• September 9 down the years

A record-breaking run from Holmes

Kelly Holmes finished second behind Maria Mutola in Monte Carlo © Getty Images

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1995
Running the 800 metres in Monte Carlo, Kelly Holmes set a British record that still stands. Her 1:56.21 was also a Commonwealth best, slicing 0.74 of a second off her time in Gothenburg a few weeks earlier. She ran slightly slower in winning Olympic gold at long last ( August 23, 2004).

2006
Martina Navrátilová became the oldest tennis player to win a Grand Slam title. She was only 39 days short of her 50th birthday when she partnered doubles specialist Bob Bryan at the US Open. In today's final, they had no trouble beating Martin Damm and Květa Peschke 6-2 6-3. It Navrátilová hadn't been on the other side of the net, the Czech pair would have been described as veterans: they had an combined age of 65. Bryan was a spring chicken of 28.

2001
Lleyton Hewitt's biggest triumph. Winning Wimbledon the following year tops the CV, but 2002 was a particularly poor vintage: Hewitt followed an easy win over Tim Henman with another one in the final against 20-year-old David Nalbandian, who was making his Centre Court debut. By then, the Australian was already US Open champion, a title he won today by beating Pete Sampras, no less. Sampras was the best serve-volleyer of all time - but your serves and volleys had better be good when you're up against a retriever like this. Soon afterwards, Hewitt's eagerness to chase but lack of a really big shot made him something of a stooge for Roger Federer and others. Like Michael Chang, he won Grand Slam titles early before being found out a bit. But here in 2001 he filled the vacuum between Sampras and Federer, and helped create it. Sampras had just turned 30, nearly ten years older than Hewitt. His service had lost some of its sting and he wasn't leaping up for those giant overheads as he used to. But that was mainly due to Hewitt. Sampras had reached the final by beating Pat Rafter, Andre Agassi, and (revenge for his defeat in the final the previous year) Marat Safin. You couldn't ask for a more impressive run to a final. But here Sampras suddenly looked like a shot fighter, his big punches breaking down against an opponent who kept hitting him with jabs. Hewitt's passing shots and nonstop chasing wore him down. After holding his serve in 87 consecutive games, Sampras lost it in his first one here. He took the first set to a tiebreak, but once he lost that the end came quickly, Hewitt winning both the next two 6-1. It looked like the king was dead and long live the next one, and no-one would have predicted that Sampras would win his last Grand Slam singles title after Hewitt. But he came back to regain the US title the following year.

On the same day in 2000, Venus Williams beat former champion Lindsay Davenport 6-4 7-5 to win the US Open for the first time. The sister act was now in full swing. Serena Williams won the title the previous year ( September 11), and Venus retained it in 2001 by beating her in the final, then lost to her in the one after that.

In 1995, Steffi Graf ended Monica Seles' comeback by beating her in the US final. Since the knife attack on court which wrecked Seles' career ( April 30, 1993.). she'd been piecing it back together, beating Graf in the final of the Australian Open. And today she responded well to losing the first set on a tiebreak. Irritated by a disputed call when she thought she'd served an ace, she lost it 8-6. But she won the second set 6-0 as Graf struggled with a bad back, and it looked like her old domination over Steffi was back to stay. But knee problems meant Seleš hadn't had time to work on her stamina. Graf won the third set 6-3 by attacking her forehand. She beat Seleš in the final again the following year, and Monica never won another Grand Slam singles final.

Chris Eubank was defeated by Steve Collins © Getty Images

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1995
Chris Eubank lost his attempt to regain the WBO super-middleweight title. He'd held it from 1991 to 1995, drawing with Nigel Benn and winning a tragic fight with Michael Watson, before losing it to an Irishman in Ireland. That was his first defeat as a pro, and now he was back in the same ring in Millstreet to avenge it. It wasn't going to be easy. Steve Collins was a real warrior, the last thing you want to face if you've lost ten pounds in a week as Eubank did to make the weight. So you can imagine how lifeless he was. Instead of jabbing, Collins went after him with hooks and crosses and although the Irishman finished with a cut over his eye, he won so easily that the judges' cards were a joke: one of them even gave it to Eubank, who couldn't rouse himself until the very end. When Collins retired as undefeated champion in 1997, Eubank lost to Joe Calzaghe for the vacant title.

