Ten Extraordinary Moments that Made People Scream

I had 3 previous entries from 2007 (twice: 1, 2) and 2006 about ten magical, extroridnary moments in Sports that even the not-so-big fans of sports will enjoy watching.

Here is another list of ten of these moments that made people stick to their screens and scream in awe, excitement, joy or anger.
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1- The Moroccan Lady Wins Gold

It was the 1984 Olympic Games. Event: the 400-meter hurdles (mawane3). Nobody expected the 22-year old Moroccan woman, Nawal Moutawakel, to win the race. But she did, becoming the first Arab and the first African female to ever win a gold medal in any Olympic game. The King of Morocco declared that all girls born the day of her victory were to be named in her honor.
Here is the race that she won:


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2- Man Versus Machine.

Garry Kasparov was the chess world champion and the smartest man on earth. IBM spent millions eventually coming up with Deep Blue, a computer that challenged and defeated Kasparov in 1997.
Kasparov accused the computer of cheating. Ironically Kasparov retired and later ran for presidency of Russia last year but withdrew , accusing his opponents of cheating.

Here's the story of this challenge (in the form of a movie trailer):



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3- The Very Late Guest Shocks Europe

Yugoslavia qualified to the finals of the European Football Games in 1992 (Euro 92). However war broke there and the European Association asked Denmark to replace Yugoslavia just days before the tournament. Poorly prepared, Denmark arrived to the finals but then started scoring one victory after another, eventually defeating World Champions Germany 2-0 and returning home with the Cup. Here are their goals in the final game:




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4- The Black Guy Humiliates Hitler.

Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics. It was a chance for Hitler to spread the propaganda that white men with blue eyes are the strongest and fastest. A black guy from the US named Jesse Owens proved him wrong by winning 4 gold medals within 45 minutes while Hitler was watching at the stadium. That enraged Hitler who left the stadium. Unfortunately Owens was not honored at his country until 20 years later.



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5- It's true: AC Milan 5 - Real Madrid 0

It was the semi-finals of the 1989 Champions League, and AC Milan crushed Madrid. That was a very magical team they had. The scorers of the 5 goals were respectively: Ancelotti (current Milan's coach), Rijkaard (Barcelona's coach), Gullit, Van Basten (Netherland's coach in Euro'08) and Donadoni (currently Italy's coach).



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6- Jump Jump, Fosbury's way.

There isn't an athlete whose name is associated with a sport like Dick Fosbury's is associated with high jump. Up until 1968, high jump athletes used to jump in a totally different way (watch the end of the video) until Fosbury introduced his new jump. Experts laughed at him but they stopped laughing when he clinched the gold medal with his new invention that was named after him.



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7- The Titanic of Sports.

Without any exaggeration, this was the worst day in Brazil's history as a nation. They hosted the 1950 World Cup and in the final game, all what they needed was a draw against Uruguay to win the World Cup. 200,000 Brazilians gathered in the stadium, a record number for an audience to our day. They were very confident of the victory, they even printed their players' names on the gold medals. They lead 0-1 but lost at the end of the game 2-1. Three Brazilians fans committed suicide right after the game in the stadium. They had a name for the tragedy: Maracanzo (after the stadium)



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8- Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Refuses to Stand for the National Anthem.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was on of the top NBA players. But in 1996 he refused to stand for the US NAtional Anthem because of his religious belief. There was a mixed response to this behavior. He was banned temporarily but then was allowed to come back. Here is a response from some people at that time.



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9- Korea Humiliates Italy.

Nope, I'm not talking about 2002. In the World Cup, only one team used to represent the continents of Africa and Asia, and such teams never had any significant impact on the Mundial. In 1966 that team was North Korea. This time they made history by defeating 2-time World Champs Italy 1-0 and knocking them out of the World Cup. History repeated itself in 2002, but this time with the South Koreans.
All of sudden having Jordan lose to North Korea doesn't seem that bad after all.



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10- How Politics Mixed Blood and Water

In 1956, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to end an anti-communist revolution there. It turned bloody and many Hungarians were killed. The same year both teams faced each other in a Water polo game at the Olympic games in Melbourne. With all the tension going on, a very ugly fight started between the players in water, with a lot of punching in the face going on. Fights on the stadiums never stopped from the beginning of the game to the very end of it.
They made a movies about this game. Here's a short trailer from one of them with some real footage in it:



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Hope you enjoyed this collection ,
Hareega