My Favourite Sports Men and Women
Not found on imdb: Majid Khan (Pakistani cricketer), Barry John (Welsh rugby player), Robert Millar (Scottish cyclist), Chiyonofuji (Japanese sumo wrestler), John Charles (Welsh footballer)
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- Federer is the former #1 ranked tennis player in the world, having held the number one position for a record 237 consecutive weeks.
He won the Indesit ATP 2004 Race on September 14. The ATP confirmed that his lead was insurmountable, marking what is believed to be the earliest a player has locked up the year-end No. 1 position since the ATP Rankings were established in 1973.
He won his third Grand Slam title of the year at the U.S. Open. That was his 9th title of the year, his 16th since the beginning of 2003, his 19th career title. No other male player had ever won his first four Grand Slam finals.
He is considered to have the talent to be the best tennis player of all time. His fellow players have nicknamed him "The Natural."
He is the favorite tennis player of Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue. She sometimes can be seen at his matches. He's frequently featured in American Vogue and once graced the cover of Men's Vogue.
He has appointed former American tennis player Paul Annacone as his coach. - Actor
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Muhammad Ali beat more champions and top contenders than any heavyweight champion in history. He defeated heavyweight kings Sonny Liston (twice), Floyd Patterson (twice), Ernie Terrell, Jimmy Ellis, Ken Norton (twice), Joe Frazier (twice), George Foreman and Leon Spinks. He defeated light-heavyweight champs Archie Moore and Bob Foster. Ali defeated European heavyweight champions Henry Cooper, Karl Mildenberger, Jürgen Blin, Joe Bugner, Richard Dunn, Jean-Pierre Coopman and Alfredo Evangelista. He defeated British and Commonwealth king Brian London. All of Ali's defeats were by heavyweight champions: Frazier, Norton, Spinks, Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. Ali also beat undefeated fighters Sonny Banks (12-0), Billy Daniels (16-0), 'Rudi Lubbers' (21-0) and George Foreman (40-0).- Sir Gareth Owen Edwards CBE (born 12 July 1947) is a Welsh former rugby union player who played scrum-half and has been described by the BBC as "arguably the greatest player ever to don a Welsh jersey".
In 2003, in a poll of international rugby players conducted by Rugby World magazine, Edwards was declared the greatest player of all time. In 2007, former England captain Will Carling published his list of the '50 Greatest Rugby players' in The Telegraph, and ranked Edwards the greatest player ever, stating; "He was a supreme athlete with supreme skills, the complete package. He played in the 1970s, but, if he played now, he would still be the best. He was outstanding at running, passing, kicking and reading the game. He sits astride the whole of rugby as the ultimate athlete on the pitch". - Peter Bonetti was born on 27 September 1941 in Putney, London, England, UK. He was married to Kay McDowell and Frances Jennings. He died on 12 April 2020 in the UK.
- Viv Richards was born on 7 March 1952 in St. John's, Antigua, British West Indies [now Antigua and Barbuda]. He is married to Miriam Richards. They have two children.
- Jimmy Wilde was born on 15 May 1892 in Tylorstown, Glamorganshire, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for A Pit-boy's Romance (1917) and Excuse My Glove (1936). He died on 10 March 1969 in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
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Steve Ovett was born on 9 October 1955 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. He is known for Explicit Biscuit (2018), The Krypton Factor (1977) and Grandstand (1958).- Tanni Grey-Thompson was born on 26 July 1969 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. She is an actress, known for Twenty Twelve (2011), Absolutely Fabulous (1992) and Game On: The Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport (2023). She has been married to Ian Thompson since 1999. They have one child.
- Rosa Mota was born on 29 June 1958 in Porto, Portugal.
- Gianfranco Zola was born on 5 July 1966 in Oliena, Sardinia, Italy. He is an actor, known for Parma Calcio 1913 vs AC Milan (1995), Senza Volto. Storia di Fabrizio Maiello (2024) and Renford Rejects (1998).
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Bjorn Borg is one of the greatest players in tennis history. Perhaps the greatest player of the open era in tennis. He is the 1st of two men to have won Wimbledon 5 straight years in the modern era; the 2nd being Roger Federer. He also won the French Open 6 times for a total of 11 major titles, the second highest of the open era and the third highest of all time next to Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Roy Emerson who had 14,14 and 12 respectively. Of course Federer is still active and can add more majors to his record. The major difference is that Borg, except for a short comeback in the 1990s retired basically at the age of 25 while Sampras played into his thirties and Emerson played into his forties.
Borg is estimated to have won about 100 tournaments in his very short career. He is the only man to have won the double of the French Open on red clay and Wimbledon on grass three years in a row.
