Ali stands over Liston By Neil Leifer It’s no hyperbole to say that the photograph above is an iconic image of an iconic person in an iconic sporting moment. Neil Leifer photographed Muhammad Ali dozens of times during his heyday in the 60s and 70s as Ali won the heavyweight crown three times. Foremost among those images is this, of Ali berating Sonny Liston in the first round of their world title fight in 1965.
Liston had gone down easily from the “phantom punch” – with many suspecting mobsters had paid him to lose early – and Ali was furious, gesticulating at Liston to get up and fight. The picture was created in an era when boxing rings were clean white canvases on which bloody duels were fought over 15 rounds, and colour film photography produced lustrous results. The picture was somehow overlooked for the front cover of Sports Illustrated, for whom Leifer worked, and only decades later pulled from the archives and given its due.
JW Phelps makes it seven By Patrick B Kraemer Photograph: B Kraemer/EPA/Rex/Shutterstock It required video slowed to one frame per 10,000th of a second – as well as a snafu involving the official timekeeper Omega – to decide that Michael Phelps (left) had beaten Serbian Milorad Cavic (right) in the final of 100m butterfly at the 2008 Beijing Olympics . Also capturing the race’s dramatic last gasps, as Phelps windmills desperately to outtouch Cavic’s glide to the wall, was Patrick Kraemer , a Swiss former swimmer who specialises in underwater photography for aquatic sports. The victory meant the American equalled Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record of seven golds in a single games – an eighth soon followed.
“I saw it slowed down and it’s almost too close to see,” said a triumphant Phelps. LR Beamon leaps into history By Tony Duffy Photograph: Tony Duffy/Allsport The indelible image of Bob Beamon’s 8. 9m “leap of the century” at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics was taken by British amateur photographer Tony Duffy.
The American athlete travelled so far into the sandpit that the judges’ measuring device wasn’t long enough; a tape measure had to be fetched. His record wouldn’t be broken until Mike Powell leapt 8. 95m in 1991.
“Only after I held the negatives up to the light back in the room did I discover it,” Duffy said later of the image that helped propel his career: three years on, he quit his job as an accountant and co-founded the Allsport agency, which Getty Images bought in 1998 for £29m. LR Mandela and Pienaar unite South Africa By David Rogers Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images This image, taken at the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, shows Francois Pienaar , South Africa’s white captain, being congratulated by its Black president, Nelson Mandela, in the team’s kit, with its springbok symbol – once hated signs of Afrikaner supremacy. For a brief sporting moment, this new rainbow nation, and the world, saw a vision of hope and reconciliation.
LR Mary Decker hits the deck By David Burnett Photograph: David Burnett/Contact Press Images In LA in 1984, US 3000m favourite Mary Decker’s Olympic dreams died when she tangled with Zola Budd, 18, bare-footed and South African but controversially allowed to compete for Great Britain. “It happened just in front of me,” recalled David Burnett, whose photograph led Time magazine’s coverage. “Never have I witnessed such a raw public-private moment.
” LR Fosbury flops Photographer unknown Photograph: /AP The Fosbury flop era took flight at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics . Dick Fosbury, 21, an eccentric civil engineering student from Portland in mismatched running shoes, won gold with his ingenious technique to leap over the high jump bar: a curved run-up, the back leg used as a lever and jumping arched-back first, then trailing and whipping his legs over. His competitors soon gave up their forward rolls, ambitious hurdling and leg scissor motions, and followed suit.
Fosbury never competed at another Olympics but his flop has been present at every high jump event since. LR Disaster at Le Mans By Jimmy Prickett Photograph: Jimmy Prickett/AP “There was a terrific explosion and two car wheels whistled over my head. I saw a little girl who had been trampled on by panic-stricken spectators lying in a pool of blood and a headless man beside me collapse like a rag doll,” an injured spectator said of the 1955 disaster , the horrors of which were caught on camera by US soldier Jimmy Prickett as crowds fled the scene.
During the 24-hour race, French driver Pierre Levegh’s car hit another, causing his Mercedes to explode, sending debris flying into the stands. He was killed instantly, as were 83 spectators, with 180 injured, in the worst disaster in motor racing history. LR Nadal triumphs in twilight By Graham Chadwick Photograph: Graham Chadwick/dmg media Licensing The rivalry between tennis stars Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal reached its zenith at the 2008 Wimbledon final, a rain-delayed, five-set epic which John McEnroe declared “the greatest match I’ve ever seen”.
