Wally Chambers

Wallace Hashim Chambers (May 15, 1951September 22, 2019) was an American football defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears and defensive end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1970s. He was selected with the eighth overall pick by the Bears in the 1973 NFL Draft out of Eastern Kentucky University, and played previous to that for Mount Clemens High School, where he graduated in 1969.
College.
Chambers attended Eastern Kentucky University.
Professional career.
Chambers was chosen as the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year following the 1973 NFL season and was selected to play in the Pro Bowl three times (1973, 1975 and 1976). Chambers was named All-Pro following the 1976 campaign, 1976 NFL linemen of the year, NFC defensive player of the year (1975 and 1976) and also garnered second team All-Pro honors in 1973, 1974 and 1975.
Coaching career.
Following his playing career Chambers coached at the University of Northern Iowa, at East Carolina University, and for the New York Jets.
In 1989 Chambers was a defensive coach for the New York Jets under Joe Walton. He then served as the defensive line coach for the WLAF's Ohio Glory in their sole season in 1992 under head coach Larry Little.
Personal life.
Chambers had trouble standing up during the last 10 years of his life due to knee and back problems and spent a great deal of his time in a wheel chair or using a walker. He lived in Saginaw, Michigan with his wife Patsy Chambers.
Chambers died on September 22, 2019 at the age of 68.


Matt Leinart

Matthew Stephen Leinart (born May 11, 1983) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons. He played college football at USC where he won the Heisman Trophy during his junior year. Selected by the Arizona Cardinals 10th overall in the 2006 NFL Draft, Leinart was released after four seasons that saw him primarily serve as Kurt Warner's backup. He spent his final three seasons in a backup role for the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders. Leinart was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2017.
Early years.
Leinart was born in Santa Ana, California, with strabismus (commonly known as "crossed eyes"); his left eye was not aligned correctly with his right. He underwent surgery when he was three years old and was fitted with special glasses to correct the problem, but the eyewear combined with Leinart's already-overweight frame made him an easy target for other children's ridicule. "I used to get made fun of for being cross-eyed. It's just a terrible thing because kids are so cruel to the fat kid, to the kid with the glasses. So I turned to sports," he would later say.
Leinart attended Mater Dei High School and was a letterman in football and basketball. As a junior, he led his team to a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division I co-championship and was named the Serra League's Offensive Most Valuable Player. Wearing number 7, he was chosen as the Gatorade California high school football player of the year.
As one of the nation's top college football recruits, Leinart committed to USC under coach Paul Hackett, noting that a major factor was offensive coordinator Hue Jackson. However, after Hackett and most of his staff were fired in 2000, Leinart considered other programs such as Georgia Tech and Arizona State and visited Oklahoma and the [University of Michigan] before USC eventually hired Pete Carroll.
College career.
Leinart attended the University of Southern California, where he played for coach Pete Carroll's USC Trojans football team from 2001 to 2005. He redshirted in 2001. As a freshman the next year, he understudied senior quarterback Carson Palmer, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy and was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2003 NFL Draft. Leinart appeared in only a few plays in 2002 but did not throw any passes. As a sophomore in 2003, Leinart competed with redshirt junior Matt Cassel, who was Palmer's backup the previous season, and Purdue transfer Brandon Hance for the vacant starting quarterback position. Going into the season, Carroll and his coaching staff selected Leinart, not because he had set himself significantly ahead of the pack in practice, but because they needed a starting quarterback.
When the coaching staff told Leinart he would be the starter, he replied, "You're never going to regret this." There was some thought in the press that Leinart would merely hold the starting position until highly touted true freshman John David Booty, who had bypassed his senior year in high school to attend USC, could learn the offense.
Leinart's first career pass was a touchdown against Auburn in a 23-0 victory in the season opener. He would win the first three games of his career before the then-#3 Trojans suffered a 34–31 triple-overtime defeat at California on September 27 that dropped the Trojans to #10. Leinart and the Trojans bounced back the next week against Arizona State. Leinart injured his knee in the second quarter and was not expected to play again that day, but he returned to the game and finished 12-of-23 for 289 yards in a 37–17 victory.
Leinart and the Trojans won their final eight games and finished the regular season 11–1 and ranked No. 1 in the AP and coaches' polls. However, USC was left out of the BCS championship game after finishing third in the BCS behind Oklahoma and LSU. The Trojans went to the Rose Bowl and played University of Michigan. Leinart was named the Rose Bowl MVP after he went 23-of-34 for 327 yards, throwing three touchdowns and catching a touchdown of his own from wide receiver Mike Williams. In 13 starts, Leinart was 255 for 402 for 3,556 yards and 38 touchdowns with nine interceptions. He finished sixth in the Heisman voting.
Junior and senior seasons.
The Trojans started Leinart's junior season (2004) with victories in their first three games. On September 25, the Trojans played Stanford. After Stanford took a 28–17 halftime lead, Leinart sparked the offense with a 51-yard pass to Steve Smith and scored on a one-yard sneak to cut the Cardinal lead to four points. Leinart and the Trojans were able to take the lead on a LenDale White rushing touchdown and held on for the victory, 31–28. Leinart completed 24 of 30 passes.
Leinart finished the final regular season game against UCLA, but was held without a touchdown pass for the first time in 25 starts. Nonetheless, Leinart was invited to New York for the Heisman ceremony, along with teammate Reggie Bush, Oklahoma's freshman running back sensation Adrian Peterson, quarterback and incumbent Heisman winner Jason White, and Utah's quarterback Alex Smith. In what many had considered one of the more competitive Heisman races, Leinart became the sixth USC player to claim the Heisman Trophy.
In 2004, USC went wire-to-wire at No. 1 in the polls and earned a bid to the BCS title game at the Orange Bowl against Oklahoma, which was also 12–0. A dream matchup on paper (including White vs. Leinart, which was to be the first time two Heisman winners would play against each other), the Orange Bowl turned out to be a rout, as Leinart threw for five touchdown passes on 18-for-35 passing and 332 yards to lead the Trojans to a 55–19 victory. Leinart received Orange Bowl MVP honors and the Trojans claimed their first BCS national championship and second straight No. 1 finish in the AP, extending their winning streak to 22 games. This victory and BCS championship were later vacated as a result of the Reggie Bush scandal (though the AP national championship still stands).
The 2005 Trojans again had a perfect 12–0 regular season. Against Notre Dame, Leinart threw for a career-high 400 yards. After an incomplete pass and a sack led to a fourth-and-nine situation with 1:36 left—at the Trojans' own 26-yard line, Leinart called an audible "slant and go" route at the line of scrimmage and threw deep against the Irish's man-to-man coverage, where Dwayne Jarrett caught the ball and raced to the Irish' 13-yard line, a 61-yard gain. Leinart moved the ball to the goal line as time dwindled and scored on a quarterback sneak that gave the Trojans a 34–31 lead with three seconds to go, giving the Trojans their 28th straight victory and one of the most memorable and dramatic finishes in the history of the Notre Dame–USC rivalry. Leinart was again invited to New York for the Heisman ceremony along with teammate Reggie Bush and Texas quarterback Vince Young. As a former Heisman winner, Leinart cast his first-place vote for Bush, and ended up third in the voting behind Bush (since vacated) and runner-up Young.
The Trojans advanced to the Rose Bowl to face Vince Young and #2 Texas in the BCS title game. The title game was considered another "dream matchup." Leinart himself had a great game, going 29-of-40 for a touchdown and 365 yards, but was overshadowed by Young, who piled up 467 yards of total offense and rushed for three touchdowns, including a score with 19 seconds remaining and two-point conversion to put the Longhorns ahead, 41–38. The Trojans lost for the first time in 35 games, and Leinart for just the second time in his 39 career starts. After graduation, Leinart's #11 jersey was retired at USC.
Leinart finished his college career with 807 completions on 1,245 attempts (64.8% completion percentage) for 10,693 yards and 99 touchdowns with just 23 interceptions. He is USC's all-time leader in career touchdown passes and completion percentage, and is second at USC behind Carson Palmer in completions and yardage. He averaged nearly 8.6 yards per attempt, and averaged only one interception every 54 attempts. He was 37–2 as a starter.
Professional career.
2006 NFL Draft.
Projected to be the first overall pick of the 2005 NFL Draft, Leinart's draft stock decreased after he chose to return to USC for his senior season. Nonetheless, he remained one of the top prospects in the 2006 NFL Draft. Scouts considered Leinart to be the archetypal NFL quarterback in size at and , although his arm strength drew concerns. He was selected tenth overall in the draft by the Arizona Cardinals. Leinart was the draft's second-highest selected quarterback after Vince Young, who had defeated Leinart's team in the Rose Bowl.
Arizona Cardinals.
Leinart spent four seasons with the Cardinals, primarily as a backup for veteran Kurt Warner.
In his first season, after a contentious negotiation making him the last member of the draft to sign a contract, Leinart agreed to a six-year, $51 million contract on August 14. Leinart played in the second quarter of the exhibition game against the New England Patriots on August 19.
Cardinals head coach Dennis Green held a press conference after a poor performance by Warner in Week 3 and announced Leinart would start. He made his debut in the fourth game of the season, throwing two touchdown passes.
In Week 6 against the 5–0 Chicago Bears, Leinart threw two touchdown passes in the first half, but the Bears came back in the second half to win 24–23.
In a November 26 game against the Minnesota Vikings, he set an NFL rookie record with 405 passing yards; however, the team lost to the Minnesota Vikings. His quarterback rating was 74.0. He suffered a sprained left shoulder (throwing arm) in the Week 16 win over the San Francisco 49ers. In 11 starts, Leinart threw for 2,547 yards and 11 touchdowns. He finished the season with a 4–7 record.
Leinart opened the 2007 season on "Monday Night Football" against the San Francisco 49ers as the starting quarterback. After a sequence of drives, the offense stalled, head coach Ken Whisenhunt began to insert Warner as a situational quarterback. On October 7, 2007, Leinart suffered a fractured left collarbone after being sacked by St. Louis Rams linebacker Will Witherspoon. Three days later, he was placed on injured reserve, ending his season. In his first two NFL seasons, Leinart had suffered two season-ending injuries, all due to being sacked. With Warner at the helm for the remainder of the season, the Cardinals mounted a late-season surge and won five of their final eight games.
In Leinart's second season with Arizona, he started five games, completed 53.6% of his passes (60/112), and threw for 647 yards, 5.8 yards per attempt, two touchdowns, and four interceptions. His passer rating was 61.9. He averaged 129 yards and 0.4 touchdowns per start. In the 2008 offseason, after he recovered from the injury, Leinart was handed his starting job back. Still, his hold on the job was tenuous after another strong training camp performance by Warner. Finally, after Leinart threw three interceptions within a matter of minutes versus the Oakland Raiders in the third preseason game, Warner was named the opening-day starter. Leinart picked up only a limited number of snaps in mop-up duty behind Warner. Warner started 16 games and took the Cardinals to their first ever Super Bowl, cementing his status as starter and Leinart's status as a backup. For the 2008 season, he completed 15 of 29 passing attempts (51.7%), one touchdown, one interception, and an 80.2 passer rating. In 2009, Leinart continued his role as back-up for Warner, who started all but one regular season game.
In 2010, Leinart was named the presumptive starter after Warner's retirement. However, due to poor play, the starting job in training camp was given to Derek Anderson. The Cardinals released Leinart on September 4, two days after the final preseason game, in favor of Anderson and rookies Max Hall and John Skelton.
Houston Texans.
On September 6, 2010, the NFL announced that Leinart signed a one-year contract to back up Matt Schaub with the Houston Texans. Since Schaub played all 16 games, Leinart did not play during the 2010 season. During the 2011 offseason, despite speculation that he would sign with the Seattle Seahawks, who were coached by Leinart's college coach Pete Carroll, and compete for a starting job, Leinart ultimately agreed to return to Houston as a backup for the 2011 season. In Week 10, Schaub injured his right foot and the Texans named Leinart their starter. Leinart started for the first time in Week 12 against the Jacksonville Jaguars; however, during the first half he fractured his collarbone and was replaced by rookie quarterback T. J. Yates. At this point in his career, Leinart had suffered three season-ending injuries (2006, 2007, 2011) within his last eight starts.
On March 12, 2012, Leinart was released by the Texans.
Oakland Raiders.
Leinart signed with the Oakland Raiders on May 1, 2012, as the back-up to his former college teammate, Carson Palmer. After Palmer suffered an injury in Week 16, Leinart and Terrelle Pryor split first-team reps. Pryor ended up getting the start in Week 17 and Leinart was not re-signed by the Raiders the following offseason.
Buffalo Bills.
After injuries to quarterbacks EJ Manuel (knee surgery) and Kevin Kolb (concussion), the Bills decided to sign Leinart on August 25, 2013. Leinart and Thad Lewis (who was brought in on the same day through a trade) would compete for the fourth-string quarterback job behind undrafted rookie Jeff Tuel. Lewis won the competition, and Leinart was released by the team on August 30, 2013.
Personal life.
Leinart has a son with Brynn Cameron, who is a former USC women's basketball player. The couple parted ways before their son's birth.
As of May 2018, Leinart is married to "Make It or Break It" and "The Mentalist" actress Josie Loren. In January 2020, Loren gave birth to Leinart's second son.


