• September 5 down the years

A grim day for sport

A dark memory of the 1972 Olympic Games © Getty Images

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1972
In the early hours of the morning, eight members of the Black September group broke into the Olympic Village. They killed two Israeli competitors and took another nine hostage, demanding the release of 200 prisoners in Israeli jails. When they reached Munich Airport, the West German security services opened fire, a decision that went badly wrong. All nine hostages were killed, along with five of the gunmen and a policeman. In retaliation, Israeli security forces went on a killing spree, murdering various people they accused of involvement in the Munich assault. The Games were suspended but resumed within 36 hours.

1993
The day Wayne Rainey had it all, only to have it horribly taken away. The top motorcyclist of his time, world champion at 500cc for the past three years, he was on his way to a fourth title, leading the points table and the Italian Grand Prix at Misano. Then, midway through the race, he took a corner too fast and the back of his bike slid away, throwing him off into the gravel trap. There the surface had been raked, in order to slow machines down further. But this left a series of ridges, which Rainey hit as he travelled across the gravel, flipping him over and over. Then his bike landed on the head when it caught up with him. Somewhere in all those impacts, his spine was broken and he was left paralysed from the chest down. He became team manager at Yamaha and - shades of Alex Zanardi in motor racing ( September 15, 2001.). - raced a hand-controlled kart in California.

1970
Austria's Jochen Rindt was one of the fastest Formula One drivers of all time. So the circuit at Monza seemed to have been made for him - especially as everything had come together this year. In his state-of-the-art Lotus, he'd won five races that season, including four in a row. Now he was practising for the Italian Grand Prix the following day. On the Parabolica, the last corner of the circuit, he suddenly veered off to the left and hit the guard rail, an impact which spun him round and banged him back into the rail. Controversy arose when Rindt spent 45 minutes in an ambulance on the way to Milan instead of being treated at the circuit - but he was dead before the ambulance arrived. Although Belgium's Jacky Ickx won two of the four races remaining in the season, he finished five points behind Rindt, who became Formula One's only posthumous champion.

On the same day the following year, the Italian Grand Prix lived up to its reputation as the fastest on the calendar. Back in 1927, it was the first with an average winning speed of over 100 mph ( September 4.). Now it became the first to reach 150. In one of the tightest finishes ever, only 0.61 seconds separated the first five cars. The BRM of Britain's Peter Gethin crossed the line one hundredth of a second ahead of Sweden's Ronnie Peterson in a March. It was the only Formula 1 race Gethin ever won. The average speed wasn't surpassed until Michael Schumacher won the same race in 2003 ( September 14.).

1960
Enter Muhammad Ali. He was still Cassius Clay at the time, an 18-year-old light-heavyweight at the Olympic Games, but the world was in no doubt that this was a star in the making. Confidence and fast hands were too much for all his opponents, including Zbigniew Pietrzykowski in today's final. The Pole was good enough to be European champion three times and bronze medallist at the 1964 Olympics, but he couldn't get near Clay in the first two rounds and was flooded by punches in the third, losing a unanimous decision. Clay turned pro later that year and won the world heavyweight title for the first time in 1964 ( February 25.).

Cassius Clay claimed Olympic gold in 1960 © Getty Images

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In the same Olympic tournament, a boxer almost as classy was also winning gold, Nino Benvenuti delighting the Roman fans by taking the welterweight title. European champion at light-middleweight, he dropped down to outpoint the USSR's Yuri Radonyak in the Final, knocking him down in the first round and surviving a comeback in the last. Benvenuti went on to win the world middleweight title in 1967.

In track and field, one athlete retained an Olympic title while another regained one. At the end of the 110 metres hurdles, Lee Calhoun dived so low he almost hit the track, but it did the trick: he beat Willie May by a hundredth of a second. Calhoun had won the 1956 race by three hundredths. For the fourth Olympics in a row, the USA won all three medals in the event.

Nina Ponomaryeva of the USSR became one of the first athletes to win back an Olympic title. In 1952, she was still Nina Romashkova when she upset the world record holder to win the discus. Now she threw a Games record 55.10 metres to finish well clear of Tamara Press, who won the shot at these Olympics and both events in 1964. Her sister Irina Press won the hurdles here in Rome ( September 1.).

And long-legged Wilma Rudolph completed the sprint double by winning the 200 metres easily. Britain's Dorothy Hyman, who won silver in the 100 metres, took the bronze.

1992
The day Daley Thompson stopped being a world record holder. In the French town of Talence, talented American Dan O'Brien scored 8,891 points to overhaul the total amassed by Thompson at the 1984 Olympics ( August 9.).

1949
The last Grand Slam singles title Pancho Gonzales ever won. Before turning pro at the end of the year, he retained his US Championships title by outlasting Wimbledon champion 'Ted' Schroeder. The first set was the key. It lasted an hour before Schroeder won it 18-16 on his third set point. He won the second too, 6-2 - but that was as far as his energy levels could go. Pancho ran through the next two 6-1 6-2 before taking the decider 6-4.

Margaret duPont also retained the championship, beating the elegant Doris Hart 6-4 6-1. duPont completed a hat-trick of singles titles the following year.

She was succeeded as champion by Maureen Connolly, who also won three years in a row, starting today in 1951 when she was only 16. In the final against Shirley Fry, she won the first set 6-3, lost control of her shots and dropped six games in a row, but came back to win an exhausting third set 6-4.

1920
The USA won Olympic gold at rugby for the first time. Yes, you read that right. The USA winning a major title at rugby union - and not just the once. Only four countries entered the competition at these Games, and two of those pulled out, leaving the US and France in a straight fight for the title. It looks like a mismatch at this range - but most of this French team were never capped at full international level, and the USA were tough and quick. In those same Olympics, Morris Kirksey won silver in the 100 metres and gold in the sprint relay, while Dan Carroll had won gold at rugby with Australia back in 1908. There was no score until halfway through the second half, when 'Dink' Templeton, later a famous athletics coach, kicked a goal from a mark. The American forwards matched the French throughout, and when they dribbled the ball towards the goal line, Joe Hunter picked it up and scored a converted try to make the final score 8-0. Four years later, the USA retained the title against the same shocked opposition.

1891
The youngest man to play rugby union for South Africa. Jack Hartley was 18 years and 18 days old when he appeared on the wing in the third and final match of their first Test series. They'd lost the first two matches to the British Isles and they lost here in Cape Town too, again without scoring a point. The touring team, enjoying a pitch with grass on it for once, were kept out by valiant defence until deep into the second half, then their two top backs scored tries in a 4-0 win: big Randolph Aston, and captain Bill Maclagan right at the end. The boy Hartley won only this one cap.

On the same day five years later, South Africa won a Test match for the first time. The series against the British Isles had already been lost again, but today in Cape Town a converted first-half try was the only score of the match, Alf Larard taking an inside pass from 'Biddy' Anderson, who later played Test cricket. The touring team complained long and hard about the refereeing of Alf Richards, who played for South Africa in the original 1891 series. They weren't too happy with Anderson either, when he refereed a landmark Test against them in 1903 ( September 12.).

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