1978
The only player to score four tries against New Zealand in a rugby union international. The All Blacks were at home too, in Auckland. They'd won both the first two matches of the series against Australia, so no-one was prepared for what happened today. No.8 Greg Cornelsen equalled the record of four tries by a forward in an international match. Australia's other try was also scored by a back-row forward, and although New Zealand scored a couple of their own they lost 30-16. These were the only tries Cornelsen scored in 25 internationals!

On the same day in 1951, left wing Uriel O'Farrell scored seven tries for Argentina against Uruguay, a world record for a player making his debut in international rugby union. Four days later, he scored six against Brazil. Then another three days and another try against Chile. Then he wasn't capped again. Too many diminishing returns! O'Farrell's seven tries were a record for any international match until another Argentinian scored eight in 1993. It used to be thought that he scored 11 in the match, but Jaime O'Farrell scored one and Desmond Farrell two more on the other wing. Argentina's 16 tries broke the world record set at the 1924 Olympic Games.

1960
One of the longest winning streaks in Olympic history came to an end. Since they took part in hockey for the first time, India had always won the gold medal, beginning in 1928. Six in a row, which would have been eight but for the War. In that time, they played 31 matches and won them all, scoring 197 goals and conceding only eight. Here in Rome, they began with a 10-0 win over Denmark before winning the last two matches in the sequence 1-0, including the semi-final against Britain. In the Final today, they met a country they'd been part of until 1948 and the last one they'd have wanted to lose their unbeaten record to: neighbours Pakistan, who'd beaten them in the Final of the Asian Games two years before. After only eleven minutes, Naseer Ahmed Bunda took Noor Alam's pass and flicked the ball into the left-hand corner of the net. Despite full-blooded play from both sides, it was the only goal of a scrappy match. Four years later, India got their property back by also winning the Final 1-0 - against Pakistan.

This was a day for breaking down barriers in track and field.

They were always going to have to re-design the javelin. People were beginning to throw it too far. When Uwe Höhn reached 100 metres in 1984 ( July 20), enough was enough. The weight of the spear was moved and new world records started from scratch the following year. It took a lot longer for the same thing to happen with the women's javelin, and even today's big throw in 1988 didn't speed things up. In Potsdam, Petra Felke threw exactly 80 metres, breaking her own world record, which had bettered the mark set by Britain's Fatima Whitbread in 1986 ( August 28). Felke's mark stayed in the record books until the javelin was re-shaped in 1999. Otherwise, like so many world records from that dark decade, it would still be in there.

In 1928, Haiti's only world-class athlete became the first man to clear 26 feet in the long jump. At the Olympic Stadium in Paris, Sylvio Cator reached 7.93 metres with his sixth and final attempt, breaking the recent world record set by America's Ed Hamm, who beat him into second place at the Olympics ( July 31). The landmark leap was also a Haitian record that still stands! A major stadium in Port-au-Prince is named after Cator, who also captained the national football team.

With organised sport growing up in Britain and then the USA, for a long time the 100 yards race was more important than the 100 metres. And breaking ten seconds was considered the ultimate breakthrough. It took a long time to happen. Dozens of runners were hand-timed at 10.0 since 1855, but it wasn't until now that the great barrier came down. For many decades afterwards, John Owen was credited with the breakthrough, after his 9.8 at the AAU Championships in 1890. But he was beaten to it two years earlier by Victor Schifferstein at the Western NAAA meeting in St Louis. The AAU refused to accept the record even though there was no wind, the track was re-measured and found to be exactly 100 yards long, and one of the judges recorded the time as 9.6

1972
The only competitor to win two gold medals in judo at the same Olympic Games. Dutchman Wim Ruuska had already won the heavyweight division when he took gold in the Open class, which was for heavyweights and super-heavyweights. Ruuska lost an earlier bout with Vitaly Kuznetsov of the USSR but pinned him to the mat in today's final, winning by yoke-shiho-gatma. He won the heavyweight Final by harai-goshi.

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