It Was the Best of Sporting Times Quiz

Answer: Boston Americans

The Boston Americans, later to become the Boston Red Sox, represented the American League in an upset victory over the National League's Pittsburgh Pirates, 5 games to 3 (in a best-of-nine series). The New York Yankees, on the other hand, have been by far the most successful franchise in the game.

Their first championship, however, did not occur until 1923. The Texas rangers were formed in 1961,and the Seattle Mariners in 1977.

Answer: Bobby Jones

Bobby Jones won the US Open and Amateur titles, as well as the British Open and Amateur titles in 1930. At that time, they were the four 'major' titles.

By the 1950s and 1960s, with the advent of professional golf, the four majors became the US Masters (played in Augusta, Georgia), the US Open, the British Open, and the US PGA Championship.

Answer: Uruguay

Uruguay was chosen to host the new competition because they had won the Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928. Due to the difficulty and expense of crossing the Atlantic, only four European countries (Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia) were among the thirteen nations in the original competition. On July 30, 1930 Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 in a match played at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, in front of approximately 93,000 spectators.

Answer: Rod Laver

Australian lefty Rod Laver won the Grand Slam in 1962 as an amateur, then turned professional and could not compete in the major tournaments again until the introduction of Open tennis in 1968. In 1969 he won his second Grand Slam with a rain-delayed victory over Tony Roche at Forest Hills, NY. Andre Agassi and Roger Federer have achieved Career Slams, winning all four titles at various times in their career.

In women's tennis, the first to achieve a Grand Slam was Maureen Connolly Brinker (1953), Margaret Court (1970) was the second, and Steffi Graf (1988) was the third. In 1988, Steffi Graf also won an Olympic gold medal, a feat which has been termed a Golden Slam.

Answer: 7

Mark Spitz's tally of 7 gold medals in Munich was a swimming record whihc stood for 34 years until Michael Phelps won 8 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Spitz not only won gold medals in seven events, every one of them was a world record! The events (with his times in brackets) were: individual 100 m freestyle (51.22sec), individual 200 m freestyle (1:52.78), individual 100 m butterfly (54.27), individual 200 m butterfly (2:00.70), 4 x 100 m freestyle relay (3:26.42), 4 x 200 m freestyle relay (7:35.78) and 4 x 100 m medley relay (3:48.16).

Answer: Nadia Comaneci

At the age of 14, Nadia Comaneci became the first person to receive a 10 in Olympic gymnastics during the team competition on the uneven parallel bars. The scoreboards weren't set up with the capacity to display the score, so it was displayed as 1.00! She received a 10 for six more routines in the course of winning three individual gold medals (for balance beam, uneven bars and all-around) and a team silver medal.

Answer: Australia II

Alan Bond's yacht Australia II was designed with a controversial winged keel by Ben Lexcen, and skippered by John Bertrand. When they won the seventh and deciding race against Liberty, skippered by Dennis Connor, the Prime Minister of Australia extravagantly declared on live television that any boss who fired an employee who missed work due to the celebrations was a bum! Gretel led an unsuccessful America's Cup challenge in 1962; ditto Gretel II in 1970.

Answer: Bolero

Ravel's "Bolero" was originally too long for the Olympic Ice Dance routine, which required a performance between 230 and 250 seconds (4 minutes, plus or minus 10 seconds) in length. It was edited from 17 minutes to 4 minutes and 28 seconds by their arranger. To comply with the time rules, Torvill and Dean started the routine on their knees, a position they held for the first 18 seconds before starting the actual ice dance routine.

They received a perfect 6 from every one of the 9 judges for the artistic impression score.

Answer: 16

The Australian winning streak started with a victory over Zimbabwe in Harare in October 1999 and continued for a total of 16 consecutive victories before they lost to India in Calcutta in March 2001. Steve Waugh was captain through this streak. The previous record was 11 straight victories, set by the West Indies from March 1984 to December 1984.

The Australians also set a record for the longest winning streak in ODIs (One Day Internationals of 50-over), winning 21 consecutive matches between January 2003 (defeating England in Hobart) and May 2003 (losing to the West Indies in Port of Spain). Ricky Ponting was captain of the ODI team through this streak. The previous record was (again) 11 victories, set by (again) the West Indies from June 1984 to February 1985.

Answer: Lance Armstrong

Maurice Garin won the inaugural Tour de France in 1903. Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain, Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault each won the event five times. Indurain was the first to win in five consecutive years (1991-1995), only to have his record (temporarily) eclipsed by Lance Armstrong, whose achievement was made even more remarkable by his medical history.

In 1996 Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer which had metastasized to his brain and lungs. His original prognosis was poor - he was not expected to survive the multiple surgeries and extensive chemotherapy treatments that were planned, let alone return to elite international cycling competition in the spectacular fashion displayed in his dominance of the Tour within a few years.

Armstrong's incredible accomplishment was the subject of numerous rumours of drug-assisted performance, which eventually proved to be true. He was stripped of all these wins in October 2012 for blood doping.