14th 

  • Playing for Celtic against Dunfermline in a Scottish League first division game in 1928, Jimmy McGrory scored a then first/Premier division record eight goals. In the same season Owen McNally of Arthurlie had become the first man to score eight goals in a Scottish league game, against Armadale in the second division; over the next 10 seasons Jim Dyet (Kings Park), John Calder (Morton) and Norman Haywood (Raith Rovers) equalled the records set by McNally and McGrory.
  • Australian golfer Graham Marsh, brother of Test cricketer Rodney Marsh, was born in 1944. His finest moment came in 1977 when he beat Ray Floyd to win the World Match-Play Championship at Wentworth.
  • On this day in 1958, a crowd of 60,000 watched Manchester United beat Red Star Belgrade 2-1 in a European Cup tie at Old Trafford. The second leg three weeks later was to be the last appearance of the ‘Busby Babes’ before the Munich Air Disaster.
  • On the day in 1969 Matt Busby retires from Manchester United. 59 year-old Busby told a news conference ‘It’s time to make way for a younger man….a track-suited manager’. Busby proved a hard act to follow with successor Wilf McGuinness was sacked just 18 months later. He was followed by Frank O’Farrell who fared little better and then in 1972 Tom Docherty took control and gradually lifted the team’s flagging performance as aged players like Sir Bobby Charlton retired to let in new blood. Docherty himself was sacked in 1977 after it was revealed he was having an affair with the wife of the team’s physiotherapist. Sir Alex Ferguson took over as manager in 1986. From 1980 until 1993 Sir Matt was president of the club, he died in 1994.
  • Harold Abrahams,British athlete died on this day in 1978 aged 78. His father, Isaac, was a Jewish immigrant from the Congress Poland. He worked as a financier, and settled in Bedford with his Welsh Jewish wife, Esther Isaacs. Harold was born in Bedford, and was the younger brother of another British athlete, the Olympic long jumper Sir Sidney Abrahams. Another brother, Sir Adolphe Abrahams, according to Harold, became the founder of British sport medicine. Harold, while at Cambridge was a member of the Cambridge University Athletics Club (of which he was president 1922–1923) and also was a member of the Achilles Club, a track and field club formed in 1920 by and for past and present representatives of Oxford and Cambridge universities.  He was Olympic 100m champion in 1924 and also, as opening runner for the 4×100m team, he won a silver medal. In May 1925, Abrahams broke his leg while long-jumping, ending his athletic career. He returned to his legal career. In 1928, he was team captain of the British Olympic team at Amsterdam and editor of the Official British Olympic Report for the same games. Subsequently he worked as an athletics journalist for forty years, becoming a commentator on the sports for BBC radio. In 1936, he reported the Berlin Olympics for the BBC. Later in his life, he also became president of the Jewish Athletic Association, and served as chairman for the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA). Abrahams wrote a number of books, including The Olympic Games, 1896–1952 and The Rome Olympiad, 1960. Although not an official timer, Abrahams was also present when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954.
  • On this day in 1994 Inna Lassovskayan triple-jumped a female world record of 14.61m, in 1996 she jumped past the 15m mark for the first time (15.08m) at Madrid and won an Olympic silver medal. In 1997 she won the World Indoor Championships and the same year in Valencia she jumped 15.09m which remains her PB.
  • In 2015 American rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson become the first to successfully free-climb the Dawn Wall face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a climb of 3,000ft, the men started the climb on December 27th
  • Cyrille Regis, English international footballer, died on this day in 2018, aged 59. His professional playing career spanned 19 years, where he made 614 league appearances and scored 158 league goals, most prolifically at West Bromwich Albion and Coventry City. He also won five caps with the England national team.

