The Book of Lists

10 OLYMPIC CONTROVERSIES

The first runner to enter the Olympic stadium at the end of the 1904 marathon was Fred Lorz of New York. He was hailed as the winner, photographed with the daughter of the President of the United States, and was about to be awarded the gold medal when it was discovered that he had stopped running after nine miles and hitched a ride in a car for eleven miles before returning to the course. Lorz was disqualified and the victory was given to Thomas Hicks. Although this was only the third Olympic marathon, Lorz was not the first person to cheat in this way. In the inaugural marathon in 1896, Spiridon Belokas of Greece crossed the finish line in third place, but was disqualified when it was discovered that he had ridden part of the way in a carriage.

Italian Dorando Pietri was the first marathon runner to enter the stadium in London in 1908. However, Pietri was dazed and headed in the wrong direction. Track officials pointed him the right way. But then he collapsed on the track. He rose, but collapsed again… and again, and again. Finally the officials, fearful that ‘he might die in the very presence of the Queen’, carried him across the finish line. This aid led to his disqualification and the gold medal went to John Hayes of the United States.

Competing for Poland, Stella Walsh won the 100 meters in 1932, equalling the world record three times in the process. Four years later, at the Berlin Olympics, Walsh was beaten into second place by American Helen Stephens. A Polish journalist accused Stephens of being a man in disguise. German officials examined her and issued a statement that Stephens was definitely a woman. Forty-four years later, in 1980, Walsh, by then an American citizen living in Cleveland, was shot to death when she stumbled into the middle of a robbery attempt at a discount store. An autopsy concluded that although Helen Stephens may not have had male sexual organs, Stella Walsh did. All the while that Walsh was winning medals and setting records in women’s events, she was, by today’s rules, a man.

Swimmer Lance Larson of the United States appeared to edge John Devitt of Australia for first place in the 1960 100-metre freestyle. Devitt congratulated Larson and left the pool in disappointment. Larson’s official time was 55.1 seconds and Devitt’s was 55.2 seconds. Of the three judges assigned the task of determining who finished first, two voted for Larson. However, the three second place judges also voted 2–1 for Larson. In other words, of the six judges, three thought Larson had won and three thought Devitt had won. The chief judge gave the victory to Devitt and four years of protests failed to change the results.

French skier Jean-Claude Killy, competing at home in Grenoble, had already won two gold medals and only needed to win the slalom to complete a sweep of the men’s Alpine events. Killy’s main challenge was expected to come from Karl Schranz of Austria. But something curious happened as Schranz sped through the fog. According to Schranz, a mysterious figure in black crossed the course in front of him. Schranz skidded to a halt and demanded a rerun. His request was granted and Schranz beat Killy’s time and was declared the winner. But two hours later, it was announced that Schranz had been disqualified because he had missed two gates before his encounter with the mysterious interloper. At a four-hour meeting of the Jury of Appeal, the Austrians said that if Schranz missed a gate or two it was because a French soldier or policeman had purposely interfered with him. The French claimed that Schranz had made up the whole story to cover up the fact that he had missed a gate. The Jury voted 3–1 for Killy with one abstention.

Since basketball was first included in the Olympic program in 1936, teams from the United Stated had gone undefeated, winning 62 straight games over a 36-year period… until the 1972 final against the USSR. In an era before professionals were allowed in the Olympics, and with most of the best American college players taking a pass, the US team was hard-pressed against the seasoned veterans of the Soviet squad. The Americans trailed throughout and did not take their first lead, 50–49, until there were three seconds left in the game. Two seconds later, the head referee, noting a disturbance at the scorer’s table called an administrative time-out. The officials in charge had failed to notice that the Soviet coach, Vladimir Kondrashkin, had called a time-out. With one second on the clock, the USSR was awarded its time-out. When play resumed, they inbounded the ball and time ran out. The US players began a joyous celebration, but then R. William Jones, the British secretary-general of the International Amateur Basketball Federation, ordered the clock set back to three seconds, the amount of time remaining when Kondrashkin originally tried to call time-out. Ivan Edeshko threw a long pass to Sasha Belov, who scored the winning basket. The US filed a protest, which was heard by a five-man Jury of Appeal. Three members of the jury were from Communist countries, and all three voted to give the victory to the USSR. With the final vote 3–2, the United States lost an Olympic basketball game for the first time.

The favoured team from the USSR was fencing against the team from Great Britain when the British pentathletes noticed something odd about Soviet Army Major Borys Onyshchenko. Twice the automatic light registered a hit for Onyshchenko even though he had not touched his opponent. Onyshchenko’s sword was taken away to be examined by the Jury of Appeal. An hour later, Onyshchenko was disqualified. Evidently, he had wired his sword with a well-hidden push-button circuit breaker that enabled him to register a hit whenever he wanted. He was forever after known as Borys Dis-Onyshchenko.

The 1988 Summer Olympics were held in Seoul, South Korea, and the Koreans were determined to win gold medals in boxing, one of their strongest sports. This determination turned excessive in the case of light middleweight Park Si-Hun. Park made it to the final with a string of four controversial victories, including one in which he disabled his opponent with a low blow to the kidney. In the final, Park faced a slick, 19-year-old American named Roy Jones, Jr. Jones dominated all three rounds, landing 86 punches to Park’s 32. Yet three of the five judges awarded the decision to Park, who won the gold medal. Park himself apologised to Jones. Accusations of bribery lingered for years and it was not until 1997 that an inquiry by the International Olympic Committee concluded that no bribe had occurred.

