50 Fun Facts About Sports Records

Which Philadelphia Warriors center scored 100 points in a single NBA game in March 1962?

Wilt Chamberlain reached 100 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in a 169–147 win over the Knicks. He had gone without sleep the night before and almost missed the team bus.

Which baseball star hit safely in 56 consecutive Major League games during the summer of 1941?

Joe DiMaggio's streak ended in Cleveland on July 17, thanks in part to two backhand stops by Indians third baseman Ken Keltner.

Which Baltimore Orioles shortstop played 2,632 straight games, passing Lou Gehrig's record in 1995?

Cal Ripken Jr. ended the 17-year streak himself, sitting out the final home game of 1998. Gehrig's total of 2,130 games had stood for 56 years.

Which Jamaican sprinter set the 100 metres world record of 9.58 seconds in Berlin in 2009?

Usain Bolt cut 0.11 seconds off his own record of 9.69, the biggest improvement since electronic timing began.

Which swimmer won 23 Olympic gold medals between 2004 and 2016, the most by any athlete in history?

Michael Phelps won 13 of those golds in individual events, and finished with 28 Olympic medals of all colours.

Which 14-year-old gymnast scored the Olympics' first perfect 10, on the uneven bars in 1976?

Nadia Comăneci's score appeared as 1.00, because the scoreboard had not been programmed to display a perfect 10. She earned six more of them at the same Games.

Which NFL team went 17–0 in 1972, the league's only perfect season including the Super Bowl?

The Miami Dolphins did it largely with a backup quarterback: Earl Morrall started most of the season after Bob Griese broke his ankle in week 5.

Which racehorse won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths to complete the Triple Crown?

Secretariat smashed a margin record of 25 lengths set by Count Fleet in 1943. Only four horses had lined up against him that day.

Which soccer star is the only player to win three men's World Cups, in 1958, 1962 and 1970?

Pelé was 17 at the first of them, which also makes him the youngest player ever to win a World Cup.

Which cyclist was stripped of seven consecutive Tour de France titles in 2012 for doping?

Lance Armstrong's wins from 1999 to 2005 were never handed to other riders, so those seven Tours have no official winner.

Which player passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 2023 to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer?

LeBron James kept going after taking the record, and a year later became the first NBA player to reach 40,000 career points.

Which quarterback won a record seven Super Bowls, six with New England and one with Tampa Bay?

Tom Brady was only the 199th pick of the 2000 draft, taken in the sixth round after six other quarterbacks.

Which Edmonton Oilers center scored 92 goals in the 1981–82 NHL season, a single-season record?

Wayne Gretzky also finished that season with 212 points, the first time any NHL player had passed 200.

Which golfer won a record 18 men's major championships, the last of them in 1986 at age 46?

Jack Nicklaus made that final major the 1986 Masters, which was also his record sixth win at Augusta.

Which golfer won the 1997 Masters by 12 strokes, the widest winning margin in Masters history?

Tiger Woods was 21, the youngest Masters champion, and he had started badly: his first nine holes took 40 shots, four over par.

Which tennis player won the French Open men's singles title a record 14 times between 2005 and 2022?

Rafael Nadal lost only four matches in his whole career at Roland Garros, finishing with a record of 112–4 there.

Which heavyweight boxing champion retired in 1956 with a perfect record of 49 wins and no defeats?

Rocky Marciano ended 43 of those 49 fights by knockout, and he walked away at 32 while still the reigning champion.

Which boxer became the youngest heavyweight champion ever by stopping Trevor Berbick in 1986?

Mike Tyson was 20 years and 4 months old, and he needed less than two rounds to take the title.

Which forward passed Iran's Ali Daei in 2021 as the top scorer in men's international soccer?

Cristiano Ronaldo reached 109, the total long credited to Daei, with two penalties at Euro 2020, then added two late headers against the Republic of Ireland that September.

Which country has won the men's soccer World Cup five times, more than any other nation?

Brazil are also the only nation to have played at every men's World Cup since the first one in 1930.

Which San Francisco Giants slugger hit 73 home runs in 2001, a single-season record?

Barry Bonds beat the 70 that Mark McGwire had hit only three years earlier. He also holds the career record, with 762 home runs.

Whose 715th home run in April 1974 broke Babe Ruth's long-standing career record?

Hank Aaron chased the record while receiving death threats and piles of hate mail from people who did not want to see Ruth's total fall.

Which Cincinnati Reds star passed Ty Cobb in 1985 and retired with a record 4,256 career hits?

Pete Rose broke the record with a single in front of his home crowd in Cincinnati, who gave him a standing ovation that lasted for minutes.

Which wide receiver retired with NFL records of 22,895 receiving yards and 197 touchdown catches?

Jerry Rice finished 5,403 yards ahead of the next receiver on the list, and 41 touchdown catches ahead of the runner-up there too.

Which Boston Celtics center won 11 NBA championships in 13 seasons, the most by any player?

