Sport in the modern industrialised age has been recorded on film almost from the invention of photography itself - the two developments being almost completely contemporary - and along the way some images have been captured which transcend normal reportage and could be said to stand in their own right as works of sublime art, or in their ability to capture a unique moment which epitomises not only the sport in question but sometimes an entire era.

To kick this thread off I thought I'd start with this incredible photo, taken at Oulton Park, Cheshire, during the Forumal 1 Gold Cup of 1966, which shows five world champions - and not a crash barrier in sight! Leading the front pack is Jack Brabham with team-mate Denny Hulme and Jackie Stewart's BRM close behind. Trailing behind are Graham Hill and Jim Clark in their Lotus 33s.

http://www.mikehaywardcollection.com/product/606/brabham-stewart-hill-hulme-and-clark.htm#.UtbGkfRDvSg
Image replaced by link after complaint by copywright holder



Any other exceptional images?

Oh, and of course this one: Just why it became so iconic is hard to pin down - the aggression of Clay? The graphic eclipsing of a fading star by one on a mercurial rise to pre-eminence? This was their second fight, and the manner in which Liston succumbed (to a seeming "air punch" by Clay) is the real reason behind Clay's expression - incensed that his victory might be a hollow one, so obvious had been Liston's dive to the canvas. Clay prevented the referee beginning a final count and insisted his opponent stand up, and after 20 seconds Sonny Liston finally clambered to his feet. But by then the judges had seen enough. Count or no count he had been too long on the deck and the "victory" went to his opponent.



This was also Cassius Clay's last fight using his birth name. As Muhammed Ali he would continue to dominate his sport for another decade or more, even from a jail cell when prosecuted for refusing to be drafted to fight in Vietnam.

Dorando Pietri of Italy is helped by officials at the finish of the 1908 Olympic marathon. The US team immediately launched a complaint and Pietri was disqualified, the race going to the American, Johnny Hayes;*






*The American win was not very popular in Britain, as the Americans "college students" were regarded as professionals in all but name.

Sixty years later, gold medal winner Tommie Smith and bronze medal winner, John Carlos, give a black power salute at the Mexico Olympics;

Diego Maradonna's "Hand of God";

Four years later. The 1990 World Cup semi-final in Italy, the land that gave us operatic melodrama, and a distraught Paul Gascoigne cries into his England shirt as his team lose to West Germany on penalties, failing to reach a final that he would have missed anyway after picking up a second yellow card in the tournament and a one-match ban. Pavarotti's heart-rending rendition of Nessun Dorma, the anguish of a Caravaggio "Pieta", and this ...

This might not be an internationally known image but it is very famous in my country. I see it called an iconic photograph which is etched in the minds of all New Zealanders. (When I was in England in 2004 some newspaper asked for examples of photos to show something and this is the one I chose.) When I went to images for this they oddly showed one of David Kirk kissing the cup with blood coming out of his eye but it was the other eye from the one looking damaged here - and when I googled something slightly different it showed pictures of him kissing the cup with the image reversed to be back at his left eye.

I should have added here a bit of context. In 1981 the Springbok rugby tour of NZ tore the country apart, with anti-apartheid marches and rugby supporters clashing, and one game called off when the pitch was invaded. (Very exciting but rather ugly times.) As well as that, rugby was seen as very rough and dangerous for youngsters - it wasn't unheard of for young men to suffer broken necks and end in a wheelchair. Mothers perfered their sons to play namby-pamby soccer. The World Cup win and the cup held aloft by a very attractive young captain marked a turning point in how rugby was perceived here.




In 1967 I went out with a boy who was mad on Formula One and in those days they had races at Teretonga in Invercargill where we both went to school. I knew a great deal about the drivers of the era by the end of that year. Nice to see Denny Hulme in that photo. With Bruce McLaren and Chris Amos he formed a formidable trio in the sport here and they seemed to foot it (in a manner of speaking) with the best. But I don't think we bothered too much about the nationalities of the drivers, just their achievements and the cars they drove.

The Agoney and the Austerity ... both encapsulated in this moment frozen in time as Roger Bannister, on the point of collapse, makes a final push for the finishing cord to record the first ever mile in under four minutes. You don't see too many cinder tracks these days, and in fact even the mile as an athletics distance has long lost its lustre. Nor will you see many top flight athletes under such distress over such a distance and in the time recorded. But even rarer is to see so defining a moment of national pride, international respect, personal achievement, and the essence of the era in which this all occurred so sublimely captured in one frame as in this famous image of that immortal moment at the Iffley Road Track, Oxford in 1954.