Borg was a baseline machine with precise passing shots that discouraged many a net rusher. Borg also was able to great versatility in that he was able to serve and volley to win Wimbledon five years in a row, a modern era record also held by Roger Federer.
His rivalries with John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors are legendary. The match with John McEnroe in the 1980 Wimbledon final was perhaps the finest tennis match ever played. Certainly the fourth set tie-break in which each player fought off match points and set points respectively was perhaps the most famous tie-break of all time. Borg won that match 8-6 in the fifth set. Arguably the greatest player of all time.- A chess grandmaster and the World Chess Champion from 1921 to 1927, Capablanca appeared in Chess Fever (1925), which was filmed while he was in Moscow competing in an international tournament. As a chess player, he was known for his clear, logical style, and at his peak he was considered almost impossible to defeat. He once went 8 years without losing a single game.
- Catherine Destivelle was born on 24 July 1960 in Oran, Algeria.
- Haile Gebrselassie is an Ethiopian distance runner. He was born in the city of Bekoji, in the Arsi region of central Ethiopia. In the 10,000m competition he has 2 Olympic gold medals, 4 World Championships, and held the world record until it was broken by compatriot Kenenisa Bekele. He won the Berlin Marathon 4 times in a row and the Dubai Marathon 3 times straight. Haile was the 2001 Half Marathon World Champion, and has broken 61 Ethiopian National Records over distances ranging from 800m to the marathon. He held the Marathon world record for 4 years and the 10,000m world record for 6 years. He is widely considered the greatest distance runner of all time.
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Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx (born 17 June 1945), better known as Eddy Merckx, is a Belgian former professional road and track bicycle racer. Eddy Merckx is the undisputed greatest cyclist of all time. He was born in Meensel-Kiezegem, Brabant, Belgium. He grew up in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre where his parents ran a grocery store. He played several sports, but found his true passion in cycling. Merckx got his first bicycle at the age of three or four and competed in his first race in 1961. His first victory came at Petit-Enghien in October 1961.
After winning eighty races as an amateur racer, he turned professional on 29 April 1965 when he signed with Solo-Superia. His first major victory came in the Milan-San Remo a year later, after switching to Peugeot-BP-Michelin. After the 1967 season, Merckx moved to Faema, and won the Giro d'Italia, his first of eleven Grand Tour victories - a record that still stands today. Four times between 1970 and 1974, Merckx completed a Grand Tour double. His final double also coincided with winning the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships to make him the first rider to accomplish cycling's Triple Crown. Merckx broke the hour record in October 1972, extending the record by almost 800 meters.- Johan Cruyff (or Cruijffie) is voted the best European soccer player of the twentieth century (and the second best worldplayer). He started his career with AJAX Amsterdam and led them to 4 European finals of which 3 were won (1971/1972/1973). In 1973 Cruyff joined Barcelona (for a the then record-fee of 6 million guilders), He became a very popular player
- also known as el salvador - and gave Barcelona (and Catalonia) their
After a few years he became involved again with his first love, Ajax. He coached them for a few years, winning the European cup winners cup, before he got fired after arguing with the president of the club. But he has not only a first love, but maybe he has an even greater second love, Barcelona. He coached them for a few years, winning the European Champions league for the first time and four times the Spanish league. - Actor
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Usain Saint Leo Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter. Regarded as the fastest human being ever timed, he is the first man to hold both the 100 metres and 200 metres world records since fully automatic time became mandatory. He also holds the world record in the 4 × 100 metres relay. He is the reigning World and Olympic champion in these three events.
Bolt gained worldwide popularity for his double sprint victory at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in world record times. He later became the first man at the modern Olympic Games to win six gold medals for sprinting. He was the first to win consecutive Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles (2008 and 2012). At the 2016 Summer Olympics, he became the first track athlete in modern Olympic history to win three gold medals in one discipline, with his win in the 100 m sprint. He also won the gold medal in the men's 200 m, his third gold in the event at the Olympic Games.- Additional Crew
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Mo Farah was born on 23 March 1983 in Mogadishu, Somalia. He is an actor, known for The London Marathon (1981), W1A (2014) and The Leadership League (2019). He has been married to Tania Farah since April 2010. They have four children.- Judit Polgár was born on 23 July 1976 in Budapest, Hungary. She is an actress, known for Isten veletek, barátaim (1987), Chess Kids (1996) and The Polgar Variant (2014). She has been married to Gusztav Font since 2000. They have two children.
