• July 15 down the years

Rugby union's largest crowd

Jonah Lomu scored the winning try in a classic encounter © Getty Images

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2000
The largest crowd for a rugby union match was the 109,874 who watched New Zealand win 39-35 at Sydney's Stadium Australia. Each side scored five tries, including two by Stirling Mortlock, who scored 20 points for the losing side. Australia trailed 24-0 after only ten minutes but were level by half time. Later that year, the stadium became the largest venue ever used for an Olympic Games.

1972
The fluke that cost Tony Jacklin the British Open. Britain's top player, winner of the Open in 1969 (12 July) and the US Open the following year (21 June), he finished third behind Lee Trevino at the British Open in 1971 and did the same today - mainly because someone up there decided it was Trevino's tournament. In the third round, he made a birdie on each of the last five holes either by chipping in or hitting outrageous putts. So he made 66 to Jacklin's immaculate 67. It got worse for Britain's best, almost impossibly cruel. The two players were tied going into the very last hole. Jacklin lay 15 feet away from the hole with Trevino off the green in four. Only another freak shot could save Supermex now - and the gods of golf provided it. His fifth shot ran onto the green and into the hole. A shattered Jacklin never recovered - now or for the rest of his carer. He three-putted to lose second place to Jack Nicklaus.

On the same day in 1967, Roberto De Vicenzo won a Major at long last. A beautiful striker of the ball, runner-up in the British Open back in 1950, he was 44 by the time he won the same event. More relaxed than in his previous visits, he shot 67 in the third round and drove with mathematical accuracy in the last to beat defending champion Jack Nicklaus by two strokes. After waiting for this bus to come along, de Vicenzo missed the next one at the Masters the following April. He was penalised a stroke for entering an incorrect score card - enough to cost him a play-off.

1978
A better day for Nicklaus at the British Open. After his marvellous 'Duel in the Sun' with Tom Watson in 1977 (9 July), he was back the following year to win it for the third and last time. He finished with consecutive rounds of 69 to win by two shots from four golfers in joint second place, including Simon Owen of New Zealand, who took the lead when he chipped in at the 15th but dropped shots over the next three and never won a Major. In the third round, Tsuneyuki 'Tommy' Nakajima, who took 13 strokes at the 13th hole in the Masters (9 April), took nine at the 17th.

1989
In rugby union, the British Lions won their Test series in Australia. After losing the opening match 30-12, they made several changes for the second and won it with two late tries (8 July). Today they were gifted the deciding game by David Campese, so often Australia's match-winner. When Rob Andrew missed a drop-goal attempt, the ball bounced into Australia's left-hand corner. In the previous Test, the Lions had scored a try when Campese dropped two high balls in a row. Now he picked up Andrew's kick and decided to run instead of kicking to touch. When he saw Lions winger Ieuan Evans rushing up, he threw a sudden pass at his full-back Greg Martin, who was forgiven for dropping it. Evans dived in to score, then enjoyed giving Campo a piece of his mind. The Lions won 19-18. The last time a British Isles team had won a Test series after losing the first match was back in 1899, when their victims were Australia again.

1959
The last of only two British men to win a world title at fencing (26 August). In the individual foil, Allan Jay lost his first match of the evening to Claude Netter of France, then beat Soviet fencer Mark Midler 5-3 in a play-off and Netter 5-4 in the decider. Jay also tied for first in the individual épée but lost a fence-off 5-4. He won silver in the individual and team épée at the 1960 Olympics as well as seven gold medals in the Commonwealth Games from 1950 to 1966, the first for Australia, the others for England.

1879
The day a vicar won Wimbledon. Appropriate, really, since tennis was still a vicarage tea-party game at the time. On the first Saturday of the tournament, the Rev. John Thorneycroft Hartley had to return home to Yorkshire to preach a Sunday sermon. He arrived back in London exhausted the day after, and was grateful for a rain break after losing the first set. A pat-a-cake baseliner, Hartley had no trouble in the final, his passing shots too much for the net play of Vere St Leger Goold, who lost 6-2 6-4 6-2. Later, other people had more trouble with Goold. He was convicted of murder in 1907 and died on Devil's Island two years later. Hartley retained the title in 1880 before losing it to the new aggressive style of Willie Renshaw, who routed the reverend 6-0 6-1 6-1.

