History
Top 100 sports moments
An editorial list of the hundred moments that did the most to change how we play, watch, and argue about sport. Not a scientific poll — a Sports in 60 ranking.
The Games come back
Athens revives the Olympics after 1,500 years. Pierre de Coubertin’s experiment becomes the one calendar every sport still orbits.
Read the momentThe first World Cup
Uruguay hosts thirteen teams and lifts the first Jules Rimet Trophy. A month-long tournament becomes the planet’s biggest sporting event.
Read the momentJackie Robinson takes the field
Robinson plays first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers and breaks Major League Baseball’s color line. American sport — and America — has to catch up.
Read the momentTitle IX becomes law
A U.S. education amendment bans sex discrimination in school programs. Girls’ and women’s sports get gyms, scholarships, and a future that had been optional.
Read the momentA salute on the medal stand
Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise black-gloved fists in Mexico City. The podium becomes a place athletes can speak, not only smile.
Read the momentJesse Owens in Berlin
Owens wins four golds in Hitler’s Olympics. The times on the track are the argument; the world hears them whether the regime wants it or not.
Read the momentMandela in a Springbok jersey
South Africa hosts the Rugby World Cup. Nelson Mandela walks onto the field in the old green jersey, and a sport that divided a country is asked to stitch it.
Read the momentThe Dream Team
NBA stars play the Barcelona Olympics and turn basketball into a global export. Kids from every continent start dreaming in a different silhouette.
Read the momentThe Bosman ruling
A Belgian midfielder wins in European court. Clubs can no longer hold out-of-contract players hostage, and the modern transfer market is born.
Read the momentThe four-minute mile
Roger Bannister runs 3:59.4 at Oxford. A barrier everyone called impossible lasts one afternoon — then the rest of the field follows him through it.
Read the momentBattle of the Sexes
Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Astrodome, on live television, with half the country watching. The match is a circus. The result is a landmark.
Read the momentMagic vs. Bird
Michigan State and Indiana State meet in the NCAA final. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird invent the rivalry that pulls the NBA out of the doldrums.
Read the momentMiracle on Ice
A team of American college players beats the Soviet machine at Lake Placid. In the Cold War, a hockey game becomes a national memory.
Read the momentTiger Woods at the Masters
Woods wins Augusta by 12 shots at 21. Golf’s country-club walls look smaller overnight, and a generation picks up a club because he did.
Read the momentThe penalty that launched a team
The U.S. women win the World Cup at the Rose Bowl. Brandi Chastain’s kick — and the crowd of 90,000 — tell a country that the women’s game is not a sideshow.
Read the momentRumble in the Jungle
Muhammad Ali, the underdog in Kinshasa, lets George Foreman punch himself out and takes the title back. Rope-a-dope becomes folklore.
Read the momentMaradona’s World Cup
In one quarterfinal, Diego Maradona scores with his hand and then with the rest of his body. Argentina wins the tournament. Genius and mischief share a shirt.
Read the momentThe Greatest Game Ever Played
Baltimore beats the Giants in sudden death on national TV. The NFL Championship makes football a living-room sport, and the Super Bowl era is coming.
Read the momentSuper Bowl I
Green Bay beats Kansas City in Los Angeles. Two leagues share a title game; a few years later they share a league. The broadcast becomes an American holiday.
Read the momentA perfect 10
Nadia Comăneci scores 10.0 in Montreal. The scoreboard is not built to show it. The sport has a new ceiling, and a 14-year-old has already reached it.
Read the momentPhelps wins eight golds
Michael Phelps leaves Beijing with eight gold medals in one Games. The relay by a fingernail is the one people still replay. The record is the rest.
Read the momentBolt rewrites the 100
Usain Bolt wins the 100 meters in Beijing looking over his shoulder. Sprinting gets a new shape — long, laughing, and faster than the sport thought possible.
Read the momentJim Thorpe in Stockholm
Thorpe wins the pentathlon and decathlon and is called the world’s greatest athlete. The medals are stripped, then restored. The legend never needed the paperwork.
Read the momentMessi finishes the story
Lionel Messi wins the World Cup in Qatar, in extra time and then on penalties. The greatest club career of the age finally gets the trophy it was missing.