The two leading synchronised swimmers were Sylvie Fréchette of Canada and Kristen Babb-Sprague of the United States. The competition included a round of figures that counted for 50% of the final score. Fréchette, who was strong in figures, hoped to pick up points to offset the gains that Babb-Sprague was expected to make with her free routine. But one of the five judges, Ana Maria da Silviera of Brazil gave Fréchette’s albatross spin up 180° the unusually low score of 8.7. She immediately tried to change the score, claiming she had pushed the wrong button. But before the referee could be notified, the judges’ scores were displayed and, according to the rules, that meant they could not be changed. When the free routine was completed the next day, it turned out that da Silviera’s low score provided the margin of victory that gave the gold medal to Babb-Sprague. Fourteen months later, the International Swimming Federation awarded Fréchette a belated gold medal, while allowing Babb-Sprague to retain hers.

The sport of figure skating has a long history of judging controversies; however the problem reached a head at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Russian skaters had won ten straight Olympic championships in the pairs event. In 2002, Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze were in first place after the short program, with Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada in second. In the free skate, the Russians made a series of technical errors, while the Canadians skated a clean programme. Nonetheless, the judges voted 5–4 to award the gold medals to Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze. The ensuing outrage expressed by the North American media was so great and so prolonged that the International Olympic Committee pressured the International Skating Union into giving a second set of gold medals to Sale and Pelletier. Subsequent investigations revealed behind-the-scenes deals among judges and even possible involvement of organised crime figures. Lost in the uproar was the possibility that the five judges who voted for the Russian pair simply preferred their traditional balletic style, while considering the exuberance of Sale and Pelletier’s performance to be glitzy and too ‘Hollywood’.

6 BIZARRE SPORTS EVENTS

The venerable sport of rock, paper, scissors (rock smashes scissors; scissors cuts paper; paper wraps rock) finally found its place on the world calendar in 2002 with the inauguration of the first international championships. Held in Toronto, Canada the 2003 competition was won by local favourite Rob Krueger. For information see www.rpschamps.com.

RoboCup 2004, held in Lisbon, Portugal, brought together dozens of robot soccer teams from nations as far afield as Iran, Latvia, Chile, China, Australia and the United States, although most of the leading entries were from Germany and Japan. Robot teams compete in four senior divisions, including 4-Legged Robot League and Humanoid League, the only category in which the robots are guided by humans with hand-held controllers. For information, see www.robocup2004.pt.

The annual Elfego Baca golf tournament (named after a colourful New Mexico lawyer and politician) consists of only one hole — but it’s not your typical hole. The tee is placed on top of Socorro Peak, 7,243 feet above sea level. The hole, which is actually a patch of dirt 60 feet in diameter, is two and a half miles away and 2,550 feet below. The course record, 11, is held by Mike Stanley, who has won the tournament 10 times. The first competition was held in 1969. The 2004 competition was won by Johnny Gonzales with 17 shots. For information, write to Elfego Baca Shoot, John R. Howard and Associates, PO Box 30850, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108–0850, USA.

The first national lawn-mower racing championship was held in Grayslake, Illinois, during the Labour Day weekend of 1992. The event was surprisingly controversial. The outdoor Power Equipment Institute, a trade association that represents lawn-mower manufacturers, formally opposed the concept of lawn-mower racing because it does not promote ‘the effective and safe use of outdoor power equipment’. Nonetheless, 3,000 spectators had a good time and the proceeds from admissions went to fight Lou Gehrig’s disease. Since then, lawnmower racing has spread throughout North America. For information, write to the US Lawn-Mower Racing Association, 1812 Glenview Rd., Glenview, IL 60025, USA or see www.letsmow.com.

The Unspunnen Festival celebrating Swiss costume and folklore has been held irregularly since 1805. One of the highlights of the festival is the throwing of the 185-pound (83.5 kilograms) Unspunnen Stone. The record throw is 3.61 metres (11 ft 2 in.) set by Josef Küttel of Vitznau at the 1981 festival. The next festival will be held in September 2005. For information, write to the Tourist Office Bernese Oberland, 3800 Interlaken, Switzerland or see www.unspunnenfest.ch.

Archers who don’t like to kill animals can enter the National Field Archery Association’s 3-D tournaments held throughout the United States. Competitors take aim at life-size dummies of deer, bears, mountain lions, wild pigs and wild turkeys. There are numerous divisions for men and women of all ages, using equipment ranging from traditional, with no sights, stabilisers, wheels and cams, to compound bow, which allows sight, stabilisers, wheels and cams. For information write to: National Field Archery Association, 31407 Outer I-10, Redlands, CA 92373, USA or see www.fieldarchery.org.

5 FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO INVENTED GAMES

A wizard at conventional games such as chess and billiards, the creator of Alice in Wonderland was a genius at inventing mazes, ciphers, riddles, magic tricks — even a paper pistol that popped when waved through the air. Wherever he travelled, especially to seaside resorts, Carroll always carried a black bag filled with delectable toys and games to enchant prospective female child-friends. His Game of Logic, published as a book in 1886, was an attempt to teach a dry, academic subject in a humorous, innovative way. Using ‘propositions’, ‘syllogisms’ and ‘fallacies’, the game, though fairly complicated, was lively and filled with clever statements on everything from dragons and soldiers to pigs, caterpillars and hard-boiled eggs. One of Carroll’s syllogisms:

‘Mark Twain’s Memory-Builder, a Game for Acquiring and Retaining All Sorts of Facts and Dates’ was a particularly appropriate game for Twain, who was known for his absentmindedness. Played on a pegboard divided into 100 rectangles (representing the 100 years in a century), the history game tested players’ abilities to remember dates of worldwide ‘accessions’ (to thrones and presidencies), ‘battles’ and ‘minor events’ (such as important inventions). A player called out a date and event (such as 1815, Waterloo), then stuck a pin (each player had a set of coloured pins) in the corresponding year and category (‘battle’). Penalties were imposed when a player gave an incorrect date and a point system determined the winner. Twain sold the game in 1891 and later revised it, hoping to organise nationwide clubs to compete for prizes. But the overhauled memory-builder proved too complex and was a commercial failure.

