10 Rare Sports Stories that Sound Crazy

by Shivam Khandelwal3 years ago

6 During the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, the Nazis ridiculed the US for relying on “non-human Black auxiliaries.” The American Black athlete Jesse Owens laid down quite a performance when he won four gold medals and beat a German at the long jump with Hitler watching the game. Four years after Owens’ death, a street in Berlin was renamed after him.

Jesse Owens
Image credit: Ohiostatebuckeyes

It was a spring afternoon of 1935 when Owens created history by beating three world records and tied one in just 45 minutes.

After that, in the summer of 1936, he subdued the Nazis by a win over a German athlete. The loss was extremely humiliating for the Nazis. The venue of the match was Berlin, infused with Nazism all over the place, and started with the Nazi anthem, “Deutschland Uber Alles”, then the red and black swastikas were fluttering everywhere and Hitler’s presence.  

The African-American athlete and grandson of slaves achieved his victory in the heavy Nazi aura which was heavy all over the stadium. Owens single-handedly destroyed the idea of Aryan supremacy. The point of embarrassment was that the Nazis considered African-Americans as inferiors, “non-humans,” and complained to the US for letting them participate.

Surprisingly enough, Luz Long, Owens’s long jump opponent, ended up being good friends with Owens. Once Owens mentioned, “Hitler must have gone crazy watching him and Long embrace.”

Owens died in March 1980 at the age of 66 of lung cancer. (Source)

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7 The world’s longest boxing match between Andy Bowen and Jack Burke lasted for more than seven hours during which 110 rounds were fought. This historical fighting duel of 6 April 1893 was eventually ruled as a “no contest,” and no one has been able to break the record since.

No Contest
Andy Bowen (Image to the left), Jack Burke. Image credits: cyberboxingzone via Wikimedia, chroniclingamerica via Wikimedia

The “no contest” was held at the Olympic Club in New Orleans, Louisiana. The match commenced at nine in the evening and the two fighters persisted for seven hours and 19 minutes until early the next morning. By the end, they had completed 110 rounds of gloved boxing.

The winner was to be titled the Lightweight Championship of the South, and the cash prize was $2,500.

The results seemed pretty clear from the first 25 rounds when Burke won each of them. However, “Iron Bowen” refused to be knocked out.

Bowen and Burke were so exhausted beyond limits that their boxing talents didn’t matter at all in the game. By the time they reached the 108th round, the men just lost faith in throwing punches and kept circling each other repeatedly. John Duff, the referee, didn’t see any point in continuing the contest after the 110th round, so he called it a draw and recommended splitting the purse.

Most of the spectators left by midnight, and the ones who hadn’t just snoozed into their chairs. (Source)

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8 Once a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, mocked Judit Polgar, a female Hungarian chess player, as a “circus puppet.” He even asserted that women chess players should stick to having children. Later in September 2002, Polgar avenged her insult by defeating Kasparov in the Russia versus the Rest of the World Match.

Chess Players
Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov (Image to the left), Judit Polgar, chess grandmaster from Hungary. Image credits: Owen Williams via Wikimedia, Stefan64 via Wikimedia

The first combat between the two grandmasters was a bit controversial when Kasparov illegally switched his knight to a different square just when he noticed he had committed a blunder.

Kasparov is one of the greatest players of all time, but his talent didn’t justify his statement against Polgar and women chess players in general. It was in Spain when the two grandmasters met and Kasparov ridiculed Polgar.

Polgar was a 24-year-old chess prodigy when she defeated Kasparov in just 42 moves in Moscow.

Kasparov was observed to be generally using the Sicilian defensive moves with black pieces, but he strangely used the Berlin Wall against Polgar which proved fatal to him.

Polgar’s rooks were devouring Kasparov’s pieces by her 42nd move, and at this point, Kasparov had had enough. Kasparov resigned without waiting for Polgar’s 43rd move and slipped right into the passage where journalists and photographers were barred.

Meanwhile, delighted Polgar described the very victory as “one of the most remarkable moments of my career.” (Source)

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9 Maria Teresa de Filippis was young when her two brothers made bets saying that she could not drive fast. The goading made her take up car racing, and at the age of 21, she made her competitive debut using a Fiat 500 and ending up as the second-fastest in her class. She kept pursuing racing and eventually emerged as the first woman to race in Formula One.

Maria Teresa de Filippis
The XI “Aosta – Gran San Bernardo” hillclimb on 1 September 1949, this is Maria Teresa de Filippis before the race. Image credit: Bertazzini/Flickr via Wikimedia

Filippis accomplished the commendable title of the first woman to participate in Formula One, nonetheless, her Grand Prix career was relatively short-lived. The total number of races she was a part of only adds up to five. Four of them were held in 1958, and the last one in the very next year.

Filippis is widely associated with a particular Formula One car, a Maserati 250F. The vehicle was considered as one of the fastest of that era, and more significantly, the most beautiful racing car ever built. That’s a lot to say about a car, but rightly so. It helped Filippis’s friend, Fangio, to win his fifth and final world title.

Filippis competed for the first time in 1958, certainly not a high time when the structure of cars and circuits ensured the drivers’ safety. Despite the life-threatening risks, she proved that women, too, could handle the same level of hazards as men at the speed of 175 miles per hour.

Filippis belonged to a wealthy family from Naples, and her career in car racing began as a product of her brothers’ provoking. (Source)

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10 The football club Stade Olympique de L’Emyrne’s players intentionally scored 149 times in their net to show their protest against “what they thought was biased refereeing.” The team officially lost the game against AS Adema by 149-0, and the coach and four players were also suspended.

Stadium
Image credit: scoopernews

It was the last match of the league championship on 31 October 2002 when Stade Olympique de L’Emyrne conceded the world record of scoring 149 own-goals.

The league authorities took some serious actions against the not-so-high spirit act. Zaka Be, the team’s coach, was suspended from his position and banned from visiting stadiums for three years on the accusation of orchestrating the debacle from the stands.   

The goalkeeper of the team, Mamisoa Razafindrakota, the captain, Manitranirina Andrianiaina, along with two more players, Nicolas Rakotoarimanana and Dominique Rakotonandrasana, also faced the same fate as their coach, but only until the 2002 season.

Every other player including AS Adema’s was warned of serious measures for any further offense.

Despite all of the drama, the referee was let off unpunished. (Source)

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