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Simply he was, and for many people still is, the greatest football player of the world. Not a single thing was impossible for him: he won three World Cups with his National Team of Brazil (Sweden 1958, Chile 1962, Mexico 1970). He scored more than 1.200 goals during his long career (more than 1.300 official matches). He also won many national Leagues and Continental Cups ("Copa Libertadores"), with his team, the Santos Futebol Clube (of Brazilian 'São Paulo' State). In the '60s, he was nick-named "O Rei" (The King), and in the '70s, ninety-five people out of 100 knew his name. ("Wow, man, you're popular!" said Robert Redford, some years ago, after seeing Pelé give dozens of autographs in New York while he was not asked for one). In the late 1960s, when he and his team, Santos, went to Nigeria to play a few friendly matches, the ongoing civil war stopped for the duration of his visit. He finished his career in the New York Cosmos, in 1977. He later became a United Nations Ambassador and has been also Minister for Sports in his country, but, for the people who saw him make magics with his right foot, he is, now and forever, the biggest footballer in the world, and the one and only "King".- Barry Sanders is an American former professional football player who was a running back for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). A Pro Bowl invitee in each of his ten NFL seasons and two-time NFL Offensive Player of the Year, Sanders led the league in rushing yards four times and established himself as one of the most elusive runners in pro football with his quickness and agility. In 2007, he was ranked by NFL Network's NFL Top 10 series as the most elusive runner in NFL history, and topped its list of greatest players never to play in a Super Bowl. He is often regarded as one of the greatest running backs in NFL history.
Barry Sanders played college football for the Oklahoma State Cowboys football team, where, as a junior in 1988 he compiled what is considered one of the greatest individual seasons in college football history, rushing for 2,850 yards and 42 touchdowns in 12 games. He was awarded the Heisman Trophy as the most outstanding college player in the nation and was unanimously recognized as an All-American. Sanders was first inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. He then was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003 and in that same year inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
Barry Sanders joined the Lions in 1989 and had an immediate impact, winning the NFL's Rookie of the Year award. Through ten seasons in Detroit, he averaged over 1,500 rushing yards per season and just under 100 rushing yards per game. In 1997, he became the third player to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season and was named the NFL Most Valuable Player. Still seemingly in his prime, Sanders unexpectedly retired from football after the 1998 season, 1,457 yards short of breaking the then NFL's all-time rushing record. His number 20 jersey was retired by the Lions, and he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004. A year later Barry Sanders was also inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. - Gareth Frank Bale (born 16 July 1989) is a Welsh professional footballer who plays as a winger for Spanish club Real Madrid and the Wales national team. Renowned for his ball striking from distance, swerving free kicks, and his ability to get past defenders with pace, Bale has received plaudits from his peers, who have described him as a footballer with "tremendous speed, great crossing ability, a great left foot and exceptional physical qualities".
He began his professional career at Southampton, playing at left-back and earning acclaim as a free kick specialist. Bale moved to Tottenham Hotspur in 2007, for an eventual £7 million fee. During his time at Tottenham, managerial and tactical shifts saw him transform into a more attacking player. From the 2009-10 season, under the guidance of Harry Redknapp, Bale became an integral part of the team, rising to international attention during the 2010-11 UEFA Champions League. In 2011 and 2013 he was named PFA Players' Player of the Year, and was named in the UEFA Team of the Year. In 2013, he was also named PFA Young Player of the Year, the FWA Footballer of the Year and the Premier League Player of the Season. He was nominated to the PFA Team of the Year three times in a row between 2011 and 2013.
On 1 September 2013, Bale was transferred to Real Madrid for an undisclosed fee. Press at the time reported the transfer value at figures between EUR91 million and EUR100 million. In January 2016, documents pertaining to the transfer were leaked which confirmed a then-world record transfer fee of EUR100.8 million, eclipsing the previous record fee of £80 million (EUR94 million) the club paid for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009. Bale played an integral role in his first season at Real Madrid, helping the club to win the 2013-14 Copa del Rey and UEFA Champions League, scoring in both finals. The following season, he won the UEFA Super Cup and scored in a third major final to help the club win the FIFA Club World Cup. Two years later, he was a key player in another Champions League run, winning the 2015-16 title and being elected to the UEFA Squad of the Season. He was also a finalist in the UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. In 2016, ESPN ranked Bale twelfth on its list of the world's most famous athletes.