The author of Treasure Island invented a German-style war game in the winter of 1881–82 while residing in Davos, Switzerland, with his wife, Fanny, and 13-year-old stepson Lloyd. After clearing ample floor space in the lower storey of their chalet, Stevenson, armed with Operations of War (a military strategy book), methodically set up a ‘theatre of war’ and carefully positioned opposing armies of lead soldiers. To shoot down the enemy, players used popguns — ingeniously loaded with ‘ems’ from Lloyd’s small printing press. Face-down cards provided the element of luck in the game, serving up valuable military secrets. The war game never had an official name, nor was it marketed, but Stevenson did write a long magazine article about it which was published in 1898. One reader, H. G. Wells, was so captivated by the game that he created his own — called Little Wars (see below).

A shy and repressed little girl, Beatrix Potter turned to animals for companionship. Secreted in her nursery was a menagerie of rabbits, mice, frogs, snails — even bats and a tame hedgehog. Years later many of her most popular animal characters — Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddle-Duck and Jeremy Fisher — became playing pieces on a board game, ‘Peter Rabbit’s Race Game’, marketed in 1920. To play: choose a character, then roll a die and advance on a path of 122 squares (each player had a separate path) towards the winning goal, ‘The Meeting Place in the Wood’. Just one of the obstacles waiting to impede Squirrel Nutkin: ‘Nutkin meets his friends and loses a turn while talking’. But there were chances to jump ahead: Square 96 said, ‘Old Mr Brown suddenly bites off Nutkin’s tail and in terror he bounds off to 98’.

Wells’ book/game Little Wars (1913) had simple rules but required an elaborate battleground. Players made houses, churches, castles and sheds by gluing together wallpaper, cardboard and corrugated packing paper; the structures (some over 1 ft high) were handsomely painted to show various details, such as windows and rainwater pipes. H. G. liked to play on an 18-ft battlefield with 200 soldiers and 6 brass cannon (that could fire 1-in. wooden cylinders 9 yards) per side. Playing the game was a serious event for Wells, a boisterous, red-faced commander always ready to rally his troops to anticipated victory. As one friend commented: ‘I have seen harmless guests entering for tea, greeted with the injunction, “Sit down and keep your mouth shut”… it was a game which began at 10 and only ended at 7:30, in which Wells had illegitimately pressed noncombatants into his army — firemen, cooks, shopkeepers and the like — and in which a magnificent shot from the other end of the floor destroyed a missionary fleeing on a dromedary — the last representation of a nation which had marched so gaily into battle so many hours before.’

JAMES LANDALE’S 8 REMARKABLE PISTOL DUELS

James Landale is an experienced journalist who currently works as a political correspondent for the BBC. Before joining the corporation in January 2003, he spent ten years working for The Times, most recently as Assistant Foreign Editor. He also served as the paper’s Political Correspondent and Brussels Correspondent. In 2000/2001 James sailed from the UK to Hawaii in a round-the-world yacht-race sponsored by The Times, his weekly dispatches vividly describing the realities of life at sea. When he is not reporting or writing, he is most likely to be sailing. He lives with his wife, Cath, and daughter, Ellen, in Barnes, southwest London.

James knows all about duels because one of his ancestors took part in one. David Landale shot dead his bank manager in 1826 in Scotland’s last fatal pistol duel. James tells the story of this extraordinary encounter in his first book, Duel — A True Story of Death and Honour, to be published by Canongate in 2005.

Two officers in Napoleon’s army spent 19 years carving each other up in a series of duels that were always bloody but never lethal. Their dispute began in 1794 when Captain Dupont was ordered to stop Captain Fournier attending a party. Fournier took umbrage, challenged Dupont and they fought the first of 17 duels. As the years passed, they drew up a contract. If they came within 100 miles of each other, they would fight, military duty alone excusing a duel. Such was their companionship in honour that on occasion they dined together before fighting. In the end, by 1813, General Dupont tired of fighting General Fournier. He also wished to marry. So he arranged an unusual duel in which they stalked one another in a forest, armed with two pistols. Dupont stuck his coat on a stick and tricked his opponent into firing twice. Dupont spared Fournier’s life but told him that if ever they duelled again, he reserved the right to fire two bullets first from a few yards’ range. They never fought again. The story formed the basis of Joseph Conrad’s story, The Duel, and Ridley Scott’s 1979 film, The Duellists.

In 1798, at a crucial moment in Britain’s struggle against Napoleon, the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, chose to risk his life in a seemingly absurd duel. The 39-year-old premier had been criticised in the House of Commons by a hot-headed but insignificant Irish MP. George Tierney had condemned Pitt’s plans to beef up the Navy to counter the threat of invasion from France. Pitt was furious, called Tierney a traitor and challenged him to a duel. They fought at three in the afternoon on Putney Heath in southwest London. Pitt’s friend, Henry Addington, the Speaker of the British Parliament, chose to attend as a witness. At 12 paces both men fired twice and, fortunately, missed twice. Some have hinted that the seconds deliberately loaded insufficient gunpowder to avoid a fatal injury. Pitt went on to lead the war effort against Napoleon and introduce income tax to Britain for the first time.

