Derek Redmond, now retired, is an accomplished track runner who held the British record for the 400 m sprint and helped bring his team to take the gold at European and World championships 4×400 relay races. His career, however, was halted after some serious injuries. During the 400-meter semi-finals in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, Redmond felt something in his leg “snap”; he tore his hamstring mid-race.
Redmond immediately fell to his knees but soon got up, and despite the excruciating pain, he continued to limp to the finish line. With the help of his father, who came running to the track, Redmond managed to complete his final lap. Although he was disqualified and listed as “Did Not Finish” due to receiving outside assistance to finish the race, the crowd gave Redmond a well-deserved standing ovation. The incident has become well-remembered as one of the most heartwarming moments in Olympic history.
Acrobats On The Empire State Building
Acrobats Jewell Waddek, Jarley Smith, and Jimmy Kerrigan performed this stunt on August 21, 1934. Spectator watched speechless as the daredevils balanced themselves in perfect form on a ledge of the Empire State Building in Manhattan. They wouldn't be the last to attempt such acts.
Fun fact about this iconic building: The idea of the Empire State Building was born from a competition between John Jakob Raskob of General Motors and Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation to see who could build a taller building. Chrysler's famous 1,046-foot skyscraper, Chrysler Building, was already in the makings in midtown Manhattan. Not wanting to lose, Raskob quickly got to work, and his entire new building went up in a little over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule, at that!
The Williams Sisters Meet The President
Young Venus and Serena Williams are seen here cheesing from ear-to-ear with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan at a tennis camp in Florida in 1991. Perhaps he already recognized the Williams sisters as a force to be reckoned with even in their junior tennis career. If so, his prediction was correct, as the Williams sisters went on to be two of the best tennis players the world has witnessed. They are so good that during the final matches of many competitions, they were left to compete against each other- they met in the 9 Grand Slam Singles finals!
Venus and Serena Williams became the first two players, female or male, to play in four Grand Slam singles finals from the 2002 French Open to the 2003 Australian Open, consecutively! Between 2000 and 2016, they collectively won 12 Wimbledon singles titles (Serena won 7, and Venus won five), and they're the 5th pair to complete the Career Doubles Grand Slam and the only pair to complete the Career Doubles Golden Slam.
Olympic Figure Skater In The Making
While this young Norwegian girl had fun skating, little did she know that she would become a world-famous figure skater and film star. The young skater is none other than Sonja Henie, a 3-time Olympic Champion in Ladies' Singles, a six-time European Champion, and a 10-time World Champion.
As mentioned before, Henie was also a successful movie star and one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. Her most noteworthy appearances include the box-office hits: Thin Ice (1937), My Lucky Star (1938), Second Fiddle (1939), and Sun Valley Serenade (1941).
Jessie Owens Proves Hitler Wrong
In the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, Jessie Owens, a four-time Olympic gold medalist by the end of the competition, was coined "the most successful athlete at the Games." As a black man, Owen was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy."
The picture was taken during the era of Nazi Germany, and you can see the members of the German team shamelessly holding the Nazi Salute during the medal ceremony for the winners of the long jump competition. Jessie Owens (U.S.A) team took first place, Luz Long (Germany) took second, and Tajima (Japan). Surprisingly, Long and Owens befriended each other during the Olympic games. Owen once said, "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler...".