Venugopal Chandrasekhar

Venugopal Chandrasekhar (died 12 May 2021) was an Indian national table tennis champion and Arjuna Award winner.
National champion.
Chandrasekhar was born in Tamil Nadu, India. He was an exceptionally good player of table tennis and was national champion.
Among his major achievements are winning the Nationals, making the semi-final of the Commonwealth championships in 1982, and helping India progress to category I from II in the 1983 Tokyo World Championships.
Early days.
At the age of 12, Chandrashekhar played in the Madras Port Trust tournament. He joined the Emesor sport's council and it helped him to improve his game. The training regimen included yoga and prayers. Chandra became the Tamil Nadu state sub-junior champion in 1970. In 1973 he became Tamil Nadu's junior champion and also entered the national quarter finals. His style was flamboyant and at a time when sports coverage on TV was very limited, tickets for his matches sold in the black market in towns that traditionally patronised table tennis like Indore and Pune. Later he won the national championship.
Tragedy: negligence at hospital.
In September 1984, at the age of 25, when already the national champion and making his mark in international table tennis, Chandrashekhar had some pain in knee which required a minor knee operation. His knee surgery at Chennai Apollo Hospital. went wrong on the operation table. The wrong dosage of anesthesia played its part and he suffered brain damage and lost his vision and control over his limbs. He spent 36 days in a near-coma state and eighty-one days in the hospital as part of rehabilitation. Treatment abroad was funded mainly from responses to a public appeal for funds. Members of the public, sportsmen from India and abroad, politicians and actors helped generously. The treatment abroad improved his condition somewhat.
Lawsuit.
A lawsuit was filed in 1985 against the hospital which came to trial three years later. The medical community's "omertà" was broken by a few brave doctors, especially an Orthopedist from Maharashtra who helped to demolish the hospital's case. During the trial it came to light that the orthopedic surgeon of the hospital had received training in arthroscopy only in workshops in UK and not in a medical school as part of the curriculum. Eight years after the operation, and five years since the trial began, after the examination of ten witnesses and recording a thousand pages of evidence, the court delivered a verdict in favour of Chandrashekhar in mid-May 1993. The judgement said that "The plaintiff is entitled to in total, Rs 17,37,920.78 by way of special damages and general damages." A medico-legal case of this proportion was unheard of in India. A young patient had sued a hospital for negligence and had won nearly twenty lakhs. Even the cynics of the Indian judiciary were impressed. The hospital appealed against the decision, but ultimately settled after two years. During the trial years Chandrashekhar continued his treatment in India and abroad and worked at the State Bank of India to support himself. He was a gold medalist of Madras University (economics) was to work as a cashier. A fight which he felt would not have been necessary had "human spirit prevailed over ego".
Recovery.
Chandrasekhar has made a good recovery physically. He has regained 70% of his vision, though reading small letters on the computer and driving at night were still a problem.
Chandrasekhar was one of the sports professionals in India to ask for appearance money and also actively sought to improve players' working conditions. He wrote a column on table tennis, "TopSpin", for "The Telegraph" and also covered tournaments for newspapers after his operation.
From a person equipped with razor sharp reflexes needed to play a game in which the ball typically travels at 100 km/h or more, Chandraselhar became a person who did not have normal peripheral vision and couldn't see beyond a few feet; he suffered from a condition called nystagmus - his eyeballs could not focus. A bulb, for instance, appeared as a series of points of light. Chandra ran an academy for young table tennis players and was married to Mala. They have a son, Sanjay.
Autobiography.
Chandrashekhar wrote, with the help of Seetha Srikanth, an autobiography, "My fightback from Death's door", published by Eastwest books, Chennai, in 2006.
There are times when I stumble on the footpath, and people have thought that I was drunk.
That is when it hurts for it is not my fault. Then I look at the computer in my office and cannot read the small letters. To be lesser than a normal human being is what pains me the most. But I know I have to carry on. - V. Chandrasekhar.


