• March 23 down the years

Mike Hailwood dies

Mike Hailwood wowed the crowds with his speed on two wheels © Getty Images

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1981
Mike Hailwood died behind the wheel of a car. Like Mike Hawthorn (died 22 January 1959), he survived the dangers of a career with high-speed vehicles, only to be killed in a road accident. He was taking his daughter to buy fish and chips. Unlike John Surtees, Hailwood didn't make a successful switch to Formula One (two podiums in 50 races) - but as a motorcyclist he was one of the gods, and probably their king. He was world champion at 250cc three times, at 350 twice, and four years in a row at 500, immediately before Giacomo Agostini began his long reign. Only Ago and Valentino Rossi rival him for all-round brilliance on a bike. In a relatively short career (1959-67), Hailwood won 76 Grands Prix. If he hadn't left the sport when he was only 27, Agostini might not hold all the records. And even Ago didn't win 14 TT races on the Isle of Man or the TT world title when he was 38. Oh, and Rossi's dad said Hailwood was the greatest, which isn't a bad tiebreaker.

1962
Steve Redgrave was born in Buckinghamshire. The rest you know. Diabetes, colitis, dyslexia. Golds in five Olympics and nine World Championships. By 1996, when he and Matthew Pinsent won Britain's only gold of the Games, he didn't look the dominant partner any more. By September 23, 2000, he was 38 years old. Still irreplaceable. His smile made its first public appearance when the rest of him retired. One of the all-time great, driven sportsmen. If you see him in a boat nowadays, you're probably not allowed to shoot him.

2002
Jonny Wilkinson scored his 30 points against Wales in all four ways: a try, drop goal, four penalties, and conversions of all five tries. Iestyn Harris scored all of Wales's points, though 'all' wasn't much here: they lost 50-10 Twickenham.

2003
Kimi Raikkonen won a Grand Prix for the first time, the second of the season, in Malaysia. Fernando Alonso started on pole for the first time and became the first Spanish driver ever to finish on the podium. Raikkonen won 18 races and a world title before switching to rallying after the 2009 season.

1976
Chris Hoy was born in Edinburgh. If you're going to have thighs, you might as well have thighs like these. They powered him to every gong going in track cycling. He hit the heights at the 2008 Olympics, when he won the keirin, in which his tactic was simple and effective: when the motorbike drops out, hit the front and let them try and pass you. They couldn't. He also won the sprint and the team sprint to become the first British competitor since 1908 to collect three golds at one Games. But his greatest moment came in the kilometre time trial on August 20 four years earlier, when rider after rider broke the sea-level world record, including Hoy, who was the last to go. His first gold medal was won with nerve as well as upper legs. He missed the 2009 World Championships with a hip injury, so he couldn't add to his nine gold medals, including four in the time trial, or the nine lesser medals. He won Commonwealth Games golds in 2002 and 2006. About the only thing to elude him was the time trial world record, which he missed by 0.005 of a second in 2007.

1996
At the World Cross-Country Championships, Kenya's Paul Tergat retained his title and Gete Wami of Ethiopia won hers for the first time. A year later to the day, Tergat was champion for the third time in a row. Wami finished third after being run into the ground by Paula Radcliffe, but her team mate Derartu Tulu came through to beat Radcliffe by two seconds right at the end.

1984
In ice skating, two new Olympic champions became world champions. Yesterday Katarina Witt won the first of her four world titles, today Scott Hamilton won his fourth in a row and his last: he turned professional soon afterwards. He overcame terrible physical problems as a kid to win the title for the first time on March 6, 1981.

1986
Brazilians finished one and two in the Brazilian Grand Prix. Nelson Piquet won the opening race of the season, well ahead of a young Ayrton Senna. Piquet stayed in contention for the drivers' title right up to the final GP on October 26, which ended with a bang.

Joe Calzaghe retired unbeaten © Getty Images

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1972
Joe Calzaghe was born in London but moved to Wales when he was two. Unbeaten in all his 46 pro fights, he made 21 defences of various super-middleweight. He was a complete boxer with a good chin and decent punch, but his list of victims simply doesn't include enough big names at their peak. Chris Eubank, who Calzaghe thought gave him his toughest fight, was 33 and past his best. Bernard Hopkins, who knocked him down before losing a split decision, was 43. Roy Jones, who also knocked him down, was 39 and had been a shot fighter for years. Credit where it's due. Calzaghe was impressive against the unbeaten Jeff Lacy and Mikkel Kessler. But the rest include a part-time British fireman, a Croatian ex-soldier in only his 16th fight, and someone called Tocker Pudwill. Credit for not taking weak opponents lightly.

1929
Roger Bannister was born in Harrow. Famous for all time as the first to run a mile in under four minutes (May 6, 1954), he was much more than that. This was quite possibly the greatest miler and 1500 metre runner of all time. He had the ideal build, for a start. Tall, with wide shoulders and long legs. He was a world record holder, so he could do the times - and his sprint finish was one of the best. All he lacked were the training schedules and drugs that came in later. That shortage of training cost him the Olympic title in 1952, when he'd prepared to run a heat and a final, only for the IOC to throw in an extra semi-final round - and he knew he wasn't strong enough for three races in three days. Sure enough, he finished fourth behind a runner with more stamina. But in Bannister's big year, when he was fitter and stronger, he was just unbeatable. After breaking the four-minute barrier, he outsprinted new world record holder John Landy in the 'Race of the Century' at the Commonwealth Games (August 7), then won the European Championships only three weeks later (August 29). Bannister would have been favourite for the 1956 Olympics if he hadn't retired. His place in history is always going to be there, but it could have been a tad higher up.

1963
Davey Moore died in hospital. Two days earlier, he'd lost his world featherweight title to Ultiminio 'Sugar' Ramos, who knocked him down in the 10th round. Moore's neck hit the bottom rope and he died of a whiplash to his brain stem. Interviewed some time before the fight, he felt 'the risk was slight in top class boxing where one clean punch could knock out a fit man without doing any undue harm.' You probably have to tell yourself that to get in a ring at all. Moore died only a year after the last fatal title fight (March 24). In Bob Dylan's song Who killed Davey Moore?, the answer was: no-one. Not me, said the opponent, the crowd, referee, manager, boxing writers...

1934
The bloodcurdling Martin Pelser was born in Johannesburg. He won only 11 caps at rugby union before disappearing into league: 'Amateur rugby, and especially Springbok rugby, is a game for rich men's sons. I could no longer afford it.' While he could afford it, he was just about the most feared player in the game, a bruising tackler off the side of a scrum. His try won the 1960 series against the All Blacks. Earlier in the match, he'd flattened scrum-half Kevin Briscoe, who'd been daft enough to give him a bit of a kick. Like Tommy Voyce and 'Jock' Wemyss on March 20, 1920, Pelser had only one eye.

1931
Evgeny Grishin was born in the USSR. The top speedskating sprinter of his day, he won the 500 and 1500 metres at the Winter Olympics in 1956 and again in 1960. He would have won even more if there'd been a 1,000 metres race at the time. Uniquely, both his 1500 metre golds were shared; he set a joint world record in the 1956 race. He won silver in the 500 at the 1964 Games and was the first to skate the distance in under 40 seconds.

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