A Member of Parliament once duelled in the nude. Humphrey Howarth, the MP for Evesham, was attending the races at Brighton in 1806 and dined one night at the Castle Inn. There he fell into discussion with the Earl of Barrymore, an Irish peer. Discussion turned into quarrel and they arranged to meet on the race course early next morning. Both men were rogues, and much given to taking the piss. But even Barrymore was astonished as his opponent took his clothes off and presented himself on the duelling ground armed solely with pistol and pants. The seconds and other witnesses burst out laughing, not least because Howarth was by then a fat old man. But Howarth was in earnest. He had spent much of his earlier life as an army surgeon for the East India Company. He knew gunshot wounds were often infected by the dirty clothing that preceded a bullet into flesh. In the end, however, his precaution was redundant. Both he and his opponent missed their targets and resolved their dispute without bloodshed.

The Duke of Wellington disapproved of duelling. He believed it fostered indiscipline and wasted good officers. But that did not stop the conqueror of Napoleon indulging in a little combat himself. Nor did the fact that he was 61 years old and Prime Minister put him off either. More than a decade after Waterloo, following several years of political uncertainty, George IV had turned to the aging war hero to re-establish a little order in the Tory party and the country. One of Wellington’s first acts was to give Britain’s Catholics a greater role in public life in an attempt to avoid unrest in Ireland. The policy divided the Tory party and one peer, the Earl of Winchilsea, a hardline Protestant, questioned Wellington’s motives. Letters passed and so, on March 21, 1829, both peers met on Battersea Fields at dawn. Winchilsea, realising by then that he was on a hiding to nothing, refused to point his pistol at Wellington and fired in the air. Wellington fired deliberately wide as well and accepted a written apology. The public were not impressed at their Prime Minister’s willingness to risk life and limb for such a trivial matter and Wellington found himself openly mocked in the press.

Jeffrey Hudson, a dwarf, entered royal service by emerging from a large pie at a party for Charles I. He belonged to the Duke of Buckingham. But Charles’s 15-year-old queen, Henrietta Maria, was so enchanted by the little man that she insisted he join the court. She called him Lord Minimus. Charles made him a captain in the Royal Army. But while Hudson was naturally the butt of many jokes, he was also a proud man. One day a young officer called Charles Crofts went too far and teased him for coming off worst in a fight with a turkey cock. For Hudson, this was too much and he challenged Crofts to a duel. The soldier thought he was joking and turned up armed with a water pistol. But Hudson was in earnest and demanded a real duel with real pistols on horseback. This was a shrewd move, for Crofts was fat and slow on a horse. Hudson, however, only 18 inches tall, presented a much tougher moving target. Thus the dwarf escaped injury while his opponent was dead through the heart. This was the last of Hudson’s luck. He incurred royal disfavour, was exiled, captured by Barbary pirates and spent the next 25 years in prison in North Africa. In the end, he escaped and retired to his native Rutland, where they still drink a beer named in his honour.

On September 21 1809, at the height of the war against France, two Tory Cabinet ministers fought a duel. One went on to become Prime Minister. The other became the architect of post-Napoleonic Europe. Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary for War, believed — correctly — that George Canning, the Foreign Secretary, was plotting to have him replaced and challenged his colleague to a duel. Both men resigned their posts and met at dawn on Putney Heath in southwest London. Canning, who had never fired a pistol in his life, missed twice. But Castlereagh, with his second shot, lightly wounded his opponent in the left leg. Both men were roundly criticised by both peer and public. George III overlooked Canning and chose a man called Spencer Percival to be Prime Minister instead. Three years later Percival won the dubious honour of becoming the only British PM ever to be assassinated. Canning had to wait until 1827 before securing the premiership, and even then his tenure was brief; he died unexpectedly three months after entering Downing Street. Castlereagh went on to achieve greatness as a statesman at the Congress of Vienna but was never popular. He committed suicide in 1822 amid allegations of homosexuality and his funeral procession was booed as it entered Westminster Abbey.

Aaron Burr, the Al Gore of his day, lost the US presidential election in 1800 by a handful of votes. Thomas Jefferson was elected instead and made his defeated opponent Vice President. Burr blamed his defeat on Alexander Hamilton, one of the great figures of the American Revolution. Hamilton — a close friend of Washington, co-framer of the constitution and a former head of the army — had successfully persuaded a tied electoral college to swing behind Jefferson. So when Vice President Burr discovered a few years later that Hamilton had bad-mouthed him in a letter, he issued an instant challenge. Hamilton — by then retired from politics — was opposed to duelling on moral and religious grounds. But the duty of honour was greater and so, on July 11, 1804, both men crossed the River Hudson with their seconds to what is now New Jersey. Burr was determined to shoot his rival dead, which he did. Hamilton, as he was shot, discharged his own pistol into the ground. There was huge public revulsion at the death of such a popular figure and the Vice President found himself on the receiving end of some seriously bad headlines. He was deprived of his New York citizenship and forced into hiding. In later years, he was shunned by society and died destitute on Staten Island in 1836.

Two Frenchmen chose to fight from balloons over Paris because they believed they had ‘elevated minds’. Monsieur de Grandpré and Monsieur de Pique quarrelled over a famous opera dancer called Mademoiselle Tirevit, who was mistress of one and lover of the other. So, at 9 a.m. on May 3 1808, watched by a huge crowd, the two Parisians climbed into their aircraft near the Tuileries and rose gently up into the morning air. At about 2,000 ft, when the balloons were about 80 yards apart, de Pique fired his crude blunderbuss and missed. De Grandpré aimed his more effectively. De Pique’s balloon collapsed, the basket tipped, and he and his second fell headfirst to their deaths on the rooftops below. De Grandpré and his second, however, drifted happily away in the light north-westerly breeze before landing safely 20 miles away.