Bale made his senior international debut for Wales in May 2006, becoming the youngest player at that point to represent the nation. He has since earned over 70 caps and scored 31 international goals, making him Wales' highest scorer of all time. He was the top goalscorer for Wales in their successful qualifying campaign for UEFA Euro 2016, scoring seven goals; he subsequently represented his nation in the final tournament as they reached the semi-finals, scoring three goals. He has been named Welsh Footballer of the Year a record six times. - Maureen Connolly was born on 17 September 1934 in San Diego, California, USA. She was married to Norman Brinker. She died on 21 June 1969 in Dallas, Texas, USA.
- Mervyn Davies was born on 9 December 1946 in Swansea, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for Old Scores (1991), This Is Your Life (1955) and We Are the Champions (1973). He was married to Jeni and Shirley Davies. He died on 15 March 2012 in the UK.
- Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, AO, OCC (born 28 July 1936), also known as Gary or Garry Sobers, is a former cricketer who played for the West Indies between 1954 and 1974, and is widely considered to be cricket's greatest all-rounder.
Born in Bridgetown, Barbados, Sobers made his first-class debut for the Barbados cricket team at the age of 16 in 1953, and his Test debut for the West Indies the following year. Originally playing mainly as a bowler, he was soon promoted up the batting order. Against Pakistan in 1958, Sobers scored his maiden Test century, progressing to 365 not out and establishing a new record for the highest individual score in an innings, which was not broken until Brian Lara scored 375 in 1994. He was made captain of the West Indies in 1965, a role which he would hold until 1972. He would also captain a Rest of the World XI during their 1970 tour of England.
Overall, Sobers played 93 Tests for the West Indies, scoring 8032 runs at an average of 57.78, and taking 235 wickets at an average of 34.03. He has the fourth highest batting average in Test cricket in the list of cricketers with more than 5,000 runs. In his 383 first-class matches, he scored over 28,000 runs and took over 1000 wickets, having spent time with South Australia and Nottinghamshire towards the end of his career. Sobers was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975 for his services to cricket. He became a dual Barbadian-Australian citizen through marriage in 1980. By an act of Parliament in 1998, Sobers was named as one of the ten National Heroes of Barbados. - Shane Gould was born on 23 November 1956 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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Lawrence Taylor was born on 4 February 1959 in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Any Given Sunday (1999), The Waterboy (1998) and In Hell (2003). He has been married to Lynette Rose Gordon since 7 July 2007. He was previously married to Maritza Cruz and Deborah Belinda Cooley.- Paolo Cesare Maldini Ufficiale is an Italian former professional footballer who played primarily as a left back and center back for AC Milan and the Italy national team. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders and players of all time. As the Milan and Italy captain for many years he was nicknamed "Il Capitano" ("The Captain"). Maldini held the record for most appearances in Serie A, with 647, until 2020, when he was overtaken by Gianluigi Buffon. He is also the player with the most appearances with the Milan shirt (902).
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Aaron Rodgers was born on 2 December 1983 in Chico, California, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for The Office (2005), Work Horses and Key and Peele (2012).- Ingemar Stenmark was a Swedish Slalom and Giant Slalom skier, competing for Fjällvinden Tärnaby. He is regarded as one of the most prominent Swedish sportsmen all-time.
Born in Joesjö, Storumans municipality, in Lappland (in the Province of Norrland). His family moved to nearby Tärnaby when he was four years old, where he became neighbors with another little boy, Stig Strand, who would go on to win the World Cup Slalom title.
Ingemar Stenmark is considered by many to be the greatest alpine skier of all time. Stenmark has won more alpine ski competitions than any other man with a total of 86 races in the Alpine Skiing World Cup. He accomplished this feat when there were only 3 disciplines in alpine competition (downhill, giant slalom, slalom) and fewer total races in a season than today when there are 4 disciplines (downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom). Stenmark rarely competed in downhill competitions since he was not comfortable with speeds in excess of 120 km/h (80 mi/h).
He won the entire Cup three times, 1976-1978. He has 4 of the top 10 most successful seasons ever in giant slalom competition. Stenmark won every giant slalom race during the 1977/1978 (7 for 7) and 1978/1979 seasons (10 for 10). He won every giant slalom race during the 1979/1980 season except for one (10 for 11). He has 6 of the top 10 most successful seasons ever in slalom competition. He won every slalom race during the 1975/1976 season (7 for 7) and almost every slalom race in the 1976/1977 (9 for 10), 1981/1982 (8 for 9), 1979/1980 (7 for 8), 1974/1975 (7 for 8), and 1980/1981 (8 of 10) seasons.