 

15th 

  • On this day in 1892 the rules of Basketball were published in Triangle Magazine, Massachusetts.
  • In 1927 BBC Radio gave its first life commentary of a rugby match, Teddy Wakelam reporting on the first international from Twickenham between England and Wales. England won 11-9.
  • Amelia Earhart set an aviation record for women at 171mph in a Lockheed Vega on this day in 1930.
  • Ian Stewartwas born in 1949, a Scottish long-distance runner, he was one of the world’s leading distance runners between the late 1960s and mid-1970s. Stewart won the bronze medal in the Men’s 5000m at the 1972 Olympics in Munich (a race won by Lasse Virén). Stewart also won the following championships: European 5000m (1969), Commonwealth 5000m (1970), European Indoor (1969 and 1975) and World Cross Country (1975).
  • Wellington batsman John Reid scored a world record 15 sixes in his innings of 296 against Northern Districts at Wellington in 1963.
  • Playing in front of 62,000 crowd at the Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, the Green Bay Packers beat Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 to win the first Super Bowl in 1967. Max McGee and Elijah Pitts each scored two touchdowns for the victors, for whom Bart Starr became the first winner of the coveted Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.
  • Ukrainian pole-vaulter Sergey Bubka set his first world record, with a vault of 19ft ¼in (5.81m) in 1984.
  • Also in 1984 Hana Madlikova ended Martina Navratilova’s 54 match winning streak.
  • At Bournemouth in 1985 snooker player Stacey Hillyard made history when she became the first woman to compile a century break in a competitive match. Hallyard, who was only 15 at the time, compiled 114 playing in a local league match.
  • At Madras in 1988, Indian bowler Narendra Hirwani produced the best figures for a player on his Test debut, taking 16 wickets for 136 runs against the West Indies. Bob Massie also took 16 wickets, but for 137 runs, on his debut for Australia against England at Lord’s in 1972.
  • Alexei Cherepanov, Russian professional ice hockey player was born today in 1989. He had played for Avangard’s lower level teams, and then for the senior men’s team in the Russian Super League. He was selected in the first round (17th overall) of the 2007 National Hockey League (NHL) Entry Draft by the New York Rangers, although he never played professional hockey in North America. Cherepanov represented Russia in international play and played in several tournaments at the junior level. He won a gold medal at the 2007 World Under-18 Championships. While playing at the Under-20 level, Cherepanov won silver and bronze medals in 2007 and 2008. During a KHL game in October 2008, Cherepanov collapsed on the bench near the end of the game and could not be resuscitated. He was pronounced dead later that day in hospital at the age of 19. His cause of death was attributed to heart failure, although there were varying reports as to the specific nature of his underlying medical condition. After his death, the KHL launched an investigation into the emergency response provided by the home team during the game, and also into team officials and physicians for their treatment and management of Cherepanov’s health during his career. Avangard retired Cherepanov’s Number 7 jersey after his death, and the KHL renamed its Rookie of the Year trophy to the Alexei Cherepanov Trophy.
  • On this day in 2012, Mika Ahola,Finnish Enduro rider and a five-time world champion died. He was also a seven-time winner of the International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) World Trophy with Team Finland and was the fastest overall in the competition in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Ahola debuted in the World Enduro Championship in a Husqvarna in 1993 and became a regular title contender after joining the TM factory team in 1997.Mika Ahola announced his retirement from Enduro racing on New Year’s Day 2012.  He subsequently died of internal injuries on 15th January at a hospital in Barcelona, a few weeks after crashing while training in Girona,

 