13 OLYMPIC MEDALLISTS WHO ACTED IN MOVIES

While swimming at a club on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Weissmuller was invited to try out for the part of Tarzan. In 1932 he made his film debut in Tarzan, the Ape Man. He eventually starred in 11 more Tarzan films.

Brix changed his name to Bruce Bennett, and pursued a successful career that included performances in Mildred Pierce (1945) and The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948). He also acted in such clunkers as The Alligator People (1959) and The Fiend of Dope Island (1961).

Crabbe won his gold medal by one-tenth of a second. He later recalled that that tenth of a second led Hollywood producers to discover ‘latent histrionic abilities in me’. In 1933 Crabbe made his film debut as Karpa the Lion Man, in King of the Jungle. He eventually appeared in 53 movies, but is best known for his roles as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Madison, who once set 16 world records in 16½ months, was invariably described by sportswriters as ‘shapely’. After her Olympic triumph, she played an Amazon captain of the guards in the 1933 satire The Warrior’s Husband. Unfortunately, her performance was undistinguished and she never acted again.

Henie’s first film, One in a Million (1937), was a box-office winner, and nine more followed. Although her acting was never as smooth as her skating, her Hollywood career brought her great financial success.

Tarzan’s Revenge (1938) starred two Olympic champions as Tarzan and Jane. Unfortunately, Holm was described as looking ‘bored’ throughout the film, and reviewers found Morris’s performance ‘disappointing’ and ‘listless’. Holm never acted again.

After the Olympics, Sakata pursued a successful career as a professional wrestler and then moved on to acting. He appeared in eight films, but it was his first role that gained him international stardom — the evil Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964).

Heiss, described by Variety as ‘a fetching lass’, made her film debut in the title role in Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961). The film was panned, but she received praise for her acting, singing and, of course, her skating. However, she never appeared in another movie.

Killy co-starred as a con-man ski instructor in the mediocre 1972 film Snow Job.

The only non-human Olympic medallist to pursue a successful film career, Cornishman V helped two different riders to victory in equestrian events. He later appeared in Dead Cert (1974), based on a Dick Francis novel, and International Velvet (1978).

Jenner’s one and only film appearance was in the loud and awful 1980 film Can’t Stop the Music. He played a staid lawyer who is drawn into the irresistibly fun New York disco scene.

Breland is one of the few athletes to appear in a movie before he appeared in the Olympics. In 1983 he received good reviews for his role in The Lords of Discipline. He played the first black cadet in a Southern military academy.

Note: Among the dozens of other Olympic athletes who have appeared in movies are 1924 pole-vault champion Lee Barnes, who served as a stand-in stuntman for Buster Keaton in College (1972); 1948 and 1952 decathlon champion Bob Mathias, who appeared in four films, including It Happened in Athens (1962) with Jayne Mansfield, and 1952 and 1956 triple jump champion Adhemar Ferreira da Silva, who appeared in the internationally acclaimed film Black Orpheus (1958). Ken Richmond, who won a bronze medal as a wrestler in 1952, was better known as the muscleman who struck the gong at the beginning of J. Arthur Rank films.

SIR STANLEY MATTHEWS’ 11 GREATEST FOOTBALL PLAYERS

Born in 1915, British footballer Sir Stanley Matthews died after a brief illness in February 2000. He is considered perhaps the greatest dribbler in English soccer history. During his unusually long professional career, he played for Stoke City and Blackpool, competing in 752 matches, including 54 international matches. He was the first British player to receive a knighthood. Though he was thin and frail-looking, his skill was such that he was dubbed ‘The Wizard of the Dribble’. He first played professionally at 17, and played his last game five days after his 50th birthday, far older than his fellow players. Also known as ‘The First Gentleman of Soccer’, Matthews was never once booked or sent off by a referee during his 33-year career. After his retirement, he went on to coach a team of Bantu players in South Africa, then coached in Canada and Australia. More than 35,000 fans attended his retirement game, and when he died the flag flew at half-mast in his home football stadiums. A minute’s silence was observed before every game for a week after his passing. Sir Stanley donated most of his memorabilia to decorate the walls of a restaurant at the Stoke football club. He contributed this list to The Book of Lists in 1995.

• Johann Cruyff, Netherlands

• Diego Maradona, Argentina

• Alfredo Di Stefano, Spain

• Garrincha, Brazil

• Ferenc Puskas, Hungary

• George Best, Northern Ireland

• Pelé, Brazil

• Eusébio, Portugal

• Peter Doherty, Ireland

• Tom Finney, England

• Frank Swift, England

RICHARD WILLIAMS’ 11 FAVOURITE GOALS

Richard Williams is a well-known British journalist who writes about two of the great loves of his life — sport and music. Born in Sheffield and brought up in Nottinghamshire, he worked on Melody Maker in the late 1960s and was editor of the paper in the late 1970s. He has written about sport for various national newspapers and is now chief sports writer for the Guardian. His published works include books on Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and Formula 1 racing. His most recent book is The Last Road Race (2004).

