Records are meant to be broken…really? I beg to differ on this point. Some records are never meant to be broken. They need to remain there, as a mark of one’s greatness in a particular form of sport.
Oldest Olympic winner is…
…Oscar Swahn, who won a medal in 100 meter running deer double-shot event, in the 1920 Summer Olympics. He was 72 years old.
Sports are an indispensable part of our lives. With so many sports events taking place every year, we get to see some outstanding performances by numerous players. These special players or teams, set a standard for their opponents that simply cannot be matched, leave alone surpassing them. There are records that have been set centuries ago, and even with modern training methods and technology available to the players and coaches of this generation, they are still unbroken. It is just sheer excellence of the player who managed to achieve the feat and made his/her mark in the history of sports.
We, at Buzzle, have tried to put together few such unbreakable records from the most popular sports. None of the records are placed in any particular order or ranking. And of course, no one can ever say that any record will never be broken, though these records seem unlikely to be broken, at least in the near future.
Baseball
➦ Joe DiMaggio holds the record for the longest hitting strike in 56 games, in the year 1941.
➦ Cy Young, an American Pitcher, holds the record of most career wins of 511 in Major League Baseball.
➦ Ty Cobb’s highest lifetime batting average of .366 has yet to be broken. Ted Williams was the only player to come close to Cobb’s record, with a batting average of .344.
➦ Sam Crawford has the record of the highest number of triples in a lifetime, to his credit. His triples count is 309, in a career spanning from 1899 to 1917.
Basketball
➦ Wilt Chamberlain grabbed 55 rebounds in a game against the Boston Celtics, in 1960.
➦ Oscar Robertson, the Big O, as he is popularly known, recorded 181 triple-doubles in his NBA career of 14 years.
➦ The Bulls record of 72-10 match wins has yet to be broken. This record was set in the 1995 – 96 NBA season.
➦ Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point record in the infamous 1962 match against the New York Knicks is one feat that no one ever thought possible, and is definitely an unbeatable record.
Tennis
➦ Roger Federer holds the record for being in the No. 1 position in men’s tennis for 237 consecutive weeks, from the year 2004 to 2008.
➦ John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played a 2010 Wimbledon opening round tennis match for 11 hours and 5 minutes (spanning almost three days!).
➦ Steffi Graf held the top spot for a total of 377 weeks! This is the highest number of weeks being the best by any male or female tennis player.
➦Margaret Smith Court has 24 Grand Slam singles titles to her credit. The highest by any player.
Soccer
➦ Pelé holds the record of hitting maximum goals in soccer. The Brazilian’s goal count is 1281 goals.
➦ Just Fontaine has the record of most goals scored in a single edition of FIFA World Cup, with 13 goals to his credit in the 1958 tournament.
➦The record for highest number of World Cup titles is held by Brazil with 5 titles to their name.
➦Manchester United has 20 league titles to its credit.
Boxing
➦ Rocky Marciano has an incredible record of 49 wins with no losses at all!
➦ Joe Louis has the record of longest heavyweight reigning world champion. He held the position for 11 years, 8 months, and 8 days.
➦ LaMar Clark has the record of most consecutive knockouts to his credit. His opponent knockout count is 44, during the period of 1958 – 1960.
➦ Wilfred Benitez is the youngest boxer to ever win a world title. He won the Jr. Welterweight title when he was 17 years and 173 days old.
Golf
➦ John Byron Nelson, Jr. holds the record of winning 11 PGA tournaments in a row, and winning 18 out of 35 games played.
➦Tiger Woods held the #1 position for the most consecutive weeks, 281 weeks to be precise.
➦ Jack Nicklaus won 18 major championships, the most by any golfer till date.
➦ Francis Ouimet’s US Open victory in 1913, against world’s greatest players is rightly termed as the “Greatest Game Ever Played”. A 10-year old kid caddied for the 20-year old caddie turned golfer.
Ice Hockey
➦ Wayne Gretzky holds the record for most career points of 2857, and most goals of 894 in his career.
➦ Joe Malone has scored seven goals in a game against Toronto in 1920.
➦ Steve Yzerman was only 20 years old when he was selected captain of his team. He is the longest serving team captain, and held the position for 20 seasons.
➦The Pittsburgh Penguins scored the fastest five goals ever, in a game against St. Louis Blues. The Pens managed to score five goals within two minutes and seven seconds.
Cycling
➦ Pat Hawkins holds the ‘World Seven Days’ record, when she covered a distance of 1,546.8 miles in a week’s time, in 1940.
➦ Tommy Godwin rode 75,065 miles in 1939. This is the most number of miles that a cyclist has ever ridden in a single year.
➦ Sam Whittingham holds the record of being the fastest cyclist ever, with a record speed of 82.3 mph.
➦Francesco Russo set a world record of covering 56.89 miles in one hour, in the year 2011.
