Sportlight-Week Ahead, July 29-Aug.4

July 28, 2022 GMT

July 29

1751 — The first International World Title Prize Fight takes place in Harlston, England. The champion, Jack Slack of England, beats the challenger, M. Petit of France, in 25 minutes.

1934 — Paul Runyan beats Craig Wood on the 38th hole to win the PGA Championship at Park Country Club in Williamsville, N.Y.

1956 — Cathy Cornelius wins a playoff over Barbara McIntyre to win the U.S. Women’s Open.

1957 — At the Polo Grounds in New York, Floyd Patterson TKOs Tommy Jackson at 1:52 of the 10th round to retain the heavyweight title.

1960 — The first American Football League preseason game is played in Buffalo, N.Y. The Boston Patriots, led by quarterback Butch Songin, beat the Bills 28-7 before 16,474 fans at War Memorial Stadium .

1979 — Amy Alcott shoots a 7-under 285 to beat Nancy Lopez in the Peter Jackson Classic, later named The du Maurier Classic. The du Maurier is one of the LPGA Tour’s major championships from 1979-2000.

1986 — The U.S. Football League wins and loses in its lawsuit against the NFL. The jury finds the NFL violated antitrust laws, as the USFL claimed, but awards the USFL only $1 in damages.

1989 — Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor becomes the first person to high jump 8 feet, breaking his world record at the Caribbean Championship in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He surpasses his mark of 7-11½.

1990 — Beth Daniel shoots a 66 to overcome a 5-shot deficit and win the LPGA Championship — her first major title in 12 years on the tour. Daniel beats Rosie Jones by one stroke and pockets $150,000, the largest in LPGA Tour history.

1992 — The U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team wins the gold medal, with Matt Biondi and Tom Jager becoming the first U.S. male swimmers to win golds in three Olympics.

1996 — Michael Johnson sweeps to victory in an Olympic 400-meter record 43.49 seconds, while Carl Lewis leaps into history in Atlanta. Lewis’ long jump of 27 feet, 10¾ inches earns him his ninth gold medal, equaling the American mark held by swimmer Mark Spitz.

2008 — Disgraced ex-NBA official Tim Donaghy admits he brought shame on his profession as a federal judge sentenced him to 15 months behind bars for a gambling scandal.

2012 — Kimberly Rhode wins the Olympic gold medal in women’s skeet shooting, becoming the first American to take an individual-sport medal in five consecutive Olympics.

2012 — Dana Vollmer of the U.S. sets a world record to win the 100-meter butterfly at the London Olympics. Vollmer hits the wall in 55.98 seconds to shave 0.08 off the mark set by Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden at the 2009 world championships in Rome.

2015 — Russia’s Natalya Ishchenko wins a record 18th career synchronized swimming gold medal at the world championships at Kazan, Russia.

2021 — Sunisa Lee wins the women’s all-around gymnastics gold medal in Tokyo.

_____

July 30

1870 — Monmouth Park opens with a five-day meet.

1930 — Host Uruguay beats Argentina 4-2 for soccer’s first World Cup in Montevideo.

1932 — The 10th modern Olympic Games open in Los Angeles.

1961 — Jerry Barber edges Don January by one stroke in a playoff to win the PGA title at Olympia Fields in Illinois.

1966 — England beats West Germany 4-2 at London’s Wembley Stadium to capture soccer’s World Cup.

1968 — Washington’s Ron Hansen pulls off an unassisted triple play in a 10-1 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

1971 — In the NFL Chicago All-Star Game, the Baltimore Colts beat the All-Stars 24-17.

1976 — Bruce Jenner sets the world record in the Olympic decathlon with 8,618 points, breaking Nikolai Avilov’s mark by 164 points.

1980 — Houston pitcher J.R. Richard suffers a stroke during a workout at the Astrodome.

1984 — Michael Gross of West Germany sets a world record in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:47.44 at a meet in Munich.

1996 — The American softball team wins the gold medal, beating China 3-1 behind a controversial two-run homer from Dot Richardson in the first Olympic competition in that sport.

2009 — Seven more world records on the fifth night of the world swimming championships in Rome are set, pushing the total to 29 and moving past last summer’s Beijing Olympics. Ryan Lochte gets things rolling by breaking Phelps’ mark in the 200-meter individual medley. The Chinese women finish it off, eclipsing the 800 freestyle relay mark by more than two seconds, with the Americans also breaking the previous record but only getting silver.

2012 — In London, Missy Franklin, a 17-year-old from Colorado, wins the women’s 100-meter backstroke. Franklin has a brief 13-minute break after taking the final qualifying spot in the 200 freestyle semifinals before she had to get back into the water for the backstroke final. Ruta Meilutyte, 15, becomes the first Lithuanian to win an Olympic swimming medal by holding off a late charge from world champion Rebecca Soni of the U.S. in the 100 breaststroke.

2013 — Katie Ledecky crushes the world record in the 1,500 freestyle for her second gold medal at the world swimming championships in Barcelona, Spain. The 16-year-old American finishes with a time of 15:36.53 to beat the previous mark by more than 6 seconds — Kate Ziegler’s 15:42.54 in 2007.

2015 — North Korea wins its first gold medal at the world aquatics championships through 16-year-old Kim Kuk Hyang in women’s 10-meter diving. In her first international competition, Kim produces a stunning final dive, earning two perfect 10 scores from the seven judges, for a total of 397.05 points. On the next dive, the leader up to that point, world champion Si Yajie of China, makes an error to drop to fourth.