‘A great goal can be the product of patient teamwork or a moment of individual inspiration. To be truly remarkable, however, it needs a suitable context and a meaning that transcends the moment. Puskas’ goal at Wembley, for example, taught England a lesson about how far they had fallen in the hierarchy of world football, while Law’s strike against his old club was full of tragic resonance. Here are 11 goals that mean something special. Five of them I was there to see (Zidane, Massaro, Storey-Moore, Bergkamp, Owen). Three of them were scored in black and white (Puskas, Di Stefano, Pelé). Storey-Moore’s is the only one that was not captured by the cameras, so you will have to take my word for its epic quality. Or you could ask Bob Wilson, who remembers it extremely well.’

To decide an enthralling match between two contrasting but well-matched sides, one defending its title and the other on the way to regaining it, a goal fit for a final. After a build-up on the left, involving Rivelino and Paulo Cesar, Tostao retrieves his own blocked shot, fights his way past Alan Ball, Bobby Moore and Tommy Wright, and turns the ball inside to Pelé, who feints like a matador to transfix the remainder of the defence before pushing the ball sideways for the onrushing Jairzinho to smash his shot past Gordon Banks from six yards, continuing the run that will make him the only man in history to score in every round of the World Cup finals.

Result: Brazil 1, England 0.

At 1–1 in a match that has yet to catch fire, the players are listening for the half-time whistle when Roberto Carlos dinks a pass inside to Zinedine Zidane. For a split-second, as it realises what the French genius is about to attempt, the stadium holds its breath. And then, from a range of more than 30 yards, Zidane swings his left leg with that balletic grace and brings his boot round to meet the ball with such precision that it flies in a perfect arc, leaving Hans-Jorg Butt helpless as it passes just beneath his crossbar.

Result: Real Madrid 2, Bayer Leverkusen 1.

Collecting an aimless ball from Hristo Stoichkov in the second minute of first-half stoppage time, Sebastiano Rossi throws the ball out to Christian Panucci, Milan’s young left-back. In the next 47 seconds there will be 13 passes of every variety imaginable, including a perfectly judged back-heel, before Daniele Massaro meets Roberto Donadoni’s cut-back with a lethal strike from 15 yards. The others contributing the move are Dejan Savicevic, Zvonimir Boban, Demetrio Albertini, Paolo Maldini, Filippo Galli and Mauro Tassotti.

Result: AC Milan 4, Barcelona 0.

The left-footed drag-back that fooled not only Billy Wright, England’s redoubtable captain, but an entire nation preceded one of the Galloping Major’s most sublime goals, part of a thrashing that left a permanent scar on the soul of the game’s inventors.

Result: Hungary 6, England 3.

World Cup semi-final in the Azteca stadium, Mexico City. Like his second goal against England a few days earlier, but even better since he had not first indulged in a bout of cheating. Again he attacked from the right, paralysing an entire defence before delivering the coup de grace.

Result: Argentina 2, Belgium 0.

Sweden took the lead after four minutes, the fools. The goal that finished them off came 10 minutes into the second half, when the 18-year-old Pelé received a ball from the left, flicked it up over his own head, spun round and volleyed the dropping ball past Karl Svensson, the Swedish keeper.

Result: Brazil 5, Sweden 2.

Peter Grummitt rolls the ball to Tommy Gemmell, who plays a short ball to Storey-Moore. From deep in his own half the left-winger sets off, beating the entire Arsenal defence — Bob McNab, Peter Simpson, Frank McLintock and Peter Storey — on a dazzling 75-yard run before clipping the ball past Bob Wilson. Six weeks later the Daily Express is calling him ‘the gold-plated hyphen’ as he moves to Manchester United for £200,000.

Result: Nottingham Forest 1, Arsenal 1.

World Cup quarter-final in the Stade Velodrome, Marseilles. Barely half a minute of normal time remains, with the score at 1–1, when Bergkamp controls Frank De Boer’s long, high pass with a single delicate touch, turns inside Roberto Ayala and uses the outside of his right boot to drive the ball past Carlos Roa. Minimalist perfection.

Result: Holland 2, Argentina 1.

After an early goal for each side, the match is boiling when the 18-year-old Owen latches onto the ball in the 15th minute, changes direction twice as he beats three defenders, and finally strikes a wonderful shot past Roa.

Result: Argentina 2, England 2 (Argentina win 4–3 on penalties)

The Germans have just scored their second goal, to make it 5–2, when the balding Don Alfredo takes the ball from Francisco Gento on the edge of the centre circle, accelerates on a straight 30-yard run and drives his shot past Loy, the German goalkeeper. From restart to bulging net, exactly 15 seconds.

Result: Real Madrid 7, Eintracht Frankfurt 3.

No goal was ever freighted with greater poignancy than this. On the last day of the season, United’s former hero backheeled the ball past Alex Stepney to send his old club down. Law had not wanted to play in the match, and could not bear to celebrate his goal.

Result: Manchester City 1, Manchester United 0.

SIR CHRIS BONINGTON’S 9 BEST MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES

Chris Bonington is Britain’s best-known mountaineer. He has been climbing since the 1950s and has led expeditions throughout the world, including two which made the first successful ascents of the South Face of Annapurna and the South West Face of Everest. He was knighted in 1996. Bonington continues to climb and made a first ascent of a peak in the Indian Himalayas in 2003.

Biggest isn’t necessarily best. It had all the ingredients that made it very special for me. It’s a lovely, shapely peak of 6,520 m.; the West summit had never been climbed; the team was small — just Jim Fotheringham and myself; it was spontaneous, since we had come out to climb another mountain, changed our minds and went for Shivling; it was alpine-style, since we packed a sack at the bottom and without any recce or preparation kept going till we got to the top, five days later; the climbing was complex and difficult; the summit was sharp and pointed; we had to find another way down. Altogether the perfect climbing adventure.

