世界上最伟大的20位运动员(1)

罗杰·班尼斯特：第1位在4分钟内跑完1英里（1.609公里）的运动员

　　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 Oxford¹'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 scant² 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.


兰斯·阿姆斯特朗：7次环法自行车赛总冠军

　　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 consecutive³ times. Prior to Armstrong, no one had won the race more than five times.


杰西·欧文斯：70分钟破3项平1项世界纪录

　　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.


纳迪亚·科马内奇：7个难以置信的满分

　　No one--man or woman--had ever earned a perfect score for an Olympic gymnastics routine before Nadia Comaneci mounted the uneven⁴ bars on July 18, 1976. But the 14-year-old Romanian gymnast's flawless routine did the inconceivable, earning a 10.0--a feat⁵ 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 remains⁶ one of the Olympic's greatest achievements--and after the games were over, the World Gymnastics Federation⁷ was forced to redesign their scoreboards.


乔·迪玛奇奥：连续56场击出安打

　　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.


穆罕默德·阿里：3次获得重量级拳王头衔

　　On February 25, 1964, a young boxer⁸ named Cassius Clay faced off against Sonny Liston, the heavyweight champion of the world. The odds⁹ 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 Rumble¹⁰ in the Jungle" and regaining¹¹ 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 regained¹² the title. The victory made him the first man in heavyweight history to win three heavyweight titles.


马克·施皮茨：7枚游泳金牌

　　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 bragged¹³ 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.


格特鲁德·埃德尔：最短时间内横渡英吉利海峡

　　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 petroleum¹⁴ 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.


埃德蒙·希拉里和丹增·诺尔盖：成功攀登珠穆朗玛峰

　　The peak of Mt. Everest reaches a height of 29,035 feet above sea level--the highest point on Earth. Finally, 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.


贝贝·鲁思：一个赛季60次本垒打

　　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