• September 3 down the years

Olympic glory for Peters

Mary Peters was a superb all-round athlete © Getty Images

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1972
Mary Peters won Olympic gold. She was 33 by then and not considered favourite for the pentathlon, the forerunner of the heptathlon. Fourth at the 1964 Games, she dropped to ninth in 1968. But a change from the straddle to the Fosbury Flop made her much more competitive in the high jump - crucially so, as it turned out. After a personal best in the 100 metres hurdles, Peters jumped another one, 1.82 metres, six centimetres higher than East Germany's world record holder Burglinde Pollak and a whopping 17 more than local favourite Heide Rosendahl. As Peters jumped higher and higher, the Munich crowd sportingly cheered her on. By the end of the first day, she led Pollak by 97 points and Rosendahl by a massive 301. It finished a bit closer than that. Heide was sleek and super-quick, Peters big and strong. Here she'd thrown the shot 2.43 metres further than Rosendahl. But the two day-two events were Rosendahl's best and Mary P's worst. In the long jump, Heide reached 6.83 metres, only a centimetre short of her own world record. Peters didn't manage six metres and suddenly needed to finish within 1.20 seconds in the 200 metres. While Rosendahl was clocking a super-fast 22.96 seconds, Peters tried to keep pace early on - and paid for it with 70 metres to go when everything drained out of her legs. So she ran with her arms instead. 'A million times in lonely training sessions', her coach had yelled 'Arms, arms' to remind her, and now she 'pumped harder and harder with the arms until they were virtually dragging my legs behind them'. She reached the line in 24.08 seconds. After a horribly long anxious wait, the results came up on the screen, announcing her as Olympic champion - by ten points. Her 4,801 and Rosendahl's 4,791 both broke the world record. Heide won two golds at these Games, narrowly in the long jump ( August 31) and with a surprise run in the sprint relay ( September 10).

A brighter medal for the host country - in an equally close competition. In the men's javelin, defending champion and world record holder Jānis Lūsis led the competition until Klaus Wolfermann threw 90.48 metres in the fifth round. Lūsis had one attempt left - and he made it a good one. Again it took a while for the result to flash up - then the crowd roared. Lūsis had fallen two centimetres short, the shortest measurable difference in javelin throwing. Convenient or what...?

Over in the swimming pool, Mark Spitz continued on his way to seven gold medals ( September 4) by winning the 100 metres freestyle. Even though he was the world record holder, this was the event Spitz was least confident about. But he attacked the first 50 and held on to finish in 51.22 seconds, breaking the 51.47 he'd set the previous month.

1994
The shortest world title fight in boxing. When Harald Geier challenged Puerto Rico's Daniel Jiménez for his WBO super-bantamweight belt, the Austrian was unbeaten in 20 pro fights. Not for much longer. In Geier's home town of Wiener Neustadt, a single right hand by Jiménez was enough. The bout lasted a whole 17 seconds, a record for brevity that was equalled in 2003 ( July 19).

Steve Ovett was part of a golden age of British distance running, along with Seb Coe and Steve Cram © Getty Images

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1978
Steve Ovett's gold medal at the European Championships made him BBC Sports Personality of the Year. After the shock of losing first place in the 800 metres to an unknown runner ( August 31, he was imperious in the 1500. There's a photo of the last few yards, with Ireland's Eamonn Coghlan using his famous sprint to finish ahead of Britain's Dave Moorcroft. Coghlan's arms are held high and his face beams with delight - at finishing second. Ovett's own finishing kick brought him home ten yards clear. His time of 3 minutes 35.59 was nearly three seconds faster than the previous Championship record and wasn't broken until 1994.

On the same day, Seve Ballesteros retained his title at the Swiss Open with one of those quirky little facts you get in golf. He shot 68 in each of the four rounds.

1950
The Italian Grand Prix at Monza was the last of the first World Championship season. The legendary Juan Manuel Fangio led the table and started on pole, but his gearbox went after 23 laps and 43-year-old Nino Farina won the race easily in his Alfa Romeo to become the inaugural world champion in front of his own fans. Fangio won the world title the following year and five times in all.

The same day in 1939 saw the last pre-war national Grand Prix, the only one ever held in Yugoslavia. Italy's great icon Tazio Nuvolari negotiated the cobbled streets in his Auto Union just ahead of Manfred von Brauchitsch in a Mercedes. But only five drivers started the race and only three finished. Most people's minds were elsewhere. This was the day Britain declared war on Germany.

2004
When rich Middle Eastern countries started buying Olympic medals by paying African runners to change nationality, they also got their names in the record books. Take Saif Saeed Shaheen, for one. He started life in Kenya as Stephen Cherono, but in Brussels today he put Qatar in lights by running the 3,000 metres steeplechase in 7 minutes 53.63 seconds. This broke the official world record set by Brahim Boulami of Morocco and set the one that's still with us. Boulami had run faster in 2002, but he was done for drugs.

1960
The youngest known Olympic gold medallist in a men's event. Klaus Zerta of Germany was only 13 years 282 days old when he steered Bernhard Knubel and Heinz Renneberg to victory in the coxed pairs. But another cox was almost certainly younger in the same event in 1900 ( August 26.)

In Rome's Stadio Olimpico, the most popular gold medal was of course the one won by Italy's Livio Berruti in the 200 metres. Slim and slight like Pietro Mennea after him, cool in his sunglasses, Berruti emerged with a one-yard lead after running a typically superb bend. He and American silver medallist Les Carney ran so fast that they fell over after crossing the line. Berruti's time of 20.5 seconds matched the world record he'd equalled in the semi-final.

1906
In one of the epic fights, Joe Gans finally kept his world title against Oscar Battling Nelson. Gans was one of the greatest lightweight boxers of all time, Nelson one of the roughest and toughest. In the open-air Casino Amphitheatre in Goldfield, Nevada (you can see why the town sprung up), Gans boxed while Nelson fouled, typical of both careers. To be fair to the Dane, he took a fearful amount of punishment, knocked down twice and saved by the bell more than once. In the end, when he'd had enough, Nelson fouled once too often even for the referee, who disqualified him. They were in the 42nd round and the film company had run out of film! Nelson had his revenge in the ring two years later, but Gans was a sick man by then. He died of TB in 1910.

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