Jack Nicklaus completed victory at the 18th © Getty Images

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1912
At the Olympic Games, the almighty Jim Thorpe (born 28 May 1888) finished 689 points ahead in the decathlon, breaking the world record by an inhuman 999. He was that good. Eight days earlier, he'd won the pentathlon. After the Games, he was stripped of both titles for having played some semi-pro baseball in the USA. His gold medals were awarded to Hugo Wieslander of Sweden and Ferdinand Bie of Norway. To their great credit, they refused to accept them. Thorpe's medals were eventually presented to his family in 1983.

Sweden finished one-two-three in the triple jump and won the cross-country team event. Finland's great Hannes Kolehmainen won the race, but Swedes filled three of the next four places, Josef Ternström finishing 15 seconds ahead of Albin Stenroos to deny Finland the gold.

On the same day in the pool, Britain won the first women's relay at any Olympics. Australia's Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie finished first and second in the individual event (12 July), but they were the only Australians there and weren't allowed to take part in the 4x100 metres even though they offered to swim two legs each! Britain were without former world record holder Daisy Curwen, who'd had an appendix operation after the semi-finals, but Jennie Fletcher had won bronze in the individual race, with Annie Speirs fifth. They teamed up with Bella Moore and Irene Steer to finish 11 seconds ahead of Germany and break the world record.

Durack and Wylie had to watch while Australia's men had better luck in the pool. Three of them teamed up with New Zealander Malcolm Champion to win the 4x200 metres relay. They also set a world record in finishing nine seconds clear of the USA, who had the great Duke Kahanamoku (24 August) on the last leg. 30-year-old Cecil Healy was the oldest man to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming and the oldest swimmer to set a world record in an Olympic event.

Still on the same day in 1912, Claes Johanson of Sweden won the middleweight title in Greco-Roman wrestling - without having to fight. The semi-final between Alfred Asikiainen of Finland and Martin 'Max' Klein lasted eleven hours (!) in burning heat. Klein, an Estonian competing for Russia, eventually won, but was too shattered to take part in the Final.

1900
In a busy day's track and field at the Olympic Games in Paris, Britain's Charles Bennett won the 1500 metres. Two top American runners didn't take part because the race was on a Sunday, but they would have been hard pushed to beat Bennett, who held off local hero Henri Deloge to break the world record by more than four seconds.

1908
More Olympic doings. Britain won 56 gold medals at these London Games, including one in cycling's one-lap race, Victor Johnson finishing the 660 yards a tyre's width ahead of Victor Demangel of France.

In track and field, Britain won the three-mile team race when their runners occupied the first three positions: Joe Deakin, Arthur Robertson, and Wilf Coales. France would have done better than third if the great Jean Bouin hadn't a) made his usual mistake of running too fast in qualifying (10 July 1912), and b) been thrown in jail for getting into a drunken brawl in Soho! He dropped out during the final.

Swedish superstar Eric Lemming won the daftest event in Olympic athletics history. There were two javelin competitions that year. The normal one - and a thing called the freestyle javelin, which allowed throwers to hold the spear anywhere they wanted. Since they all held it in the middle as in the normal event, what you had was two identical competitions! Lemming won them both. He also won the freestyle thing in 1906 and the normal event in 1912. He set 15 world records, from 49.32 metres in 1899 to 62.32 in 1912.

1939
Still in track and field, a great runner set a great world record. Germany's Harbig died in the Second World War, so his only Olympic medal was a relay bronze in 1936. But after today he would have been the overwhelming favourite for the 800 metres at the cancelled 1940 Games. Running for Germany in a match against Italy in Milan, he absolutely destroyed Mario Lanzi, who'd been good enough to win Olympic silver three years earlier. Lanzi led at the bell, but Harbig ran the next 100 metres in only 12.2 seconds. Before today, the world record was the 1 minute 48.4 set by little Sydney Wooderson of Britain the previous year. Harbig broke it by nearly two seconds, running 1:46.6 to Lanzi's gasping 1:49.0. Harbig's time wasn't broken for 16 years. Later in 1939, he set another world record by running 400 metres in exactly 46 seconds.

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