And the antithesis to the above:

The 1956 Grand National,with a five length lead and just 40 yards from the finish,the Queen Mothers' horse, Devon Loch, inexplicably sits down allowing ESB to go on and win.

Twickenham, 1974, and Daily Mirror photographer Ian Bradshaw is on hand to capture what is probably the most iconic streaker snapshot of all time (and probably the first too), its subjects frozen in Caravaggian poses in which the fractured morality of a whole nation at a particular moment in time is most eloquently screamed to posterity by young accountant Michael O'Brien (playing Jesus) and the officers of the Metropolitan Police (protecting the public - though from what is uncertain). Caravaggio himself could not have equalled the poignancy of the strategically placed helmet - nor indeed modesty's grim champion arriving with too little and too late in the middle distance.



The Mirror's then editor Bob Edwards had the genius to decide to make the picture the subject of a national caption competition. The winner was announced as "It'll never stand up in court!" (though within the Mirror's office the private winner was allegedly "I'm coming quietly").


A young lady called Erica Roe was to steal O'Brien's thunder eight years later (though only topless), and even had the audacity to do so at the same venue. However it will always be Michael's claim to lasting fame that it was he who introduced the word "streaker" to a British public, and it is THAT bobby's helmet which is now proudly displayed at the English Rugby Union headquarters' museum. The result of the match (against France) has been lost in the mists of time ...

Jubilant Czechoslovakian players celebrate after beating the USSR 4-3 during the Ice Hockey World Championship in Stockholm, March 1969.

A highly emotional victory [the second in seven days after a 2-0 win on the 21st March] against the Soviets, who were viewed as occupiers after the forced ending of the Prague Spring the previous year.

btw; Streakers; a man was arrested on the 5th July 1799 after being caught outside the Mansion House running naked from Cornhill to Cheapside for a bet of 10 guineas.

Nothing about this man was ordinary. Born an ethnic German in a Hungarian town that is now part of Romania he emigrated with his family to the USA at six years of age. At nine he contracted polio and in his long rehabilitation was advised to take up swimming by his doctor. Young Peter Johan (by now just called Johnny) not only made a very full recovery from such a potentially debilitating disease but excelled at his new pastime, enough to catch the eye of successive swimming coaches who eventually trained him to a point where he would be selected for inclusion in the USA swimming team which travelled to the 1924 Paris Olympics.

In all he would go on to win five Olympic gold medals, then a unique achievement for an American athlete, set sixty seven world records in total and along the way win the USA National Swimming Championships an amazing fifty two times. All this by 1929. Then Hollywood beckoned, saying the world needed a new Tarzan of the Apes, and Johnny Weismuller obliged.

To his friends and colleagues he was always "Big John". To the rest of the world he was our favourite ape-man - a status reinforced by the story of when in 1958 there was an attempt to kidnap him and his party on a Cuban golf course. Jumping from the golf cart, beating his breast, and lambasting his would-be assailants with the famous "Tarzan yell" (invented by him and now almost de-rigeur for any aspiring ape-men of the future), he took them so much by surprise that they stood in shocked silence. Then, realising who their victim was, they welcomed Tarzan to Cuba joyously and escorted Big John to safety.

Cheetah would have been proud of him!


Peter Johan at the 1924 Paris Olympics

The New York Yacht Club's gaff schooner America still looking stunning on the water 60 years after she won the Cowes Royal Yacht Squadron's £100 Cup in 1851.

Just found this fantastic image while reading about the history of the Marathon event in the Olympics. Three athletes training for the first ever Marathon in 1896 in Greece ...



The picture was taken by pioneering travel writer, lecturer and film documentarian Burton Holmes - he whose various claims to fame include shooting the first known moving images in Japan, travelling (and filming) on the first ever Trans-Siberian train, and inventing the word "travelogue".

