#1 Roger Bannister: Sub-Four-Minute Mile
In 1954 it seemed unlikely--maybe even impossible--that anyone could run a mile in less than four minutes. Several runners had come close--Sweden's Gunder Haess had run the mile in four minutes and 1.4 seconds nine years previously--but no one could break through the four-minute barrier. People began to believe that it couldn't be done. Until Britain's Roger Bannister, that is. Competing at Oxford's Iffley Road track on May 6, 1954, the 25-year-old medical student wowed some 3,000 spectators when he crossed the finish line in three minutes and 59.4 seconds. Once the psychological barrier had been broken, mile times kept falling. Bannister's record stood a scant six weeks before John Landy of Australia ran the mile in three minutes and 58 seconds. The current world record is three minutes and 43.1 seconds.
#2 Lance Armstrong: Seven Consecutive Tour de France Victories
Prior to being diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, Lance Armstrong was a successful professional bicyclist. After his recovery, he became a legend. Armstrong has won the Tour de France, which many consider to be professional sports' most grueling event--a 21-stage race covering more than 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) in the heat of the French summer--a record seven consecutive times. Prior to Armstrong, no one had won the race more than five times.
#3 Jesse Owens: Four World Records In 70 Minutes
In the spring of 1935, heading into Big Ten Conference Championships, Jesse Owens, a 21-year-old track star from Ohio State University, was suffering from a back injury he had sustained falling down a flight of stairs. He received treatment right up to race time. Then lightening struck. In less than 70 minutes, Owens broke three world records (in the long jump, the 220-yard dash and the 200-yard low hurdles) and tied a fourth (in the 100-yard dash). The following year, Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. He famously was not invited to shake Adolf Hitler's hand.
#4 Nadia Comaneci: Seven Perfect 10s
No one--man or woman--had ever earned a perfect score for an Olympic gymnastics routine before Nadia Comaneci mounted the uneven bars on July 18, 1976. But the 14-year-old Romanian gymnast's flawless routine did the inconceivable, earning a 10.0--a feat that was so unexpected it wouldn't fit on the scoreboard and had to be displayed as a 1.0. But Comaneci didn't stop there. The 4-foot-11, 86-pound pixie went on to score not one, not two, but seven perfect 10s during the games, winning gold medals in the uneven bars, balance beam and individual all-around. The feat remains one of the Olympic's greatest achievements--and after the games were over, the World Gymnastics Federation was forced to redesign their scoreboards.
#5 Joe DiMaggio: 56-Game Hitting Streak
On May 15, 1941, the New York Yankee's Joe DiMaggio went one-for-four with an RBI against the Chicago White Sox in a routine, early season game (the Yankees lost 13 to 1). The very next day, "Joltin'" Joe had another base hit. And another in the next game. And in the next. In all, DiMaggio had a base hit in 56 consecutive games--a record that stands unbroken to this day.
#6 Muhammad Ali: Three Heavyweight Titles
On February 25, 1964, a young boxer named Cassius Clay faced off against Sonny Liston, the heavyweight champion of the world. The odds were seven-to-one against the mouthy upstart, known as "The Louisville Lip"--a boxer so brash he promised during the weigh-in to "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." But Clay proved true to his word, pummeling Liston so badly that the champ quit before the start of the seventh round. Soon after, Clay joined the Nation of Islam, changed his name to Muhammad Ali and refused to serve in the Vietnam War--a move that got him stripped of the championship belt. But in 1974, Ali came back, pulling the "rope-a-dope" on George Foreman in "The Rumble in the Jungle" and regaining the belt. In February 1978, Olympic champion Leon Spinks defeated the aging star in a 15-round decision. But only a few months later, Ali won a rematch and regained the title. The victory made him the first man in heavyweight history to win three heavyweight titles. The Spinks fight turned out to be Ali's last. When the champ retired in 1978, he ended his career with 56 wins (37 by knockout) and only five defeats.
#7 Mark Spitz: Seven Gold Medals
Going into the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Mark Spitz was a cocky 22-year-old swimmer who had failed to win a single individual gold in the 1968 games in Mexico City (although he did get two team golds). Nonetheless, Spitz bragged he would win six gold medals in Germany. He didn't. He won seven--the most anyone has ever won in a single Olympiad--and broke seven world records in the process. Spitz's career total of 11 medals ties him with fellow swimmer Matt Biondi for the most decorated U.S. Olympic athlete.
#8 Gertrude Ederle: Swims The English Channel In Record Time
The choppy waters that separate France from England are icy-cold, crisscrossed with powerful currents and subject to sudden squalls. By 1926, hundreds of people had tried to swim the English Channel, but only five had been successful--all of them men. Then Gertrude Ederle, a native New Yorker, donned her swimming cap, slathered herself with petroleum jelly and lard and jumped in the water off the coast of France. It took her 14 hours and 31 minutes to cover the 21 miles to Kingsdown on the English coast, shattering the men's record by nearly two hours. Ederle's record remained untouched for nearly 25 years
#9 Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay: Climb Mt. Everest
The peak of Mt. Everest reaches a height of 29,035 feet above sea level--the highest point on Earth. But for many years, the biggest difficulty in conquering Everest wasn't its height, but its location straddling two xenophobic nations: Nepal and Tibet. Finally, after some high-level diplomacy involving the Dalai Lama, the British were allowed access in the early 1920s. They mounted a number of full-fledged expeditions, including one in 1924 that claimed the lives of world-renowned Alpinist George Mallory and a young Oxford graduate named Andrew "Sandy" Irvine. Further attempts on Everest were stalled by World War II. But on May 29, 1953, two members of that year's British Expedition reached the summit: Edmund Hillary, a beekeeper from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a professional mountaineer from the Everest foothills. Hillary was later knighted for his efforts and is the only living New Zealander to appear on a banknote (the $5 bill).
#10 Babe Ruth: 60 Home Runs In a Season
You don't get a nickname like "The Sultan of Swat" without being able to knock the ball out of the park. George Herman "Babe" Ruth was the first player to hit 30 home runs in a season. And the first to hit 40. And the first to hit 50. His 1927 record of 60 home runs in just 155 games represented 14% of all of the home runs hit in the American League that year--to pull that off today, a player would have to hit over 340 home runs in a season. The record would last until Roger Maris hit 61 in 1961, but Ruth still dominates the record books: He was the league home run leader a record 12 times, and no one has ever matched his career slugging average of .690, or his nearly inconceivable slugging average of .847 in the 1920 season
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