another first.

Which player holds the world professional career home run record with 868?

He hit them all for the Yomiuri Giants over 22 seasons, using a one-legged 'flamingo' stance, and finished more than 100 clear of the MLB record.

Who broke Bob Beamon's 8.90 m long jump world record after almost 23 years?

Beamon had beaten the old record by 55 centimetres. The record fell at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, in a duel with Carl Lewis.

The 'Maracanazo' of 1950 saw Brazil lose the World Cup's deciding match at home to which country?

Brazil needed only a draw in front of an official 173,850 spectators. Uruguay won 2–1 and lifted the trophy for the second time.

Who is the only driver to win the Formula One World Championship in a car bearing his own name?

He did it in 1966, his third title. McLaren and Gurney each won a race in their own cars but never a championship.

Australia set the record for the largest win in international soccer in 2001, 31–0, against which team?

Archie Thompson scored 13 goals in the match, itself a record. Two days earlier Australia had beaten Tonga 22–0.

How many consecutive games did Cal Ripken Jr. play to set the major-league iron-man record?

He passed Lou Gehrig's 2,130 on September 6, 1995, and kept going for three more seasons before voluntarily sitting out.

Who won the very first Tour de France in 1903?

The race was six stages over 2,428 km and was invented to boost sales of the newspaper L'Auto.

Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a single game in January 2006. Who were the opponents?

The Lakers trailed by 18 in the third quarter and won 122–104. Bryant scored 55 of his points after halftime.

Jim Thorpe was stripped of his 1912 Olympic medals for having been paid to play which sport?

He earned meagre pay in the Eastern Carolina League in 1909 and 1910. The IOC restored his medals in 1983 and named him sole champion in 2022.

Michael Jordan went third in the 1984 NBA draft. Who was picked second, one spot ahead of him?

Portland already had Clyde Drexler at guard and took the Kentucky centre. Hakeem Olajuwon went first to Houston.

How long did Ronnie O'Sullivan take to compile snooker's fastest-ever maximum 147 break in 1997?

It came at the World Championship against Mick Price and is listed as a Guinness World Record. He earned £165,000 for it.

Who set the NFL single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards in 1984?

He did it for the Los Angeles Rams in his second season. Peterson came within nine yards in 2012.

Whose 84-year-old record for hits in a season did Ichiro Suzuki break in 2004?

Ichiro finished with 262, five past the 257 Sisler had set in 1920, and it gave him single-season hit records in both MLB and Japan.

Which country gave the 1992 Dream Team its closest game, in the Olympic gold-medal final?

Closest is relative: the score was 117–85. The Americans won their eight games by an average of about 44 points.

Who is the only tennis player to complete a calendar-year 'Golden Slam'?

She did it in 1988, beating Gabriela Sabatini in the Seoul Olympic final after sweeping the majors.

Who is the only male athlete to win both the 200 m and 400 m at the same Olympic Games?

He did it in Atlanta in 1996 wearing golden Nike spikes, running the 200 m in a world-record 19.32 seconds.

Who scored the fastest World Cup goal to that point, 10.8 seconds into a 2002 match?

It came in the third-place play-off against South Korea, which Turkey won 3–2. Bryan Robson's 1982 strike had held the record at 27 seconds.

England's 'Bodyline' bowling tactic of 1932–33 was devised specifically to combat which batsman?

Captain Douglas Jardine had his fast bowlers aim at the body with fielders packed on the leg side. It nearly caused a diplomatic incident between Britain and Australia.

Which Ethiopian won the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome running barefoot?

He wore shoes to win again in Tokyo in 1964, becoming the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title.

Who was the last major-league hitter to bat over .400 for a season?

He hit .406 in 1941 and refused to sit out the final-day doubleheader to protect a rounded-up .400, going 6-for-8 instead.

Who scored Canada's winner with 34 seconds left in Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series?

Canada took the series four games to three with one tie. The goal is routinely voted the greatest moment in Canadian sports history.

How many innings did the longest MLB game, a 1920 Brooklyn-Braves 1-1 tie, last?

Both starting pitchers went the distance. The game was called on account of darkness with the score unchanged since the sixth inning.

What was the final score of Super Bowl LIII, the lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever played?

New England beat the Los Angeles Rams in February 2019. Julian Edelman was MVP with 10 catches for 141 yards, and the only touchdown came in the fourth quarter.

Muttiah Muralitharan is the only bowler with 800 Test wickets. When did he take the 800th?

The last opposing batsman, Pragyan Ojha, resisted for 90 minutes before falling on the last delivery of the final over Murali ever bowled in Tests.

How many consecutive games did the 1971–72 Los Angeles Lakers win, an NBA record that still stands?

The streak ended in Milwaukee in January 1972. The Lakers finished 69–13 and beat the Knicks in five for the title.

Which team scored just three points in Super Bowl VI, a mark of futility not equalled until 2019?

Dallas won 24–3, and Miami went unbeaten and won the title the very next season. The Rams matched the three points in Super Bowl LIII.

With what record did Rocky Marciano retire as undefeated heavyweight champion?

Forty-three of the wins were knockouts. Floyd Mayweather passed the number in 2017, but never held the heavyweight title.

What was the day job of Spyridon Louis, winner of the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896?