Joseph Abraham

Joseph Abraham (born 11 September 1989) is an Indian track and field athlete from Kerala. He holds the current 400 metre hurdles State record of 49.51 seconds set during the 2007 World Championships in Athletics in Osaka on 26 August 2007. At Osaka, Abraham became the first Indian male athlete to clear the opening round of an event in the World Athletics Championships when he reached the 400m hurdles semifinals. He also won the 400m hurdles gold medal at 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.
Athletic career.
Born in Kottayam district of Kerala, Abraham made a steady progress in intermediate hurdles. His first sub-52 came in 2003 and in the following year he clocked a time of 51.98 seconds. His best time in 2005 was 50.87 seconds. His first national record came at the 2006 National inter-State athletics championship in Chennai. He broke the national record of 50.39 seconds held by Patlavath Shankar with a time of 50.22 seconds. On 12 May 2007 at the 13th Federation Cup Athletics Championship in Kolkata, he broke his own 400m hurdles record 50.04 seconds to win the gold. Joseph's first sub-50 performance came in the Guwahati Asian Grand Prix circuit athletics in June 2007. He won the silver by setting the new national record of 49.52 seconds while coming second behind Chinese Meng Yan.
In June 2009, Abraham achieved the qualifying norm of 49.80 seconds for the Berlin World Championships, at the Indian Grand Prix meet in Chennai by clocking 49.59 seconds. Later in the same year, he won a silver medal in 400m hurdles (with a time of 49.96 seconds) at the 2009 Asian Championships in Athletics held at Guangzhou, China.
On 25 November 2010, Abraham became the first Indian to win individual gold medal at 400m hurdles at any Asian Games. He won the gold medal at 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games clocking a time of 49.96 seconds.
Abraham also competes in the 400m sprint. His personal best for the 400 metres is 46.70 seconds set at the 2006 Open National Athletics Championships in New Delhi.


Marshall McDougall

Marshall James McDougall (born December 19, 1978) is a former professional baseball player. Primarily a third baseman, he has played part of one season in Major League Baseball with the Texas Rangers, and one season in the Chinese Professional Baseball League with the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions.
College career.
McDougall, who bats and throws right-handed, played college baseball for the Florida State University Seminoles (1999–2000), where he played under head coach Mike Martin and was a first team consensus All-American in 1999. In that same year, he was a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award and the Dick Howser Trophy. He was named the Most Outstanding Player at the 1999 College World Series.
He will perhaps always be most famous for his performance on May 9, 1999, where, against the University of Maryland Terrapins, his 7-for-7 performance at the plate with 6 home runs, 16 RBI, and 25 total bases shattered NCAA single game records in all three categories.
After the 1999 season, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod Baseball League.
Professional career.
McDougall was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 9th round of the 2000 MLB Draft and played in the Athletics organization until July 30, 2002, when he was traded to the Cleveland Indians for Ricardo Rincón. After playing the rest of the season with Single-A Mahoning Valley and Double-A Akron, McDougall was selected in the 2002 Rule 5 draft by the Texas Rangers. He played in Texas' organization, making his MLB debut on June 7, 2005, until released on June 29, 2006. He played in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization in 2007 and the San Diego Padres organization in 2008.
In 2009, McDougall played for the Broncos de Reynosa, and in 2010 he signed with the CPBL's Lions. He returned to the Broncos for the 2011 season. He has also played for the Algodoneros de Guasave in the Mexican Pacific League.
External links.
, or CPBL


Emile Francis Award

Emile Francis Award is an award established by the New York Rangers ice hockey club in 2008 which is given to supporters of youth hockey. It is named after the former Rangers coach and general manager Emile Francis.


Joan Benoit

Joan Benoit Samuelson (born May 16, 1957) is an American Senior Grand Masters marathon runner who was the first women's Olympic Games marathon champion, winning the Gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She held the fastest time for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon for 32 years after winning the race in 1985. Her time at the Boston Marathon was the fastest time by an American woman at that race for 28 years. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2000.
Competitive life and Boston Marathon victories.
Born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Benoit took to long-distance running to help recover from a broken leg suffered while slalom skiing. At Bowdoin College she excelled in athletics. In 1977, after two years at Bowdoin, she accepted a running scholarship to North Carolina State, where she began concentrating solely on her running. She earned All-America honors at NC State in both 1977 and 1978, and in 1978 helped lead the Wolfpack to the Atlantic Coast Conference cross-country championship. She won the Broderick Award (now the Honda Sports Award) as the nation's best female collegiate cross country runner for 1979–80.
After returning to Bowdoin to complete her degree, she entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race, wearing a Boston Red Sox cap, in 2:35:15, knocking eight minutes off the competition record. In 1981, she captured the U.S. 10,000 meter championship, posting a time of 33:37.50. Despite having surgery on her Achilles tendons two years earlier, she repeated her marathon success with a victory in 1983, setting a course record of 2:22:43. That took more than two minutes off the world's best time, set by Norway's Grete Waitz in the London Marathon only a day earlier. Her Boston record was not broken for another 11 years.
Olympic success and later life.
In March 1984, Benoit injured her knee severely during a 20-mile training run, forcing her to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the United States Olympic Women's Marathon Trials were scheduled. However, she recovered from the surgery much more quickly than expected, and was the favorite in the trials, at Olympia, Washington. She beat runner-up Julie Brown by 30 seconds, winning in 2:31:04. Three months later, she competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, winning the first Olympic Women's Marathon in 2:24:52, several hundred meters ahead of Grete Waitz, Rosa Mota, and Ingrid Kristiansen.
Benoit enjoyed success at non-marathon distances as well, winning the prestigious Falmouth Road Race (7.1 miles) a total of six times (1976, 1978, 1981–1983, and 1985), breaking the course record on four of those occasions.
Although she won the 1985 Chicago marathon, defeating Kristiansen and Mota in an American Record time of 2:21:21 (that would last as the AR for 18 years until broken by Deena Kastor in 2003 in London), Benoit was hampered for some years after her Olympic victory by injuries and struggled to compete in major races. She received the 1985 James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
Benoit wrote "Running Tide" (1987) and "Running for Women" (1995).
In 1998 she founded the Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race, a race held in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, each August, going from Crescent Beach State Park to Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light. The race attracts many of the world's top distance runners. Elite runners often run this race and then, the following weekend, run the Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Benoit won that race several times, and ran it last in 2015, finishing as 25th woman and first in her age group.
In 2003, at age 46, Benoit won the Maine half-marathon, defeating a field dominated by runners two decades her junior, and she was faster than all but six men overall, finishing in 1:18. In 2006, she helped pace former cycling champion Lance Armstrong as he competed in the New York City Marathon. At the 2008 US Olympic Team trials, at the age of 50, she finished in 2:49:08, setting a new US 50+ record and beating her personal goal at the time of a mid-2:50s marathon. When she ran the New York City Marathon on November 1, 2009, she broke the Senior Masters record for runners older than 50 with a final time of 2:49:09. On October 10, 2010, she ran 2:47:50 for 43rd place at the Chicago Marathon—the site of her American record a quarter century earlier—missing her goal of qualifying for an eighth Olympic Marathon Team Trials race by 1:50, but recording the fastest-ever performance by a woman over 52. Later that month she ran in the Athens Classic Marathon for fun and finished in 3:02, the slowest time of her career; she was not fully healed from her Chicago performance. In April 2011, Joan competed in the Boston Marathon, completing the course in 2:51:29 and placing 1st in her age group. Between 2013 and 2015, Samuelson ran the Boston Marathon each year, and setting three of the four fastest marathon times for the 55-59 age group. None are recognised by the World Masters Athletics since the Boston Marathon course does not comply with IAAF regulations. Her times are 2:50:33 (2013), 2:52:15 (2014), and 2:54:26 (2015). In 2019, Benoit ran the Boston Marathon again, forty years after her 1979 win. She had hoped to be within 40 minutes of her 1979 time, but did even better than that with a time of 3:04:00, within thirty minutes of her winning time, again winning her age group (60-64).
Benoit resides in Freeport, Maine, where the high school athletic complex is named the "Joan Benoit Samuelson Track and Field". In addition to her running, she currently serves as a coach to women's cross-country and long-distance athletes, and is a motivational speaker and sports commentator. She is featured on the Nike+ iPod system as one of the congratulatory voices. Benoit and husband Scott Samuelson have two children, daughter Abby and son Anders, who are runners in their own right, and shared the running of the 2014 Boston Marathon with their mother.
She was inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 1998, the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2000, the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004 and the USATF Masters Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2017, a plaque honoring her was unveiled in the L.A. Memorial Coliseum’s Court of Honor.
In 2019, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of her first Boston Marathon win, Benoit and her daughter Abby ran together as they had done in previous marathons. Joan recorded a run time of 3:04:00, which was within 40 minutes of her original time which was a promise she had made prior to competing in this years edition of the Boston Marathon. This allowed her to win her age group (60-64) by nearly nine minutes, but falling short of the overall (3:01:30) fastest time by a woman over 60 in a marathon.
Notable marathoning achievements.
AG = Samuelson is credited with winning her age group at the 2013 and 2019 Boston Marathon. The 2013 race is the fastest marathon by a woman age 55-59 but is not recognised by World Masters Athletics because of IAAF regulations on a marathon course for a world record, which Boston is not recognised under regulations.
External links.
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Sally Gunnell