16th

  • Born on this day in 1876 was Claude Percy Buckenham, an Essex and England cricketer. A tall and gangling figure with a toothcomb moustache, Buckenham was a fast bowler and useful lower order batsman who played for Essex between 1899 and 1914. In his obituary in Wisdensit stated that he was more expensive that he perhaps deserved having suffered from a lot of slipshod fielding – his career average of more than 25 is high for that era. The 1906 season was the first in which he took more than 100 wickets, and he played several representative matches over the next few English seasons without breaking into the Test match team in England. He was picked in the squad for the fifth Test at The Oval against the 1909 Australians but was then left out of the team: his omission was described by Sydney Pardon, editor of Wisden, as “a fatal blunder” and the selectors’ decision not to include a fast bowler at all “touched the confines of lunacy”. Buckenham’s only Test experience came on the 1909-10 tour to South Africa. In four Tests, he took 21 wickets at 28 runs apiece, including five for 115 in the first South African innings of the third Test at Johannesburg. But though he had his most productive season in 1911, with 134 first-class wickets, he was considered too old for the 1911-12 tour to Australia. Buckenham was a good amateur footballer and played county soccer for Essex. He played right-back for the Upton Park F.C. team that won the inaugural Olympic football tournament in 1900. Buckenham retired in 1914 to become professional at the Scottish club Forfarshire and after serving with Royal Garrison Artillery in the First World War he became cricket coach at Repton School.
  • Eric Liddell, Scottish athlete, rugby union international player and missionary, who chose his religious beliefs over competing in an Olympic race held on a Sunday, was born today in 1902.  At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Liddell refused to run in the heats for his favoured 100m because they were held on a Sunday. Instead he competed in the 400m, held on a weekday, a race that he won. He returned to China in 1925 to serve as a missionary teacher. Aside from two furloughs in Scotland, he remained in China until his death in a Japanese civilian internment camp in 1945.
  • One of the best-known names on the American Indy Car circuit, A J Foyt, was born in  1935. In 1977 he became the first man to win the Indianapolis 500 endurance race four times, having won it previously in 1961, 1964 and 1967.
  • Canadian snooker player Cliff Thorburn was born in 1948.  He captured a thrilling world title at the Crucible Theatre in 1980 when he beat Alex Higgins 18-16. He also made history in 1983 when he became the first man to compile a maximum break in the world championship. In 1989, he became the first man to register two official maximum breaks in tournament play.
  • Anatoli Boukreev, Russian/Kazakhstani mountaineer was born on this day in  1958. He made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks, (peaks above 8,000m/26,247ft), without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 to 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000m. Boukreev had a reputation as an elite mountaineer in international climbing circles for summiting K2 in 1993 and Mount Everest via the North Ridge route in 1995 but became more widely known for his role in saving climbers during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. In 1997, Boukreev was killed in an avalanche during a winter ascent of Annapurna in Nepal. Boukreev’s companion, Linda Wylie, edited his memoirs and published them in 2002 under the title, Above the Clouds: The Diaries of a High-Altitude Mountaineer.
  • Arthur Darby, British rugby union player who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics died on this day in 1960. Before representing Britain in the Olympics, Darby was selected to represent England as part of the 1899 Home Nations Championship while playing club rugby for Cambridge University. Darby played in only the one game for England in a period viewed as very poor for the national team. The next year Darby played for the British rugby union team, which won the silver medal.
  • Philippe Thys, Belgian cyclist, died on this day in 1971, aged 81.   He was a three times winner of the Tour de France. In 1910, Thys won Belgium’s first national cyclo-cross championship. The following year he won the Circuit Français Peugeot, followed by stage races from Paris to Toulouse and Paris to Turin. He turned professional to ride the Tour de France. Thys won the Tour in 1913 despite breaking his bicycle fork and finding a bicycle shop to mend it. The repair cost him a 10-minute penalty, but he won by just under nine minutes. Another broken fork by a rival on the way to Nice gave Thys the lead again but drama continued when he fell on the penultimate stage fromLongwy to Dunkirk. Despite being knocked out and being penalised for help from teammates to repair his bike, he won by 8:37secs over Gustave Garrigou. In 1914, he took his first stage victory, to Le Havre, holding the race from start to finish despite a 30-minute penalty for an unauthorised wheel change on the penultimate stage. His victory looked uncertain, his lead cut to less than two minutes ahead of Henri Pélissier. Ironically, on the final stage from Dunkirk to Paris, the Frenchman’s supporters along the route who were expecting victory over the Belgian were the reason he was prevented from launching a breakaway. He won the stage but Thys finished on his wheel to win the Tour. In 1917, Thys won Paris–Tours and the Giro di Lombardia. In 1918, he also won the second and last Tours–Paris. After World War I, Thys won the Tour a third and final time in 1920. He led from the second stage, Henri Desgrange writing “France is not unaware that, without the war, the crack rider from Anderlecht would be celebrating not his third Tour, but his fifth or sixth”. Not until 1955 did Louison Bobet equal Thys’s record, and not until 1963 did Jacques Anquetil break it with four wins. Thys also rode in the 1922 Tour, winning five stages, and in the 1924 Tour, winning two stages.
  • Born today in 1987, Charlotte Henshaw, British Paralympic swimmer, who competed in the SB6, SM8 and S8 category events. She represented Great Britain in both the 2011 IPC World Championships and the 2012 Paralympics, winning a silver medal in both championships.
  • Gertrude Augusta Moran, died on this day aged 89 in 2013. An American tennis player who was active in the late 1940s and 1950s. Her tennis talents took her to a No. 4 ranking among U.S. women and into the seventh-seeded spot in the 1949 Wimbledon tournament. Moran, always preferred to be known as “Gussy” not “Gussie,” wanted to make a fashion splash at Wimbledon that would be in line with her outgoing personality and showcase her “pretty legs”. She asked one of the official hosts, Ted Tinling, to help her design an outfit. Tinling did, and an uproar ensued. She ended up being overwhelmed by the attention and may have never reached her potential because of the Wimbledon incident. She later told friends that, when she got home, she took the lace knickers and dumped them in a rubbish bin. In the days when Moran played, tennis was mostly an amateur sport. Moran left the amateur circuit to turn pro in 1951 and travel with a touring group organized by Bobby Riggs. That turned out to be a financial, athletic and personal disaster. She never got the money she was promised, she lost most of her matches to nightly opponent Pauline Betz, and her future was left up in the air. She never quite escaped the pretty-legs and lace-knickers imagery, nor did she always run from it. From the moment she took the court in that infamous moment at Wimbledon in 1949, she went from being Gussy Moran to “Gorgeous Gussy” Moran. The name stuck for the rest of her life and the fame lasted a long time.