He carried water from his village to Athens. After the race he reportedly asked only for a donkey and cart to make the job easier.

Who in 1926 became the first woman to swim the English Channel?

She was 20 and had already won Olympic gold. Her crossing beat the men's record of the day.

Who was the first African-American to win a Grand Slam tennis title, in 1956?

She followed with Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships in 1957 and 1958, and later became a professional golfer.

Which jockey rode Secretariat to a 31-length win in the 1973 Belmont Stakes?

The time of 2:24 flat is still the fastest mile and a half on dirt. Turcotte later said the horse paced himself.

What did the scoreboard show when Nadia Comăneci scored the first Olympic perfect 10 in 1976?

The manufacturer had been told a 10 was impossible and had not built the board to show it. She was 14 and scored six more 10s that Games.

Which golfer's total of 82 PGA Tour wins did Tiger Woods tie in 2019?

Snead won everything except the U.S. Open, where he was runner-up four times.

Which German won silver behind Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936, then walked arm in arm with him?

Long was killed fighting in Sicily in 1943. Owens said the friendship meant more to him than his medals.

Which franchise was the first NFL team to go 0–16 over a full season?

That was 2008. Cleveland matched it in 2017, and Tampa Bay's 0–14 in 1976 came in a shorter season.

How old was Jack Nicklaus when he won the 1986 Masters, his 18th and final major?

He shot 30 on the back nine on Sunday. He is still the oldest Masters champion, and only Julius Boros won a major older.

How many Stanley Cups have the Montreal Canadiens won, the most of any franchise?

The last came in 1993, which is also the last time a Canadian team won the Cup. The club was founded in 1909, before the NHL existed.

British rower Steve Redgrave won gold at how many consecutive Olympic Games?

From Los Angeles 1984 to Sydney 2000, in three different boat classes, and after being diagnosed with diabetes in 1997.

Who was the first unanimous MVP in NBA history?

It came in 2015–16, when he made 402 three-pointers and the Warriors won 73 games. Even Jordan and O'Neal missed out on a vote or two.

Wayne Gretzky's assists alone outnumber which figure for every other player in NHL history?

In other words, if Gretzky had never scored a goal he would still be the league's all-time leading scorer.

Which team won the first Cricket World Cup in 1975, beating Australia in the final at Lord's?

The tournament ran for just two weeks in England, and the West Indies retained the title in 1979.

At which ground did New Zealand beat France 29–9 in the final of the first Rugby World Cup in 1987?

The tournament was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia, though both semi-finals were played in Australia. South Africa was excluded under the sporting boycott of apartheid.

The first FIFA Women's World Cup in 1991 was unusual because every match lasted how long?

It was held in China and the Americans beat Norway 2–1 in the final. Full 90-minute matches arrived in 1995.

Which nation has won a record eight Olympic gold medals in men's field hockey?

Six of them came consecutively from 1928 to 1956, a run in which the team never lost an Olympic match.

Which nation has won tennis's Davis Cup the most times, with 32 titles?

The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Great Britain and the United States, and those two plus Australia dominated it for decades.

Besides strikeouts, which career record does Nolan Ryan hold by an even bigger margin?

His 2,795 walks are 962 more than second-place Steve Carlton, more than 50 per cent clear of anyone else, over a record 27 seasons.

Who ran 2:00:35 at the 2023 Chicago Marathon to break the men's marathon world record by 34 seconds?

He was 23 and had run only three marathons. He died in a car crash in Kenya four months later.

In which two sports did Eddie Eagan win Olympic gold at the Summer and Winter Games?

He won the light heavyweight boxing title in 1920 and rode in the winning four-man bobsled in 1932, and was a Rhodes Scholar in between.

The Australian batsman targeted by 'Bodyline' retired with which Test average, often called sport's greatest statistic?

The next best average among players with 20 or more Tests is in the low sixties. He played his final Test in August 1948.

Emil Zátopek won three golds at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics; which race did he enter at the last minute and win?

It was the first marathon of his life, following wins in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres; he was nicknamed the Czech Locomotive.

How many consecutive tournaments did Byron Nelson win during his record 1945 season?

He won 18 events that year in total, then retired at 34 to become a rancher.

Which Cincinnati Reds left-hander is the only MLB pitcher to throw two consecutive no-hitters?

The 1938 feat has long been considered impossible to replicate; he was a member of the Reds' 1940 World Series winners.

Fanny Blankers-Koen won four golds at the 1948 London Olympics as a 30-year-old mother of two. What was her nickname?

She was the most successful athlete of those Games.

At his peak, how many consecutive races from 800 m upwards did Paavo Nurmi go unbeaten?

The Flying Finn set 22 world records and won nine Olympic golds, but was barred from the 1932 Games over his amateur status.

Jesse Owens's 'greatest 45 minutes ever in sport' came at the 1935 Big Ten Championships in which city?

He won four events, set five world records and tied another in less than an hour, a feat never equalled.

How many pole positions did Ayrton Senna hold at his death in 1994, then a Formula One record?

He won 41 Grands Prix across 11 seasons and three world titles with McLaren.

Wilma Rudolph, who won three sprint golds at Rome 1960, had overcome which childhood disease?

She had already won a relay bronze at Melbourne in 1956 and was hailed as the fastest woman in the world.