Sally Jane Janet Gunnell (born 29 July 1966) is a British former track and field athlete who won the 1992 Olympic gold medal in the 400 metres hurdles. She is the only female British athlete to have won Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles, and was the first female 400 metres hurdler in history to win the Olympic and World titles and break the world record. Her former world record time of 52.74 secs in 1993, still ranks in the world all-time top ten and is the current British record. She was made an MBE in 1993 and an OBE in 1998.
Early life.
Gunnell was born in Chigwell, Essex, England to Les and Rosemary Gunnell, and grew up on the family's three-hundred-acre farm and attended the local primary and West Hatch High schools in Chigwell.
Athletics career.
Gunnell started out in athletics with the Essex Ladies club as an accomplished long jumper and heptathlete, before specialising in hurdling. In 1984, she narrowly missed Olympic selection at both heptathlon, with a score of 5680 points and in the 100 metres hurdles, where she set a UK junior record of 13.30 secs.
In 1986, having won the AAAs and UK titles, Gunnell won the Commonwealth Games gold medal in the 100 metres hurdles in Edinburgh, ahead of Wendy Jeal and 1984 Olympic heptathlon champion Glynis Nunn. She would remain the UK number one in the event over the next four seasons and reach the semi-finals at the 1987 World Championships and 1988 Olympics in the event.
Gunnell first attempted the 400 m hurdles event in 1987, with a 59.9 clocking. In 1988, in her first full season at the event, she would reach the Olympic final in Seoul. At the Olympic trials in Birmingham, she broke the UK record with 55.40. In Seoul she would improve this twice, first to 54.48 in the semis then to 54.03, to finish fifth in the final. This would remain her best time in the event for three years.
In 1989, Gunnell won the European Indoor title at 400 metres. Outdoors, she finished second in the 400 m hurdles at the European Cup behind East Germany's Petra Krug, but ahead of Olympic silver medallist Tatyana Ledovskaya. In September at the World Cup, she was third behind Sandra Farmer-Patrick of the US and Ledovsakya, but this time ahead of Krug. In January 1990, she defeated 1988 Olympic champion Debbie Flintoff-King to win the Commonwealth title in Auckland. The 1990 summer season however was disappointing, when she only finished sixth at the European Championships.
Gunnell entered into the best phase of her career in 1991, improving her own three-year-old UK record three times. In Monaco she ran 53.78, in Zurich she ran 53.62, then at the World Championships in Tokyo, she won the silver medal behind Ledovskaya with 53.16, the then third fastest time of all-time. Ledovskaya won with 53.11.
Gunnell won the 400 m hurdles at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, running 53.23 to defeat Sandra Farmer-Patrick. She also anchored the British 4 × 400 m quartet to a bronze medal. In 1993, she reached her peak, when she set the world record in the 400 hurdles to win gold in the World Championships in Stuttgart, winning in 52.74, narrowly ahead of Farmer-Patrick who ran 52.79, also inside the old record.
This record was broken by Kim Batten in 1995, but is still the British record. Gunnell is one of only two female 400 metres hurdlers (the other is Dalilah Muhammad) to have won the Olympic and World titles and broken the world record.
In 1994, Gunnell added the European title to her collection, winning comfortably in 53.33. She also won the Goodwill Games ahead of Kim Batten, successfully defended her Commonwealth title and won the World Cup title in London. 1994 was her third (and final) year as the world's number one. She missed most of 1995 due to injury, an injury from which she would never fully recover. Her defence of her Olympic title in Atlanta in 1996 was cut short when she pulled up injured in the semi-finals. This seemed a particularly cruel blow, as this race occurred on her 30th birthday. Also in 1996, she worked as a Red Cross ambassador in Angola. In September 1997, she retired after a recurrence of an Achilles tendon injury forced her to pull out of the World Championships semi-final.
Gunnell remains the only woman to have won the European, World, Commonwealth and Olympic 400-metre hurdles titles.
Gunnell is now involved as one of the ambassadors for McCain's Track & Field partnership with UK Athletics.
Television.
Gunnell worked as a television presenter, predominantly for the BBC, until 2006. She also co-hosted the game show "Body Heat" (1994–96) on ITV with Mike Smith and Jeremy Guscott.
Gunnell was one of the four celebrity guests in the ITV's "You Bet!" – Series 7 (1993–94), co-winning with Michaela Strachan, donating her winnings to a charity working to find a cure for breast cancer. In 1997, she was the recipient of the "big red book" on the "This is Your Life" programme.
In summer 2006, she was a celebrity showjumper in the BBC's Sport Relief event "Only Fools on Horses". She also won a "Weakest Link" Sporting Heroes Special, first broadcast on 25 July 2009 on BBC One.
She took part in a celebrity version of TV show "Total Wipeout" which aired on 2 January 2010.
In 2012, Gunnell took part on ITV's "The Cube" and won £20,000 for her charity.
Recognition.
In the 1993 New Year Honours, Gunnell was made an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was made an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire). In 2011, Gunnell was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of West Sussex.
In 2012 Sally was one of five Olympians chosen as part of a series body-casting artworks by Louise Giblin exhibited in London and copies being sold in aid of the charity Headfirst.
Personal life.
Gunnell is married to fellow athlete Jonathan Bigg, and has three sons; Finley, Luca and Marley. She lives in Steyning, in West Sussex, just outside Brighton.


