What is the greatest feat – team or individual – in modern sporting history? My knowledge of most sports is very limited or non-existent, so I’ll leave it to others to come up with a definitive answer. But, for what it’s worth (actually, absolutely nothing) I’ll put forward my five contenders here, in reverse order:
5. American athlete Bob Beamon breaking the world longjump record at the 1968 Mexico Olympics by nearly two feet. Yes, the altitude helped, and the trailing wind was at the maximum strength allowed for a world record – but, c’mon, 21.75 inches further than anyone else had ever jumped? Beamon’s extraordinary record stood for 23 years.
4. Steve Redgrave. Five rowing Gold Medals at five Olympics in a row – 1984-2000. And by the time of the last one, he’d developed diabetes. Beyond belief.
3. Nottingham Forest winning the European Cup in 1979 and 1980. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor took over the deeply unfashionable, struggling, cash-strapped Second Division club in 1975, gained promotion to the First Division in 1977, and proved their genius by winning the League Championship at the first attempt – having previously done so with Derby County. And, just in case they hadn’t annoyed enough people, they went on to win the biggest club competition in the world the year after. Then did it again the year after that. There has, simply, never been a footballing feat to rival it.
2. Australian tennis player Rod Laver winning two calendar Grand Slams (i.e. the Australian, the French, Wimbledon, and the US Open all in the same year). The Rockhampton Rocket - basically one enormously muscular, freckled arm with a small human being attached to it – achieved the feat in 1962.,. Like the only previous player to manage it - Don Budge in 1938 - this was done against the best amateur players in the world: greats such as Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzalez and Lew Hoad had turned professional by 1962, and weren’t allowed to play in the Slams. Laver turned pro after winning the Grand Slam. When Open Tennis arrived in 1969, and he was allowed to compete in the Slams once more, he did it again- all four major tournaments in one year. This time, he was undoubtedly up against the very best players in the world. At the time, I, along with most other people, assumed we had seen the greatest player tennis would ever produce: how could anyone ever be better than this astonishing little genius?
1. Roger Federer reaching 22 Grand Slam semi finals – or better – 22 times in a row (and still counting). Which means that for five and a half years, since a third round defeat in Paris in 2004 he has won every one of his first five matches at every Grand Slam event that has taken place since then. The previous record was held by Ivan Lendl, with 10. Even Federer’s record of 15 Grand Slam victories can’t compare. It is simply inconceivable that an athlete would not be sufficiently ill or injured, or would not come up against an opponent playing out of their gourd, or wouldn’t suffer an attack of nerves at their sport’s major tournaments, 22 times in a row. Utterly, ludicrously great. Not just the greatest tennis player there has ever been – probably the greatest athlete of the modern era.
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