In the day that has seen the passing of David Mackay it is only meet to resurrect this (and this is the correct word to use) iconic image of the great man himself gently remonstrating with Billy Bremner of Leeds United when the latter, who fancied himself a hard man (whereas Mackay was the real deal) had just tried to break the former's leg in a typicall Bremnerish abandonment of skill, finesse, acknowledgement of rules and indeed morality that he liked to call "tough tackling". Mackay had just returned from his second such injury and was a little peeved that Mr B might think his career could now be arbitrarily ended on the White Hart Lane turf.



Mackay's playing career proved anything but short. He was famously brought out of retirement by a young Brian Clough and under his management at Derby County would not only extend his playing life by several more years but would also go on to lift the League Championship Trophy as Derby's captain, a feat he was then to repeat as manager of the same club after Clough had moved on.

RIP Dave.

The Ashbourne Shrovetide football match in Henmore Brook, 9th February 1932.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, July 1889,the last World Championship bout under London Prize Fighting ( ie bare knuckle boxing) Rules, between John L Sullivan and Jake Kilrain.

Sullivan won after Kilrain's corner threw in the towel in the 75th round:

Dear all,
Mary Decker falls after colliding with Zola Budd at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.


The American press wrongly attacked the 18-year-old South African girl who had nothing to do with the fall of the American champion and managed to largely break the international career of this young runner who had an outstanding talent.
32 years later Mary Decker publicly acknowledged that Zola Budd had been unfairly blamed by the press.
Kind regards,
Abelard

Abelard and what about this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens
Owens salutes the American flag after winning the long jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics. Naoto Tajima, Owens, Lutz Long.



And Hitler was not pleased with this four times gold winner...

Kind reards from Paul.

Dear Paul,
For the anecdote, the black American athletes were very warmly welcomed by the German population during these Olympic Games.
For the anecdote, too, According to this video, Jesse Owens' performance in the 1936 100m of 10' 2"   is comparable to that of Usain Bolt in 2013 of 9' 77".
Please, move the cursor to 47 seconds


To add one more photo:
The "Olympic salute" of the French team in 1936.

Even if it is true that it was an Olympic salute and not a Nazi one, the French team could have dispensed with it, which some other teams did.
Kind regards,
Abelard

Dirk and Abelard, thank you both for the reply.

Abelard, yes in my research for Dirk I saw that the Germans although indoctrinated by all that propaganda, saw nevertheless when it was a good sportprestation and hailed that with cheers.
As about the French Olympic greeting, somewhere we have here on the boards a whole thread about the "Roman salute"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_salute


Dirk, while doing research for my photograph I met this link, but as it was that late and I had no time anymore I didn't fully read it.
But as you see in the link, what the officials say is not always reality. You remember perhaps our discussion on Jiglu and overhere too about the Assad bombing with chemical weapons. Now as the Americans (Trump?) want to move again, Assad would suddenly now be intended according to the Americans to do it again in Idlib. As if we didn't agree that al qaeda had these chemicals too. Best to be critical to "any!" news...

I posted this already early this morning nearly one o'clock, but lost my message...

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Dear Paul,
Sorry to answer you so late, but unfortunately I don't have much time available right now.
Thank you for the information on the Roman salute.

Nadia Comaneci, 14 years and 8 months old, scored 7 times the maximum score of 10 at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games.


In 2012, one of the judges of these Olympic Games testified that if she had been evaluated in the same way as the other athletes, she would have obtained 11 or 12 points in some events and that she then forced the international juries to modify the scoring system.
She is considered the greatest gymnast of the 20th century and the eighth world athlete of the 20th century and the first woman in this ranking.
Kind regards,
Abelard

A bleeding Bernard Hinault arrives in St Etienne to finish that day’s stage of the 1985 Tour de France despite having crashed earlier and broken his nose. His physical and mental toughness, both as a cyclist and a sportsman, had earned him the nickname ‘le Blaireau’ (the Badger). This reputation was further enhanced by his catchphrase “tant que je respire, j'attaque” – (as long as I breathe, I attack). And he would put his words into action, particularly on the notoriously precipitous Alpe d’Huez stage of the tour, thrilling spectators by taking the steepest inclines at full tilt. Predictably he would exhaust himself with these crowd-pleasing stunts and consequently never actually won an Alpe d’Huez stage, being overtaken by more tactical mountain riders.

The Breton did, however, win the Tour and its famous maillot jaune a record 5 times between 1978 and 1985. Little did he or the French viewing public in 1985 realize, however, was that that year would be the last time to date when a local would win the Tour.