Athletics
Five real newspaper headlines about athletics, printed between 1912 and 2019, with their dates removed. Read each one and guess the year it was published. No multiple choice and no trivia questions, just the headline as it was printed.
There are 3 rounds of five in this topic, and a new one appears whenever the archive has enough for it.
Headline one
The New York Times
1912
Jim Thorpe, a Native American athlete from the Sac and Fox Nation, dominated the 1912 Stockholm Olympics by winning gold in both the pentathlon and decathlon. King Gustav V of Sweden reportedly told him 'You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world.' His medals were later controversially stripped due to a prior semi-professional baseball stint, though they were restored posthumously in 1983.
Headline two
The Times
1954
On 6 May 1954, Roger Bannister ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds at Oxford's Iffley Road track, becoming the first person to break the four-minute barrier. The achievement was considered one of sport's greatest psychological breakthroughs. Bannister went on to become a distinguished neurologist after retiring from athletics.
Headline three
Boston Globe
1967
Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as a numbered, registered entrant, having registered under the name K.V. Switzer. Race co-director Jock Semple famously tried to physically remove her number mid-race before being blocked by her boyfriend and coach. Switzer finished the race in 4 hours 20 minutes, and the photographs of the confrontation became iconic images in the history of women's sport.
Headline four
The Guardian
1988
Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson won the 100m final at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in a world-record time of 9.79 seconds, only to be disqualified three days later after testing positive for stanozolol. It remains one of the most shocking doping scandals in Olympic history. Johnson was stripped of his medal, which was awarded to second-place finisher Carl Lewis.
Headline five
The Times
2019
Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge completed a marathon in 1:59:40 in Vienna on 12 October 2019, becoming the first human being to run 26.2 miles in under two hours. The Ineos 1:59 Challenge was not an official world record attempt due to the use of pacemakers and a specially designed course, but it was widely celebrated as the greatest individual feat in distance running history. Kipchoge had previously set the official marathon world record at the same Berlin course where Gebrselassie had run his landmark time.
Answer the five above to see your score.
Scoring works as it does in the daily game. Each headline is worth up to 100 points, and you lose two points for every year you are out. Being a decade wrong still earns you 80. A perfect round is 500.
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