Andrew Strauss

Sir Andrew John Strauss (born 2 March 1977) is an English cricket administrator and former player, formerly the Director of Cricket for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). He played county cricket for Middlesex, and captained the England national team in all formats of the game. A fluent left-handed opening batsman, Strauss favoured scoring off the back foot, mostly playing cut and pull shots. Strauss was also known for his fielding strength at slip or in the covers.
Strauss made his first-class debut in 1998, and his One Day International (ODI) debut in Sri Lanka in 2003. He quickly rose to fame on his Test match debut replacing the injured Michael Vaughan at Lord's against New Zealand in 2004. With scores of 112 and 83 (run out) in an England victory, and the man of the match award, he became only the fourth batsman to score a century at Lord's on his debut and was close to becoming the first Englishman to score centuries in both innings of his debut. Strauss again nearly scored two centuries (126 and 94 not out) and was named man of the match in his first overseas Test match, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in December 2004. Strauss suffered a drop in form during 2007, and as a result he was left out of the Test squad for England's tour of Sri Lanka, and announced that he was taking a break from cricket. After a poor tour for England, Strauss was recalled into the squad for the 2008 tour of New Zealand and subsequently re-established himself in the side with a career-best 177 in the third and final Test of that series, and a further three centuries in 2008.
Having deputised for Michael Vaughan as England captain in 2006, Strauss was appointed on a permanent basis for the 2008–09 tour of the West Indies following Kevin Pietersen's resignation. He enjoyed success with three centuries, and retained the captaincy into 2009. Strauss captained the England team to a 2–1 victory in the 2009 Ashes, scoring a series total of 474 runs, more than any other player on either side, including 161 in England's first victory in an Ashes Test at Lord's in 75 years. He held the record for most catches by an outfield player for England – going past Botham and Cowdrey at Lords against South Africa in 2012 – until he was in turn overtaken by Alastair Cook. He relinquished the Test captaincy and retired from all forms of professional cricket on 29 August 2012, following his 100th test, which concluded a series defeat by South Africa that saw the England Test team lose their number one ranking. He left the job as the second most successful captain of England in terms of wins, behind only his former opening partner Michael Vaughan. At the end of his retirement press conference he received an unprecedented round of applause from the assembled media.
He became the ECB's Director of Cricket in 2015, shortly before the sacking of Peter Moores. As a result of his services to English Cricket, Strauss was appointed a Knight Bachelor in Theresa May's resignation honours on 10 September 2019.
Education and early life.
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Strauss moved to the UK at the age of six. He was educated at Caldicott School, a boys' prep school in Buckinghamshire, followed by Radley College, a public boarding school for boys in Oxfordshire.
He studied economics at the University of Durham, and wrote his dissertation on supermodular games. In addition to competing for the university he represented the Hatfield College side, where one of his teammates was the future cricket statistician Benedict Bermange. Strauss also competed for the university rugby club as a Fly-half, starting in the 3rd XV and soon moving up to the 2nd XV, but by his final year had dropped this sport to focus more time on cricket. In a rare distinction, he achieved a full Palatinate for his cricketing activities. He graduated in 1998 with an upper-second class BA degree.
Life and career.
During his early career, Strauss spent several years in the cities of Sydney and Adelaide in Australia, and briefly played first-grade cricket alongside Australian bowler Brett Lee. While in Australia he met his future wife, actress Ruth McDonald, whom he married in October 2003 and lived in Marlow, with their sons, Sam (born 4 December 2005) and Luca (14 July 2008).
On 29 December 2018, Ruth died after a battle with a rare form of lung cancer. In the wake of Ruth’s death, Andrew reached out to former Ashes adversary Glenn McGrath, who had himself been widowed by cancer after Glenn’s wife Jane – a native of Paignton, Devon – had died of breast cancer. Following Jane’s death, Glenn had started the McGrath Foundation to fight breast cancer and secured the Sydney Test as a partner event, with Jane McGrath Day marked as Day 3 and the stumps, player caps and fan clothes all in pink. Having played in one such Pink Test himself in 2011, Strauss along with the Ruth Strauss Foundation secured Day 2 of the Lord’s Test as a similar partner event ahead of the 2019 Ashes.
Strauss is President of the Primary Club Juniors, a charity which helps fund blind cricket. In aid of the cause he took part in a blind game, wearing a blindfold and being dismissed on his second ball.
He has a variety of nicknames ranging from "Straussy", "Levi" and "Johann", to the more obscure "Lord Brocket", "Mareman", "The General", "Jazzer", "Muppet" and "Mr Potato Head".
Already Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Strauss was promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours. His alma mater, Durham University, conferred the honorary doctorate of DCL upon him in 2011. and in the 2020 New Year Honours , he was created a Knight Bachelor (Kt)
Strauss has written several books on his professional career, "Coming Into Play: My Life in Test Cricket" (2006), "Testing Times: In Pursuit of the Ashes" (2010, with Scyld Berry), "Winning the Ashes Down Under: The Captains Story" (2011), and an autobiography, "Driving Ambition", in 2014.
Politically, Strauss is a Conservative, raising money for them in a charity auction. David Cameron tried to persuade Strauss to become an MP in 2013, but Strauss turned down the offer.
Domestic career.
Having played for the Durham University cricket team and the Middlesex second XI since 1996, Strauss made his Middlesex first XI debut in 1998, scoring 83 in his maiden first-class innings. Despite this, he made a quiet start: he averaged 24 and 30.5 in his first two first-class seasons, and he did not make his maiden first-class century until an innings of 111 not out two years after his debut. Thereafter, Strauss's stock rose quickly: his returns in 2001, 2002 and 2003 were 1211 runs at an average of 45, 1202 at 48 and 1529 at 51. He was appointed captain of Middlesex in 2002, following the retirement of Angus Fraser, and retained the post until the end of the 2004 season. In late August 2011, Strauss hit his highest first-class score of 241 not out against Leicestershire, beating his previous best of 177.
Strauss is a Committee Member of Marylebone Cricket Club.
International career.
Debut year (2003–04).
Strauss's first taste of international cricket came as part of England's tour of the sub-continent, but he would only fulfil the role of the twelfth man; despite considering himself better in the long form of the game, Strauss was surprised to be selected for the One Day squad. Although he was not selected for the main team, Strauss did make an appearance in a tour match, starring with 51 in an opening partnership of 146 in a slow, but fluent innings. As England moved straight from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Strauss continued to put pressure on England opener Vikram Solanki in a tour match top scoring with 83, juxtaposed with Solanki's five ball duck and was rewarded with his England debut in a disastrous ten-wicket defeat where he was caught and bowled by fellow debutant Dinusha Fernando and was subsequently omitted for the rest of the tour.
Strauss was given another chance in the tour of the West Indies, even being called up to the Test squad owing to the injury of Mark Butcher. Still he was only given a chance in the ODI team, but he made an impact even at his un-native number three position top scoring with 29 in a tense England win. Despite this he was omitted, after the second abandoned match, until the fifth ODI where he contributed only 10 but made up for it joint top scoring with skipper Michael Vaughan and putting on a good start in an ultimately losing match, making a great first international catch. He also contributed 66 to help win the final match, drawing the series.
Strauss returned home to start the 2004 English season but was chosen to make his Test debut for England after Vaughan sustained a knee injury in the nets. The initial plan was to promote Mark Butcher to the vacant opening batsman position and include Paul Collingwood in the middle order. Butcher declined to move up the order and batted third, meaning Strauss was asked to open the batting and Collingwood missed out on a place in the side. Vaughan's injury turned out to be fortunate for Strauss who, in his first Test innings, top scored with 112 and contributed 82 in the second innings before being run out, with Nasser Hussain taking responsibility for the dismissal. This put Strauss on a series of exclusive lists including being the second English player to score a century on his debut at Lord's, third opener to score a hundred on debut, the fifteenth English player to score a century on his debut, the first since Graham Thorpe in 1993 and only the fourth English player to score a century and half century on his debut. Strauss also made the first dismissal of the Test, catching Stephen Fleming off Simon Jones and was awarded Man of The Match for his efforts. The performance by Strauss excelled his role as a filler for Vaughan, leading to Hussain retiring from cricket allowing for Vaughan to move down the order and Strauss retaining the role of opener opposite Marcus Trescothick. Strauss' form declined over the series, with one half century in the second Test and his first Test duck along with a six in the third Test.