Read the momentThe first Tour de France
A newspaper stunt becomes a three-week national epic. Road cycling gets its myth: mountains, yellow jerseys, and a country watching from the ditch.
Read the momentThe Summit Series
Canada’s NHL stars play the Soviets and nearly lose the plot. Paul Henderson’s winner in Game 8 is still the loudest quiet in Canadian sport.
Read the momentMagic Johnson says the words
Johnson tells the world he is HIV-positive and retiring. A virus that lived in a whisper is spoken by the most famous smile in basketball.
Read the momentLouis knocks out Schmeling
Joe Louis flattens Max Schmeling in the first round at Yankee Stadium. It is a rematch, a heavyweight fight, and — for millions — a verdict on the 1930s.
Read the momentThe last shot
Michael Jordan pushes off, fades, and beats Utah for a sixth title. The Bulls dynasty ends on the play everyone can still see with their eyes closed.
Read the momentLeicester City, 5,000 to 1
A club that started the season as a relegation story wins the Premier League. Modern soccer’s money table gets one result it cannot explain.
Read the momentPelé at seventeen
A skinny kid from Bauru wins the World Cup in Sweden. Brazil’s No. 10 becomes the first global soccer superstar of the television age.
Read the momentThe Maracanaço
Uruguay beats Brazil in Rio, in a stadium built for a carnival. Home advantage becomes a ghost story the World Cup never quite shakes.
Read the momentThe Miracle of Bern
West Germany come from 2-0 down to beat Hungary’s Golden Team. A football result becomes a postwar country’s first loud, legal joy.
Read the momentBrazil in color
The 1970 World Cup is the first in full color on television. Brazil’s yellow shirts, and a fourth goal in the final, become the picture of the game.
Read the momentTotal Football
Johan Cruyff’s Netherlands turn positions into suggestions. They lose the final. The idea wins the next fifty years of coaching arguments.
Read the momentThey think it’s all over
England win the World Cup at Wembley. A Geoff Hurst hat-trick, a disputed goal, and a BBC line freeze a country in 1966.
Read the momentAli will not go
Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army. The government takes the title. A fighter becomes the loudest no in American sport.
Read the momentThe Fight of the Century
Ali and Joe Frazier sell out Madison Square Garden. Two undefeated heavyweights, one night, and a country picking sides for reasons that are not only boxing.
Read the momentThrilla in Manila
Ali and Frazier go fourteen rounds in the heat. Eddie Futch will not let Frazier answer the bell. The trilogy ends as folklore, not a highlight reel.
Read the momentThe Fosbury Flop
Dick Fosbury goes over the bar backward in Mexico City and wins gold. High jumpers spend the next decade copying a man the coaches called wrong.
Read the momentTexas Western starts five
Don Haskins starts five Black players in the NCAA final against Kentucky. They win. College basketball’s gentlemen’s agreement starts to crack.
Read the momentSwitzer at Boston
Kathrine Switzer enters the Boston Marathon as K.V. Switzer. An official tries to throw her off the course. The photograph lets women into the race.
Read the momentMonday Night Football
ABC puts the NFL in prime time with Cosell, Meredith, and a theme song. Weeknights become football nights, and the league’s television age gets a second Sabbath.
Read the momentBaseball players can leave
An arbitrator frees Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally. The reserve clause dies. Modern salaries, and modern free agency, start with a labor ruling.
Read the momentAshe at Wimbledon
Arthur Ashe beats Jimmy Connors on Centre Court. A Black American champion, in whites, on the sport’s most guarded lawn.
Read the momentPelé in New York
Pelé signs for the Cosmos. American soccer gets a celebrity, a packed Giants Stadium, and a memory it will spend decades trying to live up to.
Read the momentThe ABA walks in
Four ABA teams join the NBA. The 3-point line, the dunk contest, and a flashier game come with them. The merger is how the modern NBA starts to look like itself.
Read the momentESPN signs on
A cable channel in Bristol promises sports all day. Highlights, debate, and the idea that sport is a 24-hour product all start in a small studio.
Read the momentThe NBA adds the 3
The league paints an arc. For years it is a gimmick. Then it becomes the math that rearranges every offense on earth.