2021 — South African swimmer Tatjana Shoemaker sets a new women’s 200m breaststroke world record of 2:18.95 at the Tokyo Olympics.

_____

July 31

1932 — France beats the U.S. 3-2 for its sixth consecutive Davis Cup championship.

1934 — Britain, led by Fred Perry and Bunny Austin, defeats the U.S. 4-1 at Wimbledon to win the Davis Cup title.

1942 — Jockey Bill Turnbull wins seven of nine races at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H.

1954 — Joe Adcock hits four homers and a double to lift the Milwaukee Braves a 15-7 victory over Brooklyn.

1963 — The Cleveland Indians become the first American League club to hit four straight home runs. No. 8 hitter Woody Held hits a two-out homer off Paul Foytack and pitcher Pedro Ramos follows with his second homer of the game before Tito Francona and Larry Brown’s first major league homer finish this odd power surge. Foytack is the only major league pitcher to give up four straight home runs.

1973 — Julius Erving, the American Basketball Association’s leading scorer, is traded by the cash-strapped Virginia Squires to the New York Nets for forward George Carter and cash.

1983 — Jan Stephenson beats JoAnne Carner and Patty Sheehan by one stroke to win the U.S. Women’s Open.

1990 — Nolan Ryan wins his 300th game, reaching the milestone in his second try, as the Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3.

1993 — Mike Aulby becomes the third player in PBA history to win a tournament by rolling a 300 game in the title game. Aulby beats David Ozio 300-279 in the Wichita Open.

1994 — Sergei Bubka sets a world pole vault record for the 35th time in his career at a meet in Sestriere, Italy. Bubka soars 20 feet, 1¾ inches, adding a half-inch to his mark set in Tokyo in 1992.

2000 — Dorothy Delasin becomes the LPGA’s youngest winner in 25 years by beating Pat Hurst on the second extra hole to win the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic. The 19-year-old Delasin is the youngest winner on the tour since Amy Alcott took the Orange Blossom Classic at age 19 in 1975.

2005 — Grant Hackett becomes the first swimmer to win four straight world titles in the same event, capturing another 1,500-meter freestyle. The Aussie stretches out his own record for world championship medals to 17.

2007 — All-Star Kevin Garnett is traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to Boston for five players and two draft picks. The Celtics obtain the former MVP and 10-time All-Star from Minnesota for forwards Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and Gerald Green, guard Sebastian Telfair and center Theo Ratliff and two first-round draft picks.

2011 — Yani Tseng wins the Women’s British Open for the second straight year, beating Brittany Lang by four strokes and becoming the youngest woman to capture a fifth major title. The 22-year-old top-ranked Taiwanese shot a 3-under 69 to finish at 16-under 272.

2012 — Michael Phelps breaks the Olympic medals record with his 19th, helping the U.S. romp to a 4x200-meter freestyle relay victory at the London Games. With 19 medals spanning three Olympics, Phelps moves one ahead of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, who got her haul in 1956, 1960 and 1964.

2012 — The team of Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber lives up to all the hype, winning the first U.S. Olympic title in women’s gymnastics since 1996.

2021 — Katie Ledecky wins the women’s 800m gold in Tokyo. This is the third consecutive Olympics she has won the race.

_____

Aug. 1

1936 — The Berlin Olympics begin.

1945 — New York’s Mel Ott hits his 500th home run in a 9-2 victory over the Boston Braves at the Polo Grounds. Only Babe Ruth with 714 and Jimmie Foxx with 527 have more.

1972 — Nate Colbert of the San Diego Padres drives in 13 runs in a doubleheader sweep of the Atlanta Braves, 9-0 and 11-7.

1987 — Mike Tyson wins the undisputed heavyweight championship with a 12-round unanimous decision over IBF champion Tony Tucker in Las Vegas.

1992 — Eric Griffin, a two-time world champion at 106 pounds, loses to Rafael Lozano of Spain under the new electronic scoring system at the Olympics. All five judges credit him with more blows than his opponent as did five jury members used as a backup in case the computer failed.

1994 — Baltimore’s Cal Ripken becomes the second major leaguer to play 2,000 straight games when the Orioles beat Minnesota 1-0.

1996 — Michael Johnson wins Olympic gold in the 200 meters in a record 19.32 seconds, becoming the first male Olympian to win the 200 and 400 in a single games. Dan O’Brien wins gold in the decathlon, four years after failing to make the U.S. Olympic team.

2004 — Karen Stupples wins her first major title with a record-tying 19-under 269 at the Women’s British Open. Stupples ties the low score in a major, set by Dottie Pepper at the 1999 Nabisco Dinah Shore.

2009 — Rachel Alexandra rolls past the boys again to win the $1.25 million Haskell Ivitational at Monmouth Park, establishing herself as one of the greatest fillies. Ridden by Calvin Borel, she beats Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird by six lengths.

2010 — Stuart Appleby hits golf’s magic number, shooting a 59 to win the Greenbrier Classic. He is the fifth PGA Tour player to reach the milestone.

2010 — Yani Tseng of Taiwan wins the Women’s British Open by one stroke for her third major title and second of the year to go with the Kraft Nabisco.

2010 — Bob and Mike Bryan win their record 62nd career doubles title on the ATP Tour. The twins were tied with Hall of Famers Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde of Australia.

2012 — Four teams are kicked out of the women’s badminton doubles at the London Games for trying to lose on purpose. The eight players from China, South Korea and Indonesia are cited for conduct “clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.”

2021 — Marcel Jacobs becomes the first Italian athlete to win the 100m dash in 9.80 at the Tokyo Olympics.