Q: Born on March 6, 1947, Richard Douglas Fosbury is an American athlete who won a gold medal at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. The most important rule in his chosen sport is that when the competitors do the action, they must use only one foot to take off and anything that follows is fine. Richard came up with his own technique which was adapted from the ‘upright scissors method’. Though some reported that it looked like an ‘airborne seizure’, he soon perfected it. After his win, his technique is now the standard and is named after him. Ironically known as the ‘flop’, in which sport is this technique used?
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A: High jump, the Fosbury Flop
Q: Born on March 6, 1972, this overpowering athlete, who is also a very popular actor and rapper, is the eighth-most scored points of any NBA player ever. He appeared in several films, often as himself and rapped on the song ‘2 Bad’ in Michael Jackson’s album HIStory. At a height of 7 feet 1 inch and a whopping 147 kgs, he is the heaviest NBA player of all time. Who is this player whose sense of humour has won him many fans on social media?
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A: Shaquille O'Neal
Q: Sergey Bubka athlete was the first to clear 6.1 metres in his sport. He set about 35 world records, breaking his own records 14 times. He won the IAAF World Championships six times, setting a record. He was also, interestingly, among the first delegates representing his country at the Summer Olympics in 1996. However, his only Olympic Gold medal was won for another country at the 1988 Olympics. Which country was he born in and what was the sport in which he constantly reached new heights?
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A: Ukraine, pole vault
Q: The 2019 edition of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships was the first edition played with a certain new rule in place. After loud demands from the tennis world following two matches, which both featured an American player John Isner, the Championship agreed to compromise with this proud tradition and brought in a halfway measure of a tie-breaker in the fifth set at 12-12. Other than having a record of the fastest official serve (253 km/h), what other dubious record in tennis does John Isner have?
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A: Longest tennis match in history (11 hours 5 minutes)
Q: In 1998, when France lifted the football world cup, Lucien Laurent was the only surviving member of the 1930 World Cup squad to watch this feat. The 1930 squad had played in the first ever FIFA world cup, in Uruguay. It seems fitting that Laurent was able to watch his team lift the trophy given that he holds an important first in the world of football. What was this?
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A: He scored the first ever goal in a football world cup.
Q: Richard Raskind was an Ophthalmologist who, in the 1960 U.S. National Tennis Championships (later to be known as the U.S. Open), faced and lost to Neale Fraser who went on to become the champion. After a period of hibernation, the player came back to the same tournament in 1987 but ended up losing to Virginia Wade in the first round but reached the final in the doubles. What is unique about this achievement?
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A: The first transgender person to play professional tennis.
Q: Gordon Smith, Bobby Johnstone, Lawrie Reilly, Eddie Turnbull and Willie Ormond of the Hibernian Football Club were all part of the Three Time League Championship winning team. They helped the team reach the semi-finals of the European cup. Due to their popularity, by what name were they known that should remind you of a beloved children’s series by Enid Blyton?
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A: The Famous Five
Q: Lewis Pugh is a British-South African environmentalist who uses incredible swims to highlight ecological damage across the world. He is the first person to have completed long-distance swims in every ocean in the world. He is also the first person to swim across one of the ‘ends of the world’, to highlight the effects of global warming. Where was this incredible swim which wouldn’t have been possible earlier due to presence of ice?
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A: The North Pole
Q: Pál Szekeres is a Hungarian fencer who won a bronze medal in the team foil event at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics. In 1991 he was injured in a bus accident. The very next year he took part in the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona and won a gold medal in foil, going on to win two more gold at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta. What unique first (and only one as of 2022) does Szekeres have to his name?
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A: First person to have won medals at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games
Q: During the Indianapolis 500 race in 1911, 40 cars lined up and 39 of them had two people on board. Ray Harroun was the only single-seater car, and the weight and aerodynamic advantage led to him winning the race. Ray had got rid of the ‘racing mechanic’, who usually sat facing the back and reported to the driver, by installing a piece of glass on his dashboard which did the same work. By doing so what had Ray invented which we now see on all automobiles?
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A: The rear-view mirror
A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley
