Reels tagged #sports
The fastest human ever hit 44.72 km/h
Usain Bolt reached that speed between 60 and 80 metres of his 9.58-second world record. No human has been timed faster on foot.
Basketball was invented with two peach baskets
James Naismith nailed fruit baskets to a gym balcony in 1891 to keep students active indoors. Someone had to fetch the ball out after every score.
One athlete changed high jump forever by going backwards
Dick Fosbury cleared the bar head-first and face-up in 1968. Within a decade almost every jumper on Earth had copied him.
Tour de France riders burn up to 6,000 calories a day
On mountain stages that is roughly ten times a resting adult's use, and riders eat while racing just to avoid running out of fuel.
Badminton has the fastest shot in any sport
A smashed shuttlecock has been recorded past 490 km/h off the racket, faster than any struck ball, though it decelerates almost instantly.
A table tennis ball can spin over 9,000 times a minute
That is why a ball can swerve mid-flight and kick sideways off the table. Top players read spin, not speed.
Nobody actually hangs in the air
Even the highest dunkers stay airborne under a second. "Hang time" is an illusion created by how a body moves once it leaves the floor.
The high jump record has stood since 1993
Javier Sotomayor cleared 2.45 metres, higher than most doorframes, and no one has matched it in over thirty years.
The 900 took thirteen years to land
Tony Hawk finally landed two and a half airborne rotations in 1999 after failing all evening. The contest had already ended.
Freedivers go past 200 metres on one breath
With weighted sleds they descend where lungs compress to a fraction of their size, then ride back up on a balloon.
Wrestling may be the oldest sport on Earth
Cave paintings and Sumerian carvings show the same holds used today, some of them around 15,000 years old.
An Ironman is a swim, a bike ride and a marathon back to back
3.8 km of open water, 180 km on the bike, then 42.2 km on foot, all in one day with no real break.
Gymnastics skills are named after whoever lands them first
Do a brand new element at a world championship and the code of points carries your surname forever.
Basketball had no three-point line until 1979
The NBA adopted the arc as a gimmick to add excitement. It ended up rewriting how the entire sport is played.
Nearly every racehorse descends from three stallions
Thoroughbred pedigrees trace back to three Arabian and Barb stallions imported to England around 1700.
The Paralympics began in a hospital
A 1948 archery contest for spinal injury patients at Stoke Mandeville grew into a global Games held alongside the Olympics.
Volleyball was invented as a gentler alternative to basketball
William Morgan created it in 1895 for older gym members who found the new game too rough.
Fibreglass poles added almost a metre to pole vault records
Bamboo and steel poles barely bent. Flexible poles store the run-up's energy and catapult the vaulter skyward.
The javelin was redesigned because throws got too long
By 1984 javelins were landing near the far end of stadiums, so the centre of gravity was moved forward to shorten flights.