17th 

  • Today in 1773 Captain James Cook becomes the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle.
  • In 1916 Rodman Wanamaker organised a lunch to discuss forming a golfers association at the Taplow Club, Martinique Hotel, New York City. This association would later become known as the
  • On this day in 1933 the MCC received a telegram from the Australian Cricket Board complaining about the excessive use of ‘bodyline’ bowling by Harold Larwood in the infamous Test series. The English pace bowler’s tactics of aiming deliveries at the batsman’s body sparked a fierce controversy and caused a lot of ill-feeling between the two nations.
  • One of the world’s best-known sportsmen Muhammad Ali, was born in  1942. He was widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century. From early in his career, Ali was known as an inspiring, controversial, and polarizing figure both inside and outside the ring. As Cassius Clay he won the Olympic light-heavyweight title in 1960. This achievement is reputed to have meant so much to him that he kept his medal around his neck, even when in the bath, for weeks after winning the title! However, an equally famous story from his 1975 autobiography goes that shortly after his return from the Rome Olympics, he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River after he and a friend were refused service at a “whites-only” restaurant and fought with a white gang. The story was later disputed and several of Ali’s friends, including Bundini Brown and photographer Howard Bingham, denied it. Thomas Hauser’s later biography of Ali stated that Ali was refused service at the diner but that he lost his medal a year after he won it.  Ali received a replacement medal at a basketball intermission during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the games. He turned professional shortly after his Olympic triumph and in Miami in 1964 he caused a sensation by defeating the seemingly invincible Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight title. In the return bout he beat Liston with a first round knockout and defended his crown successfully in the ring until stripped of it by the authorities in 1967 for refusing to be drafted into the US Army. He was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport. As a result, he did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970—from ages 25 to almost 29—as his case worked its way through the appeals process before his conviction was overturned in 1971. During this time of inactivity, as opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow and Ali’s stance gained sympathy, he spoke at colleges across the nation, criticizing the Vietnam War and advocating African American pride and racial justice. He regained the title in 1974, beating George Foreman, for a further four years before losing it to Leon Spinks. Seven months later he beat Spinks to become the first man to twice regain the title. He made an unsuccessful attempt to regain it a third time against Larry Holmes in 1980. Ali retired in 1982 following a points defeat by Trevor Berbick. Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome in 1984, a disease that sometimes results from head trauma from activities such as boxing. Ali was hospitalized in Scottsdale on June 2, 2016, with a respiratory illness. Though his condition was initially described as “fair”, it worsened and he died the following day, at the age of 74, from septic shock.
  • The first division match between Manchester United and Arsenal in 1948 drew a then Football League record crowd of 83,260. The game was played at Manchester City’s Maine Road ground because war damage had put Old Trafford put of action. The game ended in a 1-1 draw.
  • Maureen Connolly beat Julia Sampson to take the Australian Championships (6-3, 6-2) on this day in 1953.
  • In 1983 people in the UK began switching on the televisions a little earlier than usual as the BBC launched the first breakfast news programme. The BBC’s new Breakfast Time programme went on air at 6:30am, presented by Nationwide’s Frank Bough and former ITN news reader Selina Scott.
  • In 2013, after stripping Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles, the IOC takes away his bronze medal from the 2000 Olympics, after he was found guilty of doping.

