1.Eight people have been awarded honorary membersh ip of the Harlem Globetrotters. They include Bob Hope, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II and Whoopi Goldberg.
2.One particularly successful swimmer was Johnny Weismuller, an American (with Austro-Hungarian ancestry) who won five gold medals over the course of the 1924 and 1928 games. When his sporting career came to an end, he went into acting and starred as Tarzan in twelve films. In 1958 Weismuller was playing a round of golf on the island of Cuba when a small band of rebels attempted to kidnap him. He scared them off by loudly making the Tarzan yell.
3.Although a Major League Baseball game lasts for around three hours, there is only around fifteen minutes of actual playing time.
4.Some rather unusual sports have been featured in the Olympic Games over the years - and they are a great deal stranger than just an obscure cycling event, or a race with a particular type of boat. No, these are events that it is almost impossible to imagine being resurrected for the next Olympics - al- though it would be amazing if any of them were! So what were they? Here we go... Duelling with pistols, the swimming obstacle race, live pigeon shooting, solo synchronized swimming, hot air ballooning, delivery van driving and poodle clipping.
5.According to the latest study, more than half of all NBA players go broke within five years of retirement.
6.If you hit a hole in one when playing golf in Japan, you should know that it is customary to throw a lavish celebration for your friends. Don’t worry if the cost of this is worrying you though, as you could join the four million Japanese citizens who have taken out ‘hole-in-one insurance’, covering them for half a million Yen.
7.Some historians have speculated that swingball (or tetherball if you are in America) actually evolved from a ninth century Turkic battle ritual. In the ‘original’ version however, the ‘ball’ was in fact the decapitated head of your enemy.
8.In 1962, Harry Chiti was a promising young catcher for the Cleveland Indians. The New York Mets (that year an expansion club) acquired him in exchange for a player ‘to be named later’. Unfortunately for Chiti, he put in a dismal performance over fifteen games, and when the time came for the Mets to give the Indians their ‘to be named later’ man, they handed back Chiti - making him the first ever person in baseball history to be traded for himself!
9.In 1990 a Manchester City fan was banned from Maine Road, the club’s stadium at the time. His offence? Bringing dead chickens into the venue, which he would swirl above his head anytime the Sky Blues scored.
10.Josy Barthel came first in the 1500m at the 1952 Olympic Games. This was a real triumph, as being from the tiny country of Luxembourg, no-one had expected him to have a chance - especially the band, who hadn’t brought the music for Luxembourg’s national anthem with them. They were forced to improvise, causing Barthel to put his head in his hands and weep.
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