It was my second summer of climbing. My mum gave me £3.00 a week to survive through the summer, climbing around the Scottish Highlands, staying in bothies or Youth Hostels. Tony and I had a few days sleeping in an open vault in the little ruin of Ardvreck Castle on the shore of Loch Assynt when we set out to do a climb on the West Buttress of Suilven. We hitched to Lochinver and then made the long walk in to the foot of Suilven, left our 15-kilo rucksacks with all our stuff for the holiday at the foot, did the climb, of which I can remember little except that the route-finding was challenging. We then did the traverse of the long whaleback of Suilven, with its stunning views of the Northern Highlands, walked back to our rucksacks, picked them up and carried them south over broken pathless ground to the head of Loch Sionascaig and then down its eastern shore to a bridge over a stream and a path that led over a pass to Linneraineach. It was around 18 miles of rough terrain with very few paths and some of the wildest, loveliest highland country in the British Isles. After all these years I can still remember watching the sun setting over Loch Sionascaig, the numbing tiredness as we completed our walk with the last climb over the col, and the huge relief of finding an empty bothy with a concrete floor that in our exhaustion felt like a feather bed.

Climbing with Tom Patey was always a delight. After getting back from my first Himalayan expedition to Annapurna II, I joined him for a magical holiday in the northwest Highlands, working our way south from Torridon down to Skye, always climbing new routes (you never did anything else when climbing with Tom, where we did the best climb of all, the first ascent of King Cobra, up the formidable Coireachan Ruadha face of Sgurr Mhiccoinich. Today it’s graded HVS (Hard Very Severe) but it is a real adventure climb in a fabulous setting.

There was something very special about these two days. Don Whillans and I had spent the summer first trying the North Wall of the Eiger, and then climbing in the Austrian Alps based in Innsbruck, before starting for home on his motorbike. We called in at the Bernina Alps to climb the North Face of the Badile and then stopped off at Chamonix. The weather was perfect — Don had to get home, but I decided to stay for just one more climb. I met up with Ian Clough and we set out to climb the Walker Spur of the Grandes Jorasses.

It’s standard practice to bivouac at the bottom and we did so with about six other parties. Next morning high cloud was blowing in, perhaps sign of a bad weather front. All the others retreated, but I had a hunch that it would clear and so we kept going with the Spur to ourselves. The cloud cleared, the climbing was immaculate and we reached the top in the late afternoon.

We just didn’t want it to end, and so instead of descending the easy route to the south, we bivouacked on the summit and the next day traversed the Grandes Jorasses and the Rochefort Ridge to the Torino Hut. It was wonderful classic ridge-climbing. Ian and I hit that perfect level of teamwork, both of us at the peak of fitness, that makes climbing so special. Three days later we were on the North Wall of the Eiger to make the first British ascent — but our two days on the Jorasses provided an even more memorable experience.

The South West Face of Everest was a huge challenge — logistics, man management, hard climbing and plenty of uncertainty. There were fun moments, a lot of hard graft and some agonising experiences — in some ways it was the biggest all-round challenge I have ever faced and there was one moment when it all felt worthwhile.

We had just completed the carry from Camp V to our top camp, to put Doug Scott and Dougal Haston in position to make their bid for the summit. They had all they needed, the weather seemed settled and we had done everything we could do — it was now up to them.

On the way down I sat and rested, gazing out over the peaks and tumbled clouds that showed that the monsoon was still with us, but that we were above its effects. Our timing had been spot on. I had a profound sense of peace and a feeling of love for this team of mine that had become so effective and had worked so hard to get us to the position we were now in. All the effort and worry seemed worthwhile — indeed enhanced the sense I had of fulfilment.

In 1979 the Chinese opened eight peaks in China to foreigners. The Mount Everest Foundation decided to organise an expedition to one of these peaks — Kongur, in Sinkiang, at 7,719 m. the second-highest unclimbed peak in the world. We made a recce in 1980 and then in 1981 took part in a large scientific expedition in which us four climbers, Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker, Al Rouse and myself, were both guinea pigs and an alpine-style climbing team.

The climb proved challenging, needing two attempts, and involved crossing a 7,000-m. peak and a knife-edged connecting ridge, four days trapped by a storm in minuscule snow caves and a final push to the summit up steep mixed ground. We bivouacked on top, even trekked over to another top the following morning, just in case it was higher (it wasn’t) and then of course had to get all the way down.

The Needle is in the Lemon Mountains of East Greenland. Four of us — Jim Lowther, Rob Ferguson, Graham Little and myself — were flown in by ski plane to land on a covered glacier and then had three weeks of superb climbing on these spectacular granite peaks, making a series of first ascents. The best of the lot was a route up a peak that we called the Needle. It looked a bit like the South West Pillar of the Drus. I climbed it with Graham Little. He led the first pitch off the glacier up a steep wall and led through up an open groove that just went on and on. I think it was one of the best pitches I’ve ever climbed. It was steep but possible to keep just in balance by bridging, beautiful grey rock with small and subtle holds, reasonable protection, but no sign of a belay ledge and the groove ran out into an overhang at about 40 metres. There were some small holds out on the face. They didn’t really seem to go anywhere but there was no choice, I embarked upon them and they took me onto a shallow ramp leading out to the left. Friction climbing, no runners, increasing rope drag and fear. This led into a deep cut groove — Graham from below, yelling no more rope — and I was on a ledge with a crack for an anchor. I let out a whoop of total exhilaration, relief and delight.