After the Spaniard finally came out on top to win his first grass court grand slam, Daily Mail photographer Graham Chadwick captured his triumphant climb to celebrate with family in the stands. The practice, which began when Pat Cash made an unexpected scramble to the family box after his 1987 men’s singles win, is now a tradition . LR The Super Bowl helmet catch By Elaine Thompson Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP With 1min 15sec left on the clock and the New York Giants trailing the New England Patriots at Super Bowl XLII in 2008 , quarterback Eli Manning somehow evaded several tackles, skipped into space and fired a pass high and far downfield.
David Tyree leaped into the air “like a basketball player” in the words of one commentator, catching the ball miraculously above him between one hand and his helmeted head, then securing it with his other hand, all as a Patriots defender tried to stop him as they both fell to the ground. From the ensuing plays the Giants scored a touchdown and secured their first Super Bowl since 1990. LR The 100-foot wave By Tó Mané Photograph: Tó Mané/tomanephotography.
com Nazaré, on Portugal’s western central coast, is regularly referred to as “the ocean’s Everest”. The waves of Praia do Norte beach underscore several Guinness world records, including the one pictured here, ridden by big wave surfer Garrett “Gmac” McNamara. In 2011, the American caught a 78-footer and less than 18 months later broke his own record with a 100ft wave in the same waters .
There is some disagreement as to whether the wave was actually 100ft, but the unofficial title of this shot, by Portuguese surf specialist Tó Mané, stands. GH The beginning of a great Ethiopian tradition By John G Zimmerman Photograph: John G Zimmerman/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images It had not been Abebe Bikila’s intention to run in Rome’s 1960 Olympics barefoot. The Ethiopian marathon runner hadn’t even been selected in the original squad, joining only when another athlete was injured.
Before the Games, he had been working as a palace guard for Emperor Haile Selassie and training barefoot in his free time. On arrival in Rome, the running shoes provided didn’t fit and gave him blisters, so he made the decision to run as he always had done, without them. Not only did he win the race, which finished under the Arch of Constantine in darkness, he broke the world record with a time of 2:15:16.
The moment was captured by the renowned Sports Illustrated photographer John G Zimmerman. When Bikila died 13 years later, at only 41, a national day of mourning was declared in his country. GH Brandi Chastain lets rip By Robert Beck Photograph: Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images Brandi Chastain has since said she has “no idea” what made her tear off her shirt but her celebration after scoring the winning penalty in the 1999 World Cup final against China instantly became one of the most famous images of the rising, US-dominated women’s game.
It was a sight echoed by England’s Chloe Kelly after her extra-time winner in the 2022 Euros final. Robert Beck, who at the time specialised in surfing photography, had originally been sent by Sports Illustrated to take photos of the crowd at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, before making his way pitchside during extra time. GH King Ali By Neil Leifer Photograph: Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images “Through the years, Muhammad Ali made a hero out of me,” said Neil Leifer, when I spoke to him a decade ago about his feted career.
His most cherished picture is this aerial photograph of Ali seconds after defeating Cleveland Williams in 1966. It was shot with a remote camera rigged high amid the ring lights. “For my money it is the best picture I ever took in my life,” he told me, before revealing that it’s the only picture of his own that adorns the walls of his home.
“I have a large print of it in my living room. I like to hang it as a diamond shape with Cleveland Williams at the top. ” JW Emily Davison’s death at Epsom Photographer unknown Photograph: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis/Getty Images The story of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison is a complex one , with more than one unhappy ending.
The version most commonly known is that the 40-year-old intentionally threw herself into the path of the King’s horse, Amner, at the Epsom Derby in 1913. But the suggestion of self-sacrifice was at odds with the return train ticket found in her wallet, and a Channel 4 investigation in 2013 found that Davison was not trying to pull down the horse, but to attach a scarf to its bridle. After her death, which was ruled accidental, Amner’s jockey, Herbert Jones, laid a wreath in her honour; in 1951, he took his own life.
GH Eriksson and Harder’s kiss By Simon Hastegård Photograph: Simon Hastegard/imago images/Bildbyran After Sweden defeated Canada at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, defender Magdalena Eriksson shared a quick kiss with her girlfriend Pernnille Harder, who plays for Denmark but was loyally wearing yellow. The moment was captured and shared around the world: two elite gay footballers comfortably together on the international stage, and helping pave the way for others. LR The Korbut flip By Gerry Cranham Photograph: Gerry Cranham/ Offside Olga Korbut was only 17 when she competed in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, for the Soviet Union.