 

18th 

  • England beat Wales 2-1 at Kennington Oval in 1879 in the first football international between the two countries.
  • On this day in 1886 modern field hockey was born with the formation of The Hockey Association. The modern sport grew from English public schools in the early 19th century, the first club was circa 1862 at Blackheath, London but the modern rules evolved from a version played by Middlesex cricket clubs for winter sport. Teddington Hockey Club formed the modern game by introducing the striking circle and changing the ball to a sphere from a rubber cube. The first international competition took place in 1895 (Ireland 3,Wales 0) and the International Rules Board was founded in 1900.
  • Today in 1911 aviator Eugene Ely performs his first successful take-off and landing from a ship in San Francisco.
  • Herman Brockmann died on this day in 1936, a Dutch rower who competed in the 1900 Olympics. He was part of the Dutch boats Minerva Amsterdam, which won the gold medal in the coxed pairs, the silver medal in the coxed fours and the bronze medal in the eights. He also competed in the semi-final of the coxed pairs competition. However, his 60kg weight was seen as a considerable disadvantage and he was replaced by an unknown local boy of 33kg. The crew went on to win the final narrowly beating the French team. Despite not racing the final Brockmann is considered a gold medallist by the IOC and is listed in their medal database.
  • National Hunt jockey Richard Dunwoody was born in 1964.  In the 1991-92 season he won a then National Hunt record £923,974 in prize money. He rode West Tip to win 1986 Grand National.
  • Lewis Marnell, Australian professional skateboarder died on this day in 2013 aged 30He was Slam Magazine’s 2008 “Skater of the Year” and died following complications related to type 1 (juvenile) diabetes, a condition that was diagnosed when he was 10 years old. Numerous tributes were published following Marnell’s death and his long-time skateboard deck sponsor, Almost Skateboards, continues to use the hashtag “#LewisMarnellForever.
  • On this day in 2014 a new world record was achieved by UKs Lewis Clarke of Bristol, when the 16 year-old became the youngest person to trek to the South Pole.

 