In the ensuing NatWest tri-series that bridged the two tours, England won only one match, where Strauss guided them home with an unbeaten 44, even losing against the West Indies after a century-each partnership of 226 with Andrew Flintoff at Lord's with Strauss recording his first One Day century with an exact 100. Strauss continued to make Lord's a talisman as he returned for the opening Test of the series against West Indies with another century opposite Robert Key's 221 in a winning effort; the two also set the record for highest second wicket partnership against the West Indies. In the third Test at Old Trafford where Brian Lara scored his ten thousandth run, Strauss faltered after five hours at the crease falling just short of another century at 90. In the final part of a packed 2004 season, Strauss guided England to victory with 44 not out against India in the NatWest Challenge opening One Day match but only scored 2 a piece in the following two matches. Then, in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy at home Strauss contributed towards a win against Zimbabwe and then starred in the semi-final against old enemies Australia with 52 not out from 42. However, along with the rest of the team aside from Trescothick he failed to muster a decent total in the final allowing West Indies to take the trophy.
Road to The Ashes (2004–05).
The runners-up in the Champions Trophy took October off before beginning a tour of Africa in November. Their first port of call was Zimbabwe, visiting for the first time since the 2003 World Cup political concerns and despite being minnows Strauss could not muster even a half century in the 4–0 series win. In the final match, Strauss was called on to bowl a single over, conceding three runs. England then moved to Strauss' native South Africa for a five Test series taking them into the new year. His homecoming was an explosive one as he caught captain Graeme Smith off the second ball and went on to score his first away century with 126 before scoring over half of the team's second innings score as he steered them towards victory, again falling short of twin hundreds with 94 not out; still he became only the seventh Test player to record a century on his home and away debut. Despite missing out on this accolade he did record back to back centuries, in the Boxing Day Test he top scored in the first innings with only 25 as it seemed England were set for defeat, Strauss and Trescothick bolstered the side with an opening partnership stand of 273, top scoring with 136 to help England push for victory though it would end in a draw. In the losing, third Test Strauss not only top scored in the first innings with 45, he also became the fourth fastest Englishman to reach 1,000 Test runs in 19 innings. After his third century of the tour in the fourth Test that helped secure the decisive victory Strauss ended with a pair of ducks in the fourth and fifth Test preventing England from extending the lead to 3–1. Despite the two zeroes, Strauss dominated the batsmen of the series making 656 runs over the five matches at an average of 72.88 and earned his first Man of The Series award. In the losing One Day series that followed Strauss failed to impress with the bat, never making more than 35. Nevertheless, his Test success drew the plaudits of, among others, future Australian rival Justin Langer.
After the tour, England returned home to play Bangladesh with Strauss's home ground of Lord's only helping him towards a half century in the one innings they played. In the following NatWest Series against Bangladesh and Australia, England built on their momentum going into the Ashes series by making their way to the top of the group and into the final. Individually, Strauss posted 82* and 98 in the first and last matches against Bangladesh, with a One Day high score of 152 from 128 balls in the middle match but fared less well against Australia, never scoring more than 25 and only managing 2 in the tied final at Lord's. Strauss was significantly shuffled down the order in England's inaugural Twenty20 International against Australia and made 18 in their 100 run win and in the losing NatWest Challenge scored favourably, but not notable, with two scores near 50.
The Ashes (2005).
Going into the 2005 Ashes series having not won since the 1980s but with an unbeaten series record going back six series it was a highly anticipated series with Australian captain Ricky Ponting predicting it to be the closest Ashes since England's last win. Seemingly the pressure affected Strauss even at Lord's, along with the rest of the team, as he contributed 2 to their 155 and a slightly more impressive 37 to their 180 in a losing first Test, though Strauss did catch Ponting in the first innings. The second Test proved to be a much more dramatic affair and Strauss improved somewhat on his showing at Lord's with an opening stand of 112 opposite Trescothick, falling two short of a half century to the spin of Shane Warne. While this healthy platform pushed England towards a 99 run lead in the first innings, it was Strauss' paltry second innings of six which garnered more attention: four deliveries before the end of play on day two a Warne legbreak spun prodigiously from the rough across Strauss' body to knock down leg stump. Those six runs are arguably crucial though, as England's winning margin was simply two runs. The number six would follow him into the next Test at Old Trafford, making way for Vaughan to bat the first century of the series. Strauss followed in his captain's footsteps in the second innings adding 106 of his own to help set a target of 371 for the Australians who managed to stave off losing their final wicket to secure a draw and maintain a 1–1 series score.
In the fourth Test Strauss helped England to a fine start with a century first wicket partnership, contributing 35 himself and helping restrict Australia to 218 with two catches, specifically fast striker Adam Gilchrist in an exceedingly wide catch at slip which was called "the abiding image of the Summer". After enforcing the follow-on England were set 129 and the batsmen started falling under pressure, with Strauss lasting until the third wicket down and posting one of four scores within the twenties to help win the Test and take the series lead. With only a draw required in the final Test to take home the Ashes, Strauss showed a winning attitude batting for almost all of the first day, with seven partnerships, to put on 129 and secure another Ashes hundred and make himself the only batsmen on either team to record two centuries in the series. Once again Strauss made a notable catch in the field helping to dismiss captain Ponting again, Australia's second best batsman in the series, as well as sending fast bowler Glenn McGrath back to the pavilion for a duck. Unfortunately Strauss could not keep up his sterling performance as England were put back into bat with just over a day left in the series he fell to Warne again, caught by Simon Katich, for a single run. Regardless, the maiden Test century of fellow South African-born England player Kevin Pietersen stalled Australia from taking victory and England won the series 2–1 to take home the Ashes for the first time in 18 years.
In a series arguably dominated more by bowling than batting, Strauss notched up an average of 39.30 and while he was only the fourth highest scoring batsmen for England with 393, only one Australian, Justin Langer, scored more runs than him and by only one run; Strauss was also the only player to score two centuries and made six catches, the second highest fielder behind Ian Bell for England. While captain Michael Vaughan and coach Duncan Fletcher were awarded OBEs, the rest of the team, Strauss included, were given MBEs in the New Years Honours list. (Strauss subsequently was awarded the OBE in the 2011 Birthday Honours list.)
Facing Asian teams and early captaincy (2005–06).
In the Winter months that followed, England toured Pakistan following their Ashes success looking to extend their unbeaten streak of six Test series (with only two lost Tests) since 2004. Strauss started the tour unnervingly, with warm up scores of two fives and a six, mustering 56 in the final warm up innings. Despite acknowledging his batting problems, Strauss' performance never recovered as he scored only 44 runs in the first two Test matches, losing the first and drawing the second, at an average of 11 before he departed Pakistan to attend the birth of his first child, missing England's final loss. Strauss returned for the One Day series but showed little improvement with only five runs in the tour match, but found more success shuffled down to third man, top scoring 94 to help England win the first match. He also scored 26 runs in the low scoring, final match which England also won but in between picked up a pair of ducks.
The other side of Christmas, England went to India in March and after Trescothick absented himself owing to stress-related illness, Strauss found himself opening England's batting with 21-year-old debutante Alastair Cook. Cook repeated Strauss' debut theatrics, scoring a half and full century, overshadowing Strauss's 28 and 46 in the drawn match. Without Cook opposite him in the third Test, Strauss shone once again with 128 in a winning effort to level the series. In the following One Day matches England would have been lucky to manage a draw, suffering four straight losses under replacement captain Andrew Flintoff since Vaughan's knee-injury had prevented him from touring. Strauss's only double digit score was 61 in the second match but with Flintoff requiring a break from deputising, Strauss was handed the captaincy for the fifth match which ultimately was abandoned, leading to crowd violence in Guwahati. With Flintoff remaining the twelfth man for the following ODI, Strauss guided England to victory after putting India to bat, with a hundred partnership with Ian Bell totalling 74 before cramp forced him to retire. The emphatic, eight over victory was to be England's only One Day success on the tour as the final match saw India chase the runs victoriously with only five balls remaining with Strauss offering only 25.