Her 30-second display on the uneven bars, captured here by famed British sports photographer Gerry Cranham, included a skill later made illegal: backflipping off the higher bar, grasping it again, propelling herself in a loop around the lower bar and returning backward to the higher bar with a thrust of her hips. The crowd jeered in dismay when her daring innovation scored 9. 8, placing her second.
GH Ultramarathon breastfeeding By Alexis Berg Photograph: Alexis Berg/AFP/Getty Images Ultrarunner Sophie Power was 16 hours into the Ultra-Trail Du Mont-Blanc in 2018 when she was photographed pausing to breastfeed her three-month-old baby. Power had lost her place in the same race four years earlier as she was pregnant with her first child and not permitted to defer. A few months postpartum, her plan for the race revolved around being gentle on her body – she used poles to run down hills to reduce the impact on her pelvis – and keeping her milk supply up by stopping for longer than usual to eat at checkpoints and hand-- expressing through the night.
Power has since campaigned to change deferral policies in long-distance races, so athletes are able to defer due to pregnancy as well as injury. GH Amarilla Veres and Jing Rong By Lintao Zhang Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Wheelchair fencing has been a Paralympic sport since the first Games in 1960 in Rome. Six decades later, on day two of the Tokyo 2020 Games (held in 2021), Lintao Zhang captured this stunning shot of Amarilla Veres, competing for Hungary, and Jing Rong, for China, in the women’s épée individual event.
With their wheelchairs fixed to the ground, fencers compete using only their upper bodies but the categories remain the same as in classical fencing: foil, sabre and, as in this instance, épée. Veres won gold, with Rong taking silver. GH Muybridge’s ‘flying’ horses By Eadweard Muybridge Photograph: Eadweard Muybridge/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images Do horses briefly “fly” when they’re in motion? That was the question British landscape photographer Eadweard Muybridge tried to answer almost 150 years ago.
While some people fancied a galloping horse must always have one hoof on the ground, others believed its limbs must extend simultaneously between strides like a wooden rocking horse. The American rail baron and racehorse owner Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to prove this “unsupported transit”. But photographic technology was still in its infancy and it was almost impossible to depict moving subjects, let alone galloping horses.
There were two major problems: photographic emulsions in the 1870s required several seconds of exposure to light in order to render images, and cameras were operated manually by photographers who’d often cap and uncap their lenses using a hat. Muybridge knew his only hope was to develop new technologies, so he and a team of engineers at Stanford’s yard in Palo Alto, California created cameras using faster emulsions, trip-wire triggers and electronic shutters pulled by rubber bands. They called their pioneering invention the “automatic electro-photograph” and the results were astounding.
In June 1878, using a sequence of cameras that could take photographs quicker than 1/500th of a second, they came up with incontrovertible evidence that horses, including Sallie Gardner (pictured), are momentarily airborne. What’s more, they didn’t extend their legs as expected, but gathered them beneath their bodies and thrust each one forward in turn. The world was agog.
Muybridge – whose pioneering work laid the foundations for all sports photography – would go on to make elaborate studies of humans and other animals in motion, while his later invention, the zoopraxiscope – a device that enabled him to reanimate his photographs – was a precursor to modern cinema. JW John Barnes back-heels a banana By Bob Thomas Photograph: Bob Thomas Sports Photography/Getty Images “When an uneducated, stupid racist abuses me, how can I be insulted by someone like that, who I feel superior to?” wrote John Barnes in his recent book, The Uncomfortable Truth About Racism , as he recounted how his privileged early life in Jamaica gave him a sense of self-worth that would shield him during the darkest moments of his footballing career in England. Curiously, his book never directly discusses the shameful moment in which he was pelted with a banana while playing for Liverpool, though this photograph is printed on the back page, such is its importance.
It was shot during a Merseyside derby in 1988, in a decade when such vile abuse of Black sports people was still depressingly common. Barnes says racist jokes were also routine in training, while fellow Black player Cyrille Regis received a bullet in the post when he was called up for England. The power of this photograph comes from Barnes’s defiant reaction to the abuse: he disposed of the offensive object with a gloriously insouciant back-heel.
“[Racism] never a