19th

  • Captain Matthew Webb, the first recorded person to swim the English Channel without the use of artificial aids was born on this day in 1848.
  • Magda Tagliaferro, Brazilian pianist was born today in 1893. Her father, who had studied piano with Raoul Pugno in Paris, was a voice and piano professor in São Paulo Conservatory. He was her first teacher. The cellist Pablo Casals heard Tagliaferro play in São Paulo when she was eleven, and he encouraged her to study at the Conservatoire de Paris. She went to Paris with her parents. Her father arranged for her to play for Pugno, who was impressed and recommended her to Antonin Marmontel at the Conservatoire. She entered the conservatoire in 1906 in Marmontel’s class and was awarded the Premier Prix (the highest examination award for performance) in 1907. Subsequently, she studied with Alfred Cortot and the two remained friends for the rest of his life. During her studies at the Conservatoire, the director, Gabriel Fauré invited her on a short tour with him. Later, she performed many of his compositions. During her career, her recital engagements took her to the musical centre of more than 30 countries in Europe, Africa, America, and Asia. She was also very active as a soloist, performing with many leading orchestras and performed with many distinguished conductors. Tagliaferro also had a distinguished career as a pedagogue. She taught in the Paris Conservatoire from 1937 to 1939, where Polish pianist Władysław Kędra was among her students, invited by her when she heard him play as she judged the III International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in February–March, 1937. She also created her own school in Paris and later in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo.
  • Great Britain rugby league coach Mal Reilly was born in 1948.  He spent his playing career with Castleford and Manly (Australia) before returning to ‘Cas’ as coach in 1974. As a player he won most of the game’s top honours including two challenge cup winners’ medals. In 1969 he won the Lance Todd Trophy.
  • Sweden’s top lawn tennis player Stefan Edberg was born in 1966. He captured the Wimbledon title in 1988 when he beat Boris Becker in four sets. The two contested the 1989 final which Becker won in straight sets. Edberg regained the title the following year after a five-set marathon. He won his first Grand Slam event in 1985 when he took the Australian title.
  • The Estonian chess player Sergei Zjukin was born today in 1972. He was awarded the International Master title in 2000 and played for Estonia in Chess Olympiads. Since 2004 he has been working as a chess coach in Tallinn’s Tinu Truusa chess club and chess club Lasnamäe Noorte.
  • Today in 1990 police in Johannesburg armed with batons and dogs broke up a demonstration against the rebel cricketers who were defying a ban on playing in segregated South Africa. Several hundred protesters, many waving placards saying “Apartheid is not cricket” and “Ban racist tours” had gathered in the arrivals hall at Jan Smuts airport to wait for the 15 England tourists led by former England captain Mike Gatting. The cricketers were three hours late – by which time the police had moved in waving batons, setting the dogs on protesters and firing tear gas. The tour was organised by managing director of the South African Cricket Union, Dr Ali Bacher, and was opposed by the ANC and the mainly black National Sports Congress. They threatened to disrupt matches and interrupt play as part of their on-going campaign for the intensification of sanctions against South Africa. The rebel tour had to be abandoned early because of disruption. Organisers feared for the players’ safety after an explosion at the second Test venue, Capetown’s Newlands, before the match. Twenty-five days of demonstrations – plus the change in political climate following the release on 11 February of Nelson Mandela – convinced Dr Bacher the tour could not continue. A second tour planned for the following winter was also cancelled. The players were reported to have been paid in full. Gatting served a three-year Test ban and was recalled to the England side for the tour of India and Sri Lanka in 1992-93.
  • In the rugby union international championship of 1991 England had their first win in Cardiff for 28 years.
  • On the same day Serge Blanco, playing for France against Scotland, became the most capped rugby union player to date.
  • Sarah Jean Burke, Canadian freestyle skier and a pioneer of the superpipe event, died at the tender age of 29 in 2012.  She was a five-time Winter X Games gold medallist and won the world championship in the halfpipe in 2005. She successfully lobbied the IOC to have the event added to the Olympic program for the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was considered a medal favourite in the event. She died following a training accident in Utah.
  • Today in 2013 Lance Armstrong admits to doping in all seven of his Tour de France victories.
  • American skier Lindsey Vonn wins her 63rd World Cup today in 2015, thus setting a new record after 35 years; the previous record of 62 wins was held by Austrian skier Annemarie Moser-Proell.

 