The climb went on and on — there were harder pitches that Graham led — and eventually, after 17 hours of climbing, we stood on top of the Needle and gazed around us at a panorama of huge glaciers and rocky peaks, most of them still unclimbed. Other than Jim and Rob, who were on another peak, the nearest human being was some 200 miles away.

We flew over an incredible range of mountains in 1982 on our way from Chengdu in southwest China to Lhasa. I guessed correctly that none of them had ever been climbed. In the summer of 1996 my old friend Charlie Clarke, doctor on most of my major expeditions, and I set out to find the highest mountain of the range. All we had was the photograph taken from the air in 1982 and a photograph and very localised map from a book of Tibetan mountains compiled by the China Tibet Mountaineering Association. The only map we could obtain in Lhasa was a roadmap of the whole of Tibet. With that and our interpreter Pasang, we set out in a big pick-up truck for our mountain range, three days’ hard driving to the northeast of Lhasa. This took us to the mouth of a valley, at the end of which we were told was a big snow mountain. It proved to be a peak called Sepu Kangri, which we discovered was a holy mountain rising above a lake. Four families lived in the valley, tending their yak and sheep. They were to become good friends.

Charlie and I walked to good viewpoints in our effort to find a route up our mountain and then drove over 100 miles to make an approach on foot from the other side, hitching a lift on ponies for part of the way with a group of Nomads. The grass was lush and green, rich in wild flowers. Sepu Kangri from the south was even more impressive than it had been from the north.

We felt like the early Himalayan pioneers. It was a wonderful journey of discovery.

The richness of an experience depends so much on the people we share it with. I had always wanted to share with some of my closest family the joy of standing on top of an unclimbed peak and experiencing, for the first time ever, the 360º view from its summit. I did this in the year 2000 with my eldest son Daniel, my brother Gerald and my nephew James. It wasn’t a difficult or indeed a very high mountain — I didn’t want it to be, for neither Daniel or James were experienced mountaineers and anyway, when you adventure with your nearest and dearest, it pays to be cautious.

Danga II was 6,190 m. high, close to Kangchenjunga, the third-highest peak in the world. The climb was straightforward but the view from the summit was magnificent; most important, however, was sharing that joy with people I love.

7 NON-BOXERS WHO TOOK ON THE CHAMPIONS

Byron sparred with John ‘Gentleman’ Jackson, the former bareknuckled champion, in the poet’s Bond Street rooms. Both men wore ‘mufflers’ (mittenlike gloves used for sparring in the early days). The poet boxed in a dressing gown, Jackson in knee breeches and a shirt. Byron, with his legendary temper, was reputedly a tough customer in the ring.

John L. Sullivan, world heavyweight champion from 1882 to 1892, invited Hessie and her husband, a boxing instructor, to join his entourage, which was staging boxing exhibitions in theatres around the country. As part of an act they worked out, Hessie, wearing boxing gloves and dressed in a blouse and bloomers, would climb into the ring after Sullivan had disposed of his male challengers, and the two would go at it. During one of their sparring sessions, Sullivan inadvertently hit Hessie in the face, and she countered with a right to the jaw that sent him to the canvas for a full minute. The audience was so delighted that Hessie and Sullivan decided to make a ‘knockout’ part of their regular routine.

Gallico, author of The Poseidon Adventure, was a cub reporter in 1923, assigned to Jack Dempsey’s camp at Saratoga Springs prior to the heavyweight champion’s title bout with Luis Firpo. Against his better judgement, Gallico asked Dempsey to spar with him for one round. It was, for Gallico, a vivid and somewhat terrifying experience as he was ‘stalked and pursued by a relentless, truculent professional destroyer’. He never saw the punch that flattened him; he was aware only of an explosion in his head, and the next instant he was sitting on the canvas grinning stupidly. He struggled to his feet and finished the round propped up in a clinch with Dempsey, absorbing those taps to the neck and ribs that as an observer had seemed so innocuous to him.

The billionaire oil magnate met Jack Dempsey in 1916, when Dempsey was an up-and-coming young fighter, and the two became good friends. Getty, who kept fit in the fully equipped basement gym in his parents’ mansion, used to spar with Dempsey. Dempsey once claimed that, in an altercation over a girl, Getty knocked him out with a left uppercut — the only time Dempsey was ever KO’d by anyone.

During visits to Hemingway’s Havana home, former heavyweight champion Gene Tunney would occasionally allow himself to be talked into sparring bare-fisted with the writer, especially if the two had just downed a thermos of frozen daiquiris. Once Hemingway, in a rambunctious mood, tagged Tunney with a hard punch. Incensed, Tunney feinted his friend’s guard down and then faked a menacing punch to the face, as he issued a stern warning: ‘Don’t you ever do that again!’

Outraged that John L. Sullivan had never fought Jem Smith, the English heavyweight titleholder, the 5th Earl of Lonsdale challenged Sullivan to a bout. According to the earl, he took considerable punishment from the hard-hitting champion — they fought bareknuckle in those days — but dropped Sullivan in the sixth round with a solid blow to the solar plexus. Though at least two people verified Lowther’s version, Sullivan’s memoirs make no mention of the fight.

One of Plimpton’s early experiments in ‘participatory journalism’ was taking on Archie Moore, the former light-heavyweight champ, in January 1959. The fight lasted only three rounds, during which Moore cuffed Plimpton around gently, bloodying his nose. The referee called it a draw. Moore was asked how long it would have taken him to polish off his opponent had time been a factor. Moore told Plimpton, ‘’Bout the time it would take a tree to fall on you, or for you to feel the nip of the guillotine.’