Bill Russell won the last two of those titles while also coaching the team, as the Celtics' player-coach.

Which NHL team has won the most Stanley Cups, including five in a row from 1956 to 1960?

The Montreal Canadiens are older than the league itself: they helped found the NHL in 1917, and one of their Cups came before it existed.

Which NFL team lost four consecutive Super Bowls, after the 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993 seasons?

The Buffalo Bills lost the first of the four by a single point, 20–19, when a last-second field goal attempt drifted wide right.

Which guard passed Ray Allen in 2021–22 as the NBA's all-time leader in three-pointers made?

Stephen Curry had taken Allen's single-season record years before, hitting 272 threes in a season on 53 fewer attempts than Allen needed for 269.

Which driver became the first to win 100 Formula One Grands Prix, at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix?

Lewis Hamilton reached 100 pole positions the same year, at the Spanish Grand Prix, and was the first driver to do that as well.

Which pitcher holds Major League records for both career wins, with 511, and career losses?

Cy Young's 511 wins put him 94 clear of second place, and baseball's award for its best pitchers has carried his name since 1956.

Which Major League pitcher struck out a record 5,714 batters and threw seven no-hitters?

Nolan Ryan's strikeout total is 839 ahead of anyone else's, and no other pitcher has thrown more than four no-hitters.

Which Dallas Cowboys back passed Walter Payton in 2002 as the NFL's all-time leading rusher?

Emmitt Smith had set himself that goal as a rookie, and he retired with 18,355 rushing yards.

Which quarterback started 297 consecutive regular-season NFL games between 1992 and 2010?

Brett Favre's run stretches to 321 straight starts once playoff games are counted, most of them for the Green Bay Packers.

Which Washington Capitals winger became the NHL's all-time leading goal scorer in April 2025?

Alex Ovechkin scored the record goal on a power play against the New York Islanders, two days after tying the old record of 894.

Which university's men's basketball team won 88 straight games from 1971 to 1974 under John Wooden?

UCLA finally lost by a single point, 71–70, to Notre Dame in January 1974.

Which long jumper leapt 8.90 metres at the 1968 Olympics, adding 55 cm to the world record?

Bob Beamon's legs gave way when he was told how far he had jumped. The jump lasted almost 23 years as the world record.

Which tennis player became the first to win all four majors and Olympic gold in one year, in 1988?

Steffi Graf's sweep is known as the Golden Slam, and she also spent a record 377 weeks as the women's world number one.

Which swimmer won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, each one in world-record time?

Mark Spitz's seven golds stood as the most at a single Games for 36 years, until the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Which tennis player has spent more than 400 weeks as the ATP men's world number one, the most ever?

Novak Djokovic has also finished the season as number one a record eight times, across 13 different years at the top.

Which tennis player won the Wimbledon women's singles title a record nine times, the last in 1990?

Martina Navratilova reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times in all, including nine years running from 1982 to 1990.

Which Australian batsman retired from Test cricket in 1948 with a record career average of 99.94?

Don Bradman was bowled second ball for a duck in his final Test innings, when four runs would have lifted his average to 100.

Which 400 metres hurdler won 122 consecutive races over almost a decade, from 1977 to 1987?

Edwin Moses went nine years, nine months and nine days without losing, a run that began after a defeat in Berlin in August 1977.

Which NASCAR driver nicknamed 'The King' won a record 200 Cup Series races between 1958 and 1992?

Richard Petty also won the Daytona 500 a record seven times, and once took 27 races in a single season.

Which runner was first to cover the marathon distance in under two hours, in Vienna in 2019?

Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:40, but it did not count as a world record: he had a pace car, rotating pacemakers and drinks handed to him.

Whose career stolen-base record did Rickey Henderson break in 1991 on the way to 1,406 steals?

Lou Brock had taken the record from Ty Cobb in 1977. Cobb's 892 steals had been thought as unbreakable as Babe Ruth's home run total.

Which Pacific team lost 31–0 to Australia in 2001, the heaviest defeat in international soccer?

American Samoa conceded 13 of those goals to one player, Archie Thompson, which is itself a record for an international match.

Which New York Yankees pitcher threw the only perfect game in World Series history, in 1956?

Don Larsen needed only 97 pitches to retire all 27 Brooklyn Dodgers, and a single batter worked him to a three-ball count.

Which French striker scored 13 goals at the 1958 World Cup, a record for a single tournament?

Just Fontaine needed only six matches for his 13, four of them scored against defending champions West Germany in the third-place game.

Which golfer won 11 consecutive PGA tournaments in 1945 on his way to 18 victories that year?

Byron Nelson entered 30 events that year and, as well as his 18 wins, finished second in seven more.

Which Cincinnati Reds pitcher threw no-hitters in two consecutive starts in June 1938?

Johnny Vander Meer threw the second one four days after the first, in the first night game ever held at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.