Including Alpine Skiing World Cup, FIS Championships and Olympic competition, Stenmark finished as follows:
1st place: 92 times, 2nd place: 45 times, 3rd place: 28 times, 4th place: 10 times, 5th place: 13 times, 6th place: 10 times, 7th place: 8 times, 8th place: 7 times, 9th place: 5 times, 10th place: 4 times
During the years from 1976-1978 Stenmark, along side Björn Borg, was the "national icon" of sports, and Swedish everyday life came to complete standstills whenever "Ingemar" was heading down the slopes. This was not changed by the fact that he - for tax reasons - soon moved to Monaco. On December 26, 2004 he survived the Indian Ocean earthquake while on vacation in Thailand.
Stenmark displayed overall athletic prowess in winning the 1976 Swedish Superstars championship. - Actress
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Martina Navratilova is a Czechoslovak-born American former professional tennis player and coach.
When Navratilova was four, she was hitting a tennis ball off a concrete wall and started to play tennis regularly at age seven. In 1972, at the age of 15, Navratilova won the Czechoslovakia national tennis championship. In 1973, aged 16, she made her debut on the United States Lawn Tennis Association professional tour but did not turn professional until 1975. Although perhaps most renowned for her mastery of fast low-bouncing grass, her best early showing at majors was on the red clay at the French Open, where she would go on to reach the final six times.
Navratilova won her first professional singles title in Orlando, Florida in 1974, at the age of 17.
Navratilova won her first major singles title at Wimbledon in 1978, where she defeated Chris Evert in three sets in the final and captured the world No. 1 ranking for the first time on the WTA computer, a position she held until Evert took it back in January 1979. Navratilova successfully defended her Wimbledon title in 1979, again beating Evert in the final in straight sets, and earned the World No. 1 ranking at the end of the year for the first time. In 1981, Navratilova won her third major singles title by defeating Chris Evert in the final of the Australian Open. Navratilova also defeated Evert to reach the final of the US Open, where she lost a third set tiebreak to Tracy Austin. Navratilova won both Wimbledon and the French Open in 1982.
From 1982 through 1990, she reached the Wimbledon final nine consecutive times. She reached the US Open final five consecutive times from 1983 through 1987 and appeared in the French Open final five out of six years from 1982 through 1987.
She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000.- Clive Lloyd was born on 31 August 1944 in Queenstown, Georgetown, Demerara, British Guiana.
- Lionel Messi is a football player from Argentina who plays for Inter Miami. He has won the Ballon D'Or, the annual award given to the best player in the world, 8 times, 2022 FIFA World Cup winner and an Olympic gold medal winner in 2008. He was born in 1987 in Rosario, Argentina's third-biggest city. He showed an enormous aptitude for football and was in the youth teams for Newell's Old Boys, his local team. Faced with mounting medical expenses to treat a growth hormone condition, Messi's family accepted an offer to move the 13-year-old prodigy to FC Barcelona, who would pay for his treatment. Messi has gone on to become one of the most decorated players in football history and has broken countless records for his club and his country.
- Olga Korbut was born on 16 May 1955 in Grodno, Byelorussian SSR, USSR [now Hrodna, Belarus]. She is an actress, known for The Bronze (2015), When the Trees Fall (2018) and ABC's Wide World of Sports (1961). She has been married to Alex Voinich since 2001. She was previously married to Leonid Bortkevich.
- Walter Payton, nicknamed "Sweetness, " is 2nd on the NFL's All time rushing list. His playing career lasted from 1975 to 1987. In those years, he amassed 16,026 rushing yards. He made a few appearances on television (as a guest star), but he was known as a profoundly personal man.
- Justine Henin is a Belgian former professional tennis player. She is considered one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. She spent a total of 117 weeks as the world No. 1 and was the year-end No. 1 in 2003, 2006 and 2007. Henin helped establish Belgium as a leading force in women's tennis with Kim Clijsters, and led the country to its first Fed Cup crown in 2001.
Henin won seven Grand Slam singles titles: winning the French Open in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, the US Open in 2003 and 2007 and the Australian Open in 2004. At Wimbledon, she was the runner-up in 2001 and 2006. She also won a gold medal in the women's singles at the 2004 Olympic Games and won the year-ending WTA Tour Championships in 2006 and 2007. In total, she won 43 WTA singles titles.
She retired from professional tennis on 26 January 2011, due to a chronic elbow injury.
In 2016, she became the first Belgian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. - Eusébio DA Silva Ferreira (January 1942 - 5 January 2014) was a Portuguese footballer who played as a striker. He is considered one of the greatest players of all time and S.L. Benfica's greatest ever player. During his professional career, he scored 733 goals in 745 matches. Nicknamed the Black Panther, the Black Pearl, or o Rei (the King), he was known for his speed, technique, athleticism and his ferocious right-footed shot, making him a prolific goalscorer.