Racing
➦ Richard Petty holds the record of 200 NASCAR wins to his credit, and is rightly nicknamed ‘The King’.
➦ Michael Schumacher won 91 Formula One races, and seven driver’s world championships, the highest by any driver.
➦ Juan Pablo Montoya Roldán has the F1 record of the fastest top speed ever achieved, that of 372.6 km/h in the 2005 Italian Grand Prix.
➦ McLaren recorded 11 consecutive wins in the 1988 season.
Swimming
➦ Michael Phelps won 18 gold medals at the Olympic games, and has won 22 medals in total. This is the highest number of medals won by any individual at the games.
➦ Rebecca Adlington set a world record time of 8:14:10 at the 2008 Olympic Games in the women’s 800m freestyle category, breaking Janet Evan’s 1989 record.
➦César Cielo Filho holds the record of the best time ever set in 50m freestyle swimming. The time that he set was 20.91 seconds, in 2009.
➦ Zhao Jing holds the record of the fastest timing of 27.06 seconds in 50m women’s backstroke.
American Football
➦ Jerry Rice has the highest number of receiving yards, i.e. 22,895, in his NFL career.
➦ Ernie Nevers holds the record of most individual points scored in a game, with 40 points in a game against the Chicago Bears in 1929.
➦ Don Hutson holds the record for the most seasons with the highest league touchdowns – 9 seasons in his career.
➦Gary Anderson’s 2,434 points are the highest lifetime points in NFL history for any player.
Cricket
➦ Sachin Tendulkar holds the record for most centuries in test and one-day cricket combined. The number is 100 centuries.
➦ Sir Donald Bradman’s amazing test batting average record of 99.94 runs is still unbroken.
➦ Muttiah Muralitharan took 800 wickets in 133 test matches. This is one record that might stand forever, and together with his 530 wickets in ODIs, he has more than a thousand scalps to his name in international cricket.
➦ Australia’s 16 consecutive test wins is a record to watch out for. In fact, they have done it twice, once in 1999 – 2001 and then again in 2005 – 2008.
Field Hockey
➦ Sohail Abbas holds the world record for the most international goals by any player – 348 goals.
➦ Luciana Aymar is the only hockey player to receive the FIH Player of the Year award seven times.
➦ India holds the record of the highest number of gold medals in Olympics men’s field hockey. The medal count is 8 gold medals, with 1 silver, and 2 bronze medals.
➦ Pakistan’s 4 World Cup wins is the highest by any team in the history of the game.
Track and Field
➦ Usain Bolt’s world record of completing 100m in 9.58 seconds. He held the title of the previous best record as well of 9.69 seconds. Well, if there is anyone that can break this record, it is the man himself.
➦ Florence Griffith Joyner holds the 100m record in the women’s category. Her time of 10.49 seconds stands unbeaten since 1988.
➦ Jürgen Schult is the current record holder in discuss throw with a distance of 74.08m. This record has remained unbroken since 1986.
➦ Yordanka Donkova’s 12.21 set in 100m hurdles in 1988 seems to be an unbreakable world record.
Horse Racing
➦ Secretariat won by a 31-length margin, one of the largest winning margins in the history of the sport.
➦ Bart Cummings, an Australian racehorse trainer, holds the record of 12 Melbourne cup wins in the period from 1965 – 2008.
➦Eddie Arcaro is the only jockey to win the Triple Crown by riding two horses.
➦ Julie Krone has the most number of race wins, i.e. 3,158 races in the period from 1980 to 1996. This is the most by any female jockey.
Other Sports
Apart from the sports that are mentioned above, here are few other important records that are yet to be broken.
✍ Jahangir Khan holds the record for winning 555 consecutive squash matches. He remained unbeaten for 5 years and 8 months.
✍ Fu Haifeng, former mixed doubles player from China, hit the fastest smash in the history of badminton, with a speed of 332 km/h, in 2005.
✍ Giacomo Agostini has won 15 Grand Prix world motorcycle racing championships, from 1966 – 1975.
✍ Walter Lindrum from Australia is the only player in the history of billiards to hold 57 world records.
✍ Alexander Karelin had never been defeated in International wrestling championship, in his career from 1987 to 2000.
✍ Chinaleadsthe medals table in table tennis at the Olympics. Their current medal count is at 41, and South Korea, who are second place, have a medal count of 18.
✍ Martina Navratilova has 167 career singles tennis titles to her name.
✍ North Carolina women’s soccer team won 101 consecutive games from 1986 – 1990.
✍ At the Olympics, the U.S. men’s basketball team has recorded 63 straight wins.
✍ Edwin Moses, a 400m hurdles runner, never lost a race from 1977 to 1987, and has recorded 122 straight wins.
Irving Berlin once said, “The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success”. Though many of the above mentioned players are currently not active in sports, their records will remain untouched. Let’s hope one day some great player of the sport will be able to surpass these legends of the game. Hats off to these skillful players…
