• September 19 down the years

Moorhouse leaves it late

Adrian Moorhouse was a fast finisher © Getty Images

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At the 1988 Games, Adrian Moorhouse made up for his misery four years earlier by winning gold in the 100 metres breaststroke. Just. In Los Angeles he'd finished outside his British record and outside the medals. Today in Seoul he relied on his fast finish as usual, holding back as the USSR's Dmitri Volkov stormed the first lap. Holding back a tad too much, it seemed: at the turn, Moorhouse was 1.3 seconds behind and only in sixth place. And Volkov didn't collapse as soon as expected. In fact he was still in the lead with only ten metres to go. But Moorhouse was in full tide by then. He edged Volkov by 0.15 of a second - into third place. Neither of them had noticed Hungary's Károly Güttler charging through. He finished only one hundredth of a second behind Moorhouse, who was sheepish as well as ecstatic.

But outside Britain, the race of the day was the men's 200 metres freestyle. The final was expected to be between Matt Biondi of the USA, who won five golds at these Olympics, and West Germany's defending champion Michael Gross. And Biondi duly led for the first three lengths. But an unknown Australian called Duncan Armstrong was swimming alongside him, and he followed his coach's instructions by staying in Biondi's wake and conserving energy ('I bodysurfed the first 100 metres'). Armstrong broke away with 25 yards to go and won in 1 minute 47.25 seconds, breaking Gross's world record. Gross finished only fifth, beaten by another unsung Oz in an Olympic final ( August 3, 1984). Biondi finished third behind Anders Holmertz of Sweden.

Today's star of the pool at the 2000 Games didn't win a medal. Peter van den Hoogenband of Holland set a world record in the 100 metres freestyle ( and won gold the following day), but he was overshadowed by Eric the Eel. Eric Moussambani arrived in Sydney from Equatorial Guinea expecting to take part in the 50 metres freestyle, which was about as far as he could go: he'd only started swimming in January. Instead he found himself entered in the 100 metres, which was further than he'd ever tried before. In his heat this morning, the only other two competitors were disqualified for jumping in too soon, which probably spared them the same ordeal as Moussambani. Swimming all alone, he struggled horribly through the second 50 metres, coming to a dead halt with ten to go. Somehow he managed to swim to safety - and although his finishing time of 1 minute 52.72 was more than seven seconds slower than the winning time in the 200 metres, Eric the Eel was a star for a while. Daft but true.

2004
Europe's biggest win in the Ryder Cup was achieved away from home. At Oakland Hills in Michigan, the whole thing was virtually decided before the last-day singles, with an undistinguished American team trailing by 11 points to 5. Tiger Woods gave the home team a glimmer by beating Paul Casey 3 & 2, but then Phil Mickelson lost by the same score to Sergio García and there were defeats at the end for Fred Funk, Chris Riley, Jay Haas, and Stewart Cink. Europe won the Cup 18½-9½, the same score as two years later.

The European Ryder Cup team celebrate their biggest winning margin © Getty Images

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1999
Stephen Hendry made his sixth 147 maximum in tournament play. It put him 4-3 ahead on his way to beating Peter Ebdon 9-5 in the final of the British Open. In the women's final, world champion Kelly Fisher made a break of 105 in beating June Banks 4-2. On the same day in 2007, Jamie Burnett also made 147, against Liu Song in a qualifying round for the Royal London Watches Grand Prix.

1988
The moment Greg Louganis looked human. Even mortal...

At these Olympic games in Seoul, Louganis was the defending champion in both diving competitions. In today's preliminary round for the springboard event, he was in the lead with two rounds to go. Then the crack that echoed round the world. At the start of his ninth dive, he didn't push out far enough and smacked the back of his head against the board. Hitting the water like a stunned fish, he had stitches put in his head and made his 10th dive only half an hour later, recording the highest score in the preliminaries. The following day, he retained the title, beating Tan Liangde of China into second place again. Poor Tan also finished second in 1992 ( July 29).

But the big story about this incident didn't come out for another seven years, when Louganis admitted he'd tested HIV-positive before the Games. When he banged his head and bled into the pool, he worried about infecting other divers. There was too much water for that - but Louganis did risk infecting the doctor who stitched his head and didn't know about the HIV. The doctor later took an AIDS test which turned out negative.

1969
At the European Championships, British runner Ian Stewart showed a maturity and confidence beyond his years by toying with the field in the 5,000 metres. Stewart was only 20 but already European Indoor champion over 3,000 metres - so his opponents must have known about his sprint finish. And yet they allowed a very slow pace which played into his hands. They even let Stewart slow it down even further for a while, before he stepped out into the third lane to force others to take the lead. Masterful stuff. At the crown of the last bend, he glanced at Rashid Sharafetdinov, saw the Soviet runner had nothing left, and rocketed away to the gold medal. His winning time of 13 minutes 44.8 was slow, but his last lap of 56.3 seconds wasn't.

The same day 90 years earlier produced the youngest male athlete to set a world record in track and field. In the 1870s, pole vaulters in England's Lake District developed a 'climbing' style. Their poles weren't the man-made super-bendy catapults they use nowadays. These were sticks of sturdy wood, with spikes at the bottom for planting in grass. With the new technique, you changed hands when you reached the top of your vault, putting one above the other, to clamber up the pole and gain a few inches. Edwin Woodburn set a world record with this method in 1876, and he was soon followed by Ted Ray, the best of the Lake District climbers. Ray won the AAA title seven times, still a record for the event, and set nine official world records, including the first today in 1879 when he was only 17 years 226 days old. Like Woodburn before him, he set it at Ulverston, clearing 3.42 metres.

Compare and contrast. On the same day in 1994, Sergei Bubka set a world record of 6.14 metres. He set his last one the following year ( July 31).

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