20th 

  • The first game of basketball was played at the YMCA Training School, Springfield, Massachusetts in 1892. The game had been devised a month previously by Dr James Naismith.
  • On this day in 1930 Charles Lindbergh arrived in New York, setting a cross country flying record of 14.75 hours.
  • Carol Heiss,American figure skater and former actress, was born today in 1940. She was the 1960 Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, 1956 Olympic silver medallist and five-time World Champion (1956–1960). After the 1956 Winter Olympics, Heiss had offers to turn professional and skate in ice shows. But her mother, Marie Heiss, was quite ill with cancer at the time, and before her death in October, 1956, she asked Carol to stay an amateur to win a gold medal for her. She took the Olympic Oath as representative of the organizing country to open the 1960 games. By winning the 1960 World Championships held after the Olympics, Heiss became one of three women to have won five consecutive World Championships. She retired thereafter. Following her retirement from figure skating in 1960, Heiss played the female lead in the 1961 film Snow White and the Three Stooges. She married Hayes Alan Jenkins, who had won the 1956 Winter Olympic gold medal in men’s figure skating, and whose brother David Jenkins had won the men’s figure skating gold medal in 1960. Although Heiss briefly skated in ice shows after the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics, she retired from the sport in 1962. However, in the late 1970s, she returned to coach several skaters in her hometown area, Akron, Ohio where she became a prominent figure skating coach and is now coaching in Lakewood, Ohio. Some of her students include Timothy Goebel, Tonia Kwiatkowski and Miki Ando. Heiss was known as a very athletic skater for her time. In 1953, she became the first female skater to land a double axel jump. Carol Heiss’s younger sister and brother, Nancy Heiss and Bruce Heiss, were also elite figure skating competitors. During the 1950s, the three skating Heiss siblings were featured in publications such as Life magazine.
  • Christopher Martin-Jenkins was born on this day in 1945, also known as CMJ, he was a British cricket journalist and a President of the MCC. He was also the longest serving commentator for Test Match Special on BBC Radio, from 1973 until diagnosed with terminal cancer in January 2012, he passed away on 1st January 2013.
  • Today in 1958 members of the team attempting the first surface crossing of the Antarctic joined up at the South Pole. New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary – who had already conquered Mount Everest – had arrived with his team 17 days previously. Early on the afternoon of the 20th, Sir Edmund welcomed the British team led by Dr Vivian “Bunny” Fuchs to the South Pole. The British and New Zealand teams were members of a joint Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition but set off from opposite ends of the continent last November. They reached Scott camp on 2 March 1958 after a journey of 99 days and more than 2,000 miles across the Antarctic. Dr Fuchs’ achievement was rewarded by an immediate knighthood and he returned home to Britain as Sir Vivian.
  • In 1974 Millwall and Fulham met at The Den in the first Football League game to be played on a Sunday. Millwall won 1-0 with a goal by Brian Clark.
  • Today in 1980 US President Jimmy Carter announced the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
  • Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller died in 1984. He was the first man to swim 100m in under a minute which he did in 1922. He won both the 100m and 400m freestyle gold medals at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He retained his 100m title in Amsterdam four years later. He also won gold in the relay at both Games. In 1928 he was a member of the US Water Polo team that took the bronze medal. When his swimming career ended, he went to Hollywood where he made, in 1934, the first of 12 Tarzan movies that would keep him in the public eye. He was the first of four Olympic medallists to play the title role, the others being Buster Crabbe, Herman Brix and Glenn Morris.
  • Freddie Williams, Welsh motorcycle speedway rider died on this day in 2013. He was World Champion on two occasions, the winner of the Speedway World Championship in 1950 and 1953and runner-up in 1952. Williams grew up in Port Talbot, where he was a classmate of Richard Burton, and they played together in the school rugby team. In 1941 he moved to Portsmouth where he started an apprenticeship in the dockyards as an engineer-fitter. He was a despatch rider in World War II, and began his speedway career as the war ended, after initially competing in grass-track. After attending training sessions at Rye House, he was signed by Alec Jackson for the Wembley Lions, and in 1948 got a regular place in the team after injuries to George Wilks and Bill Kitchen. Williams rode for the Wembley Lions for his entire career, from 1947 until 1956. He became the first British rider to win two World titles (in 1950 and 1953), a feat only matched by Peter Craven a decade later. Williams represented England in test match series, gaining his first cap in 1949. In 1952 he married Olympic skater Pat Devries. His two younger brothers, Ian and Eric, were also speedway riders, and Freddie acted as Eric’s mechanic at the 1957 World Final. Williams died aged 86 following a stroke the previous day. As of the 2014 World Championship, Williams is one of only seven British riders, and the only Welshman, to win speedway’s ultimate individual prize.
  • Australian rugby league player Graeme Frank Langlands, died on this day in 2018, he was also widely known by the nickname  “Changa”. His playing career spanned from the 1950s to the 1970s, when he turned to coaching . He retired as the most-capped player for the Australian national team with 45 international appearances from 1963 to 1975, and captained his country in 15 Test matches and World Cup Langlands was the fullback and goal-kicker for the St. George Dragons in the latter half of their 11-year consecutive premiership-winning run from 1956 to 1966.