Read the momentThe first Women’s World Cup
FIFA stages a women’s championship in China. The United States win it. A tournament that had been a rumor gets a trophy and a future.
Read the momentThe Premier League breaks away
England’s top clubs leave the Football League for a television deal. The money table of modern soccer gets its most famous brand.
Read the momentThe World Cup in America
The United States hosts, and fills, a World Cup. Soccer on this side of the Atlantic stops being a rumor and starts being a crowd.
Read the momentGretzky goes to Los Angeles
Edmonton trades Wayne Gretzky to the Kings. Canada treats it as a funeral. Sunbelt hockey treats it as a founding.
Read the momentHillsborough
Ninety-seven Liverpool fans die in a crush at an FA Cup semi. The Taylor Report rebuilds English grounds — and the sport has to admit how it treated its own.
Read the momentThe first European Cup
Real Madrid lift a new trophy in Paris. Club soccer gets a continent-wide final, then a television product, then the Champions League.
Read the momentA league in a car showroom
Teams meet in Canton and form what becomes the NFL. Pro football gets a schedule, a name, and a future that will outgrow the room.
Read the momentThe Negro National League
Rube Foster organizes Black baseball into a league. The talent was never the question. The structure is the revolution.
Read the momentGibson at Wimbledon
Althea Gibson wins Wimbledon. A Black woman lifts the plate on Centre Court a decade after tennis had treated her as an exception to be managed.
Read the momentWilma Rudolph in Rome
Rudolph wins three golds in Rome after childhood polio. A Black American sprinter becomes the Games’ face, in a country watching on a new scale.
Read the momentBikila runs barefoot
Abebe Bikila wins the Rome marathon without shoes, along the Appian Way. East African distance running announces itself on the stones of the old empire.
Read the momentTokyo 1964
The first Asian Olympics. Japan stages a high-speed, high-tech Games and shows the movement that the future of the circus is not only in Europe.
Read the momentClay beats Liston
Cassius Clay, 22, beats Sonny Liston and then tells the world his name is Muhammad Ali. The heavyweight title gets a new mouth, and a new politics.
Read the momentSecretariat’s Belmont
Secretariat wins the Triple Crown by 31 lengths. The Belmont clock is a still a dare. Horse racing’s last undisputed superstar runs off the screen.
Read the momentRome’s other Games
The first Paralympic Games follow the Olympics in Rome. Disability sport gets a global meet, then a movement the IOC will have to take seriously.
Read the momentLos Angeles turns a profit
Peter Ueberroth’s LA Games use existing venues and corporate sponsors. The Olympics, nearly broke, learn they can be a business.
Read the momentJohnson’s 9.79 comes back
Ben Johnson wins the Seoul 100 in world-record time, then fails a drug test. The sprint final becomes the doping era’s most public crime scene.
Read the momentFestina, in a car
French customs stop a Festina soigneur. The Tour de France’s EPO years spill onto the road. Cycling’s omertà gets a police report.
Read the momentWimbledon in the dark
Rafael Nadal beats Roger Federer 9-7 in the fifth as Centre Court loses the light. A rivalry becomes the sport’s gold standard in real time.
Read the momentIstanbul
Liverpool are 3-0 down to Milan at half-time in a Champions League final. They win on penalties. Collapse becomes a club religion.
Read the momentThe Red Sox come back
Boston trail the Yankees 3-0 in the ALCS and win eight straight. An 86-year story ends in St. Louis. Curses, it turns out, are a scheduling problem.
Read the momentThe Cubs, at last
Chicago comes back from 3-1 down in the World Series. A rain delay, extra innings, 108 years. Wrigley does not know what to do with a trophy.
Read the momentA 3-1 hole in June
LeBron James’s Cavaliers lose three of the first four to the 73-win Warriors, then win the title. Cleveland’s championship drought ends on a block and a shot.
Read the moment28-3
Atlanta lead New England by 25 in the third quarter. Tom Brady’s Patriots win in overtime. The biggest Super Bowl collapse is now a score people just say.
Read the momentA kneel before the anthem
Colin Kaepernick sits, then kneels, during the national anthem. The NFL becomes an argument about protest, jobs, and who owns the sideline.