As England returned home weary from an entire Winter without a series victory after the euphoria of the previous two years, they completed a subcontinental triumvirate when Sri Lanka arrived to prove that Asian dominance was not particular to the Indian subcontinent. With the captaincy crown returned to Flintoff, Strauss could focus solely on his batting prowess at the ground that made him famous. Opening once again with Trescothick, Strauss fell two short of a half century to the bowling of Muttiah Muralitharan at the stroke of lunch, allowing Cook to walk out to the wicket afterwards with company. Strauss went on to take the final wicket of Sri Lanka's first innings, Nuwan Kulasekara, catching him off Flintoff to allow England to enforce the follow-on which they could not capitalise on, forcing a draw. In the second Test, England took the lead with a victory after Strauss scored the second highest runs in both English innings, being controversially caught for 16 in the second off his pads. He recorded another half century in the third Test, though it was not enough to stave off a 134 run defeat. Once again he was offered the captaincy for the short form game, leading England in a tense, two run loss to Sri Lanka where he put on an opening partnership with Trescothick for 59. Under Strauss' captaincy England endured a five match whitewash where Strauss failed to muster even fifty though it was acknowledged that the team, particularly the bowling side, were under strength.
Despite the One Day 'whitewash', Strauss was given faith and made the official captain, rather than a stand in, for Pakistan's Summer tour as England embarked on their busy international schedule leading up to the Ashes and the World Cup. Given the Test captaincy, his first match was at his favourite ground Lord's where he recorded another century, 128 this time, in the second innings but came under criticism for allowing his bowlers only 80 overs for victory, which they did not achieve. He turned things round drastically in the second Test with tight fielding that restricted Pakistan to under 250 in both innings while contributing 42 to England's high strike rate 461, allowing an emphatic innings victory in just three days. Though the third Test was not quite as emphatic, England still won the Test after restricting the second innings, not allowing any centuries like in the other three innings and scoring one himself, 116, to take an unassailable lead in his first Test series as captain. Strauss' first Test series as skipper ended in an amount of controversy at The Oval in what some commentators have referred to as Ovalgate when, during their second innings, umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove inspected the ball and decided that it had been tampered with. Insulted by the allegation, the Pakistan team protested by not taking to the field after the tea break leading the umpires to declare the match forfeited. Pakistan later tried to take to the field but the umpires upheld their decision. Two years later the decision was changed to a draw after a petition from Pakistan, but in February 2009 the original decision was reinstated amidst criticism of the precedent such historicism would set. The series thus ended 3–0 to England, with Strauss being awarded Player of The Series due to being the top of England's run scorers, behind only to Mohammed Yousuf on either side.
Strauss continues his captaincy with the limited overs team. He performed less well in the one-off Twenty20 International, falling for a duck while Pakistan soared to victory with two overs to spare and his luck remained the same as the One Day series began. After two low scores he scored 50 in the third match though the team would still lose, however his 78 in the fourth match propped up an eight wicket win and a top score of 35 earned England a 2–2 draw in the series. The following month England returned to the sub-continent for the Champions Trophy in India. Strauss scored two half centuries in three matches but the team as a whole played disastrously with only one victory over the West Indies.
Decline in form (2006–07).
After the Champions Trophy the captaincy reverted to Andrew Flintoff as soon as he was cleared as being match fit. Strauss started the tour badly, scoring only 71 runs from the first four innings along with a generally terrible display from England. After losing the first two Tests, questions were asked about a divided dressing room owing to the captaincy changing hands so frequently between Strauss and Flintoff but Strauss played down these accusations. He followed this with 88 in a warm up match but in the following Test he was given out to dubious decisions in both innings, caught for 42 and LBW for a duck, with replays suggesting both decisions were harsh. In the Boxing Day Test Strauss secured his only landmark of the series with an even 50 though he will most likely remembered as Shane Warne's 700th Test victim as the Australian spin bowler reached the milestone in his penultimate Test match, by which point the Ashes had been lost. As if the five match whitewash was not enough, the final innings of the series for Strauss was marked with a bouncer to the head from Brett Lee causing him to go to hospital after he was dismissed. After the Test series, coach Duncan Fletcher lamented the lack of confidence in both Strauss and Paul Collingwood whom he had wished to promote as role models for the rest of the team. Despite the decline in his form towards the end of the year, poor umpiring decisions were taken into account and Strauss was picked as part of the 2006 Wisden Forty.
England went from the Test series to a one off Twenty20 International in warm up for the Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series. Strauss was omitted from the Twenty20 game but did play for the One Day series. Though England tended to be superior in the long format over the short format, they gained momentum after opening losses and defeated New Zealand in what had become a winner takes all match at the end of the group stages, with Strauss's 55 being the only notable score for him in the series. By this point Strauss's poor One Day form had been highlighted, with Fletcher admitting he was mostly in the team due to shallow batting options. The half century did nothing for Strauss's confidence though as he fell for a duck in the first final and only six in the second, though he did take the prized wickets of Ponting and Mike Hussey, restricting them both to single digit scores helping to manipulate the Duckworth-Lewis effected score so that England could win the match without needing the third game. His poor form saw him omitted from the group stage of the World Cup and despite commentators expecting him to make a return for the Super Eights stage against Sri Lanka he had to wait to meet old enemies Australia to be recalled, where he only made 7 and had a run-out on Ponting turned down after TV replays. He batted with England for the rest of the stage until England were knocked out; he would not play One Day cricket for England again until two years later.
Eventually his poor year in both forms of the international form of the game, even after being allowed only to focus on Tests, saw him dropped from the team after 43 Test matches.
Omission from team and revival in New Zealand.
Strauss' poor run of form continued through 2007, averaging a low 27 and failing to score a century with a top score of 96. While he continued to play in Test matches against India and the West Indies, he was dropped from the ODI side. In late 2007, Strauss was not included in the Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka, and Michael Vaughan was selected to take his position as opening batsman. Strauss then announced that he was going to take a break from cricket after what he described as a "long, tiring and immensely frustrating 12 months." He was, however, able to travel to India as part of the backup squad if he so wished.
Strauss was thus omitted from England cricket fixtures over the winter. He returned to the Test squad for the tour of New Zealand, however made only four in the first warm up match before hitting his own wicket. Despite what was now over 25 Test innings without a century, Strauss was chosen ahead of Owais Shah (who scored 96 in the same warm up match) to play in the second warm up match, sparking speculation that he would have a place in the Test squad for the first match against New Zealand. Strauss was, however, placed in the number three spot on the batting order, leaving Vaughan and Cook to open as they did in Sri Lanka. His batting in the first innings was poor, and he was dismissed for 5. In the second innings, however, he was returned to the position of opener and scored 104* along with Ian Bell.
Strauss continued to play poorly through the first two matches, and was dismissed for a duck in the first innings of the third. In the second innings, however, he reached a century from 226 deliveries, his slowest but his first since August 2006, going on to make his highest score in Test cricket, 177. This innings seemed to help Strauss re-find his spark as in the first part of the English domestic season that followed he scored runs prolifically for Middlesex, smashing a 163 off 130 balls against Surrey in a domestic one day match.
New Zealand and South Africa tour England.