Read the momentA World Cup and a lawsuit
The U.S. women win in France, then keep the equal-pay fight in the headlines. Megan Rapinoe’s pose is the picture; the filing is the point.
Read the momentBiles steps off
Simone Biles withdraws from Olympic finals in Tokyo to protect her mind and her neck. The twisties become a public language for athlete health.
Read the momentFreeman in Sydney
Cathy Freeman lights the cauldron, then wins the 400 in a hooded suit. An Aboriginal Australian champion, on home ground, in a country still arguing with itself.
Read the momentThe first Rugby World Cup
New Zealand and Australia host a new tournament. The All Blacks lift it. A sport of tours and invitations gets a world championship.
Read the momentWilkinson’s drop goal
Jonny Wilkinson wins the Rugby World Cup for England in extra time in Sydney. The northern hemisphere lifts the sport’s biggest prize.
Read the momentAfrica’s World Cup
South Africa hosts the first World Cup on the continent. Spain win it. The vuvuzela is the sound; the fact of the host is the history.
Read the momentVAR at the World Cup
Video assistant referees go to a World Cup in Russia. Offsides become milliseconds. The argument about the soul of the game gets a headset.
Read the momentFIFA in handcuffs
Swiss police arrest soccer officials at a Zurich hotel on a U.S. indictment. The sport’s government is no longer a private club with a bad reputation. It is a case file.
Read the momentThe year without crowds
A pandemic stops the calendar, then restarts it in empty buildings. Sport learns it can play without fans — and that it sounds like a practice.
Read the momentA World Cup that filled winter
Australia and New Zealand host. Spain win. Crowds and television numbers make the women’s game look like a peak event, not a development tournament.
Read the momentEderle beats the Channel
Gertrude Ederle swims the English Channel faster than the men who had done it. A woman’s endurance record becomes a ticker-tape story in New York.
Read the momentBabe Didrikson in Los Angeles
Mildred Didrikson wins two golds and a silver in LA, then goes off to golf. The all-around American athlete gets a woman’s name on the template.
Read the momentVenus at Wimbledon
Venus Williams wins Wimbledon. Compton’s public courts, two sisters, and a new power game arrive on Centre Court to stay.
Read the momentEqual prize money
Wimbledon pays women the same as men. Venus Williams had made it a campaign. The oldest tournament in tennis stops being the holdout.
Read the momentZidane’s final
France win their World Cup in Saint-Denis. Zinedine Zidane heads two. A multicultural team becomes the country’s favorite argument with itself.
Read the momentSpain, at last
Iniesta in extra time. A generation of tiki-taka finally wins a World Cup. Possession soccer gets its biggest prize, in a 1-0 grind.
Read the momentBeijing opens
China’s opening ceremony is a statement of scale. The Olympics become a geopolitical broadcast with a Bird’s Nest attached.
Read the momentLondon’s Super Saturday
Britain wins three golds in an hour on the track. A home Games that had been mocked as a budget becomes a national mood.
Read the momentThe night baseball came back
Mike Piazza’s homer at Shea, ten days after September 11. Sport’s job, for one evening, is to be a place a city can sit together.
Read the momentNo World Series
A strike cancels the Fall Classic for the first time in 90 years. Labor peace was a myth. The empty October is the proof.
Read the momentMunich, interrupted
Palestinian gunmen take Israeli athletes hostage. Eleven Israelis and a German officer die. The Olympics learn they are not a truce.
Read the momentThe boycott Games
The United States stays home from Moscow. Dozens of nations follow. The Olympics become a Cold War attendance sheet.
Read the momentSouth Africa walks back in
After three decades of exile, South Africa competes in Barcelona. Apartheid’s sporting isolation ends in an Olympic parade, not a speech.
Read the momentNadeshiko in Germany
Japan win the Women’s World Cup on penalties after a tsunami year. A technical, stubborn team beats the United States and takes the trophy home.
Read the momentA Triple Crown, again
American Pharoah ends a 37-year wait at Belmont. Horse racing remembers what a Saturday in June is for.
Read the momentClark and the new crowd
Caitlin Clark’s Iowa run, then her WNBA rookie year, pull ratings and sellouts the women’s game had been told to wait for. The audience stops being theoretical.
Read the moment
Rankings are ours. Yours will differ. That is the point of the list.