After his 177, Strauss's place in the side was guaranteed for the following series against the same opposition. While still ignored for the One Day International team he was given back his position of Test opener alongside Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan going back down to number 3. In the first rain affected match at Lords he carried on his form with a slow but steady 63 in the only England innings of the match. In the second Test Strauss made another 60 before getting out giving England a decent start following a big first innings total. He then went on to make 106, chasing 294, in the second innings on a now difficult batting wicket which set England up to win by 6 wickets to take a 1–0 lead in the three match series. This was Strauss's second Test match century at Old Trafford (the first coming against Australia in 2005, when he also scored 106). In the third and final Test at Trent Bridge he made 37 in England's first and only innings as England went on to win the series 2–0. He was named England's man of the series for his 266 runs at an average of 66.50.
His form now impressing the selectors, Strauss was allowed to keep his place for the tour against South Africa. He started on an average note being dismissed for 44 in England's only innings of the first match. He suffered in the second Test at Headlingly, however, making just 27 runs in the first innings and a duck in the second. A pair of 20s resulted as Strauss continued to struggle against the pace bowling of South Africa in the third Test. With England 2–0 down going into the last Test, a win was needed to restore pride. Strauss failed in the first innings, being dismissed for six. With the bowlers having got England into a match winning position, Strauss then came good, sharing a century opening stand with Cook and eventually being dismissed for 58. Nevertheless, his place remained under pressure again.
2008 Tour of India.
Strauss managed to keep his place for the India tour and immediately rewarded the selectors by making 123 in the first innings of the first Test match with the rest of the batting lagging behind. He followed it up by holding the batting order together after a collapse that saw England 43–3 and shared a 200 run partnership with Paul Collingwood in which Strauss and Collingwood both made 108. He became just the 10th Englishman to make two hundreds in the same Test match, with Marcus Trescothick being the last in 2004.
Captaincy.
Strauss was appointed captain on 7 January 2009 after a rift between previous captain Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores became public. Subsequently, Pietersen resigned the captaincy after just 3 Test matches, and Moores was sacked. This came after a rise of form in the 2008 Test Series in India, in which England lost and drew their two games.
In his first match as regular captain, against the West Indies at Sabina Park, Strauss and his team failed, Strauss scoring 7 and 9 as England were bowled out for 51 in the second innings to lose by an innings. After the fiasco of the abandoned Test match, Strauss subsequently had an excellent series with the bat, with scores of 169, 142 and 142 in the remaining three Tests giving him a series aggregate of 541 runs at an average of 67.62, but England were unable to force a victory in any of these three matches and consequently lost the series 1–0. As captain in the subsequent one-day series, which was drawn 2–2, Strauss scored 105 in Guyana and 79 not out from 61 balls at the Kensington Oval. He also captained the Twenty20 side to a six-wicket defeat. Strauss said to the BBC that he hoped that the whole captaincy debacle would be solved in time for the 2009 Ashes Series.
Strauss atoned for the defeat by the West Indies with a 2–0 home victories over the West Indies at home in both the Test and the ODI series. After that series, Strauss had a break from the international circuit while the World Twenty20 was underway. He played two county championship matches to little effect beyond a score of 97 against Essex.
The Ashes (2009).
England entered the series hoping to regain the Ashes after a 2007 5–0 whitewash.
In the first Test at Sophia Gardens, Strauss failed to capitalise on two starts, scoring 30 and 17; his second-innings dismissal, caught off a top-edged cut off Nathan Hauritz, was particularly poor. On a good batting wicket Australia racked up 674 for 6 declared, with Simon Katich (122), Ricky Ponting (150), Marcus North (125 not out) and Brad Haddin (121) all scoring centuries. In the second innings, only a dogged 5¾-hour 74 from Paul Collingwood and tail-end contributions salvaged a draw for England, with final pair James Anderson and Monty Panesar left to block out the final 11½ overs of the match.
England entered the second Test at Lord's having not won an Ashes Test there since Hedley Verity's match in the 1934 Ashes. On his domestic home ground, Strauss batted through the entire first day of the match for 161 runs, sharing an opening partnership of 196 with Alastair Cook (95). Though Strauss was bowled by Ben Hilfenhaus's second ball the following day without adding to his overnight score, his innings was the highest individual score made by either side during the series, and set up a 210-run first-innings lead. Strauss contributed 32 to England's second innings, as Australia were set a target of 522 to win, a record if achieved. Though Michael Clarke (136), Brad Haddin (80) and Mitchell Johnson (63) briefly made the target seem attainable, Andrew Flintoff (5–92) and Graeme Swann (4–87) bowled England to a comfortable 115-run victory.
In the third Test at Edgbaston, Strauss responded to Australia's first innings of 263 by ending the second day 64 not out; he was removed by Ben Hilfenhaus the following morning for 69, before England's powerful lower-middle order propelled the side to a 113-run first-innings lead. Australia, however, experienced little difficulty in drawing the match, losing only five wickets in one-and-a-half days thanks to Michael Clarke (103 not out) and Marcus North (96).
In the fourth Test at Headingley, Strauss was distracted before the start of play by team selection issues, with Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff both injured, and a back spasm to Matt Prior delaying play by ten minutes as his fitness to play was ascertained. Strauss' concentration may have been affected by the fire alarm which sounded in the team's hotel at 5 am, or by the media interviews he gave immediately before he opened the batting; he was lucky not to be given out lbw to the first ball of the match. and was removed shortly afterwards for three as England collapsed to 102 all out against Peter Siddle and Stuart Clark. More runs for Michael Clarke and Marcus North led Australia to a total of 445. Strauss and Alastair Cook responded with an opening partnership of 58 before Ben Hilfenhaus removed Strauss for 32; England capitulated, this time to Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson en route to an innings defeat.
England therefore entered the fifth Test at the Oval with the series level at 1–1, knowing that only a victory would suffice to bring the Ashes home, as by longstanding convention the Ashes are retained by the current holders in the event of a drawn series. Strauss contributed 55 to England's first innings of 332, before Stuart Broad (5–37) and Graeme Swann (4–38) unexpectedly combined to bowl Australia out for 160. In the second innings Strauss scored 75, sharing a 128-run partnership with debutant Jonathan Trott (119) to set Australia a target of 546. On the final day of the series, Strauss produced a sharp piece of fielding from leg slip to run out Michael Clarke for a duck, and also contributed a catch, as Australia were bowled out for 348 to hand England a 197-run victory in the match, a 2–1 victory in the series, and the Ashes.
Strauss was named England's man of the series by Australian coach Tim Nielsen; he finished the series with an aggregate of 474 runs (the highest aggregate by either side; no other England player managed more than 261), at an average of 52.66 (no other England player barring Jonathan Trott, who only played in one match, averaged more than 40). Such was Strauss' dominance with the bat that Australia lost the series despite counting six of the seven leading run-scorers among their number.
During the following seven-match ODI series, Strauss's contributions led England's batting to the extent that, following the series, Andrew Miller commented on "England's guileless middle-order who, for the umpteenth time this summer, treated the loss of Andrew Strauss's wicket with the same grief and disorientation that a clutch of baby chicks might greet the devouring of their mother by a fox." He spearheaded England's batting efforts with scores of 12, 47, 63, 63, 35, zero and 47 in the series which spanned 4 September until 20 September. He stated on a number of occasions that, despite his own contributions, he was disenchanted by England's poor performances during their 6:1 defeat.
Yet, for his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
2009–10 and 2010.
Following the Ashes, England played in the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy. They beat Sri Lanka and South Africa to unexpectedly reach the semi-finals, however Strauss only managed a top-score of 25. He did not fare much better in the ODI series against South Africa, which England won 2–1. England drew the Test series 1–1, however Strauss passed 50 just once.
After the tour to South Africa, Strauss was controversially rested for the subsequent tour of Bangladesh. In his stead, Alastair Cook was named captain and Michael Carberry selected as a replacement opener (though Jonathan Trott was promoted to opener for the second Test, replacing Carberry). England then won the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies under the leadership of Paul Collingwood.
Strauss returned to the Test team in the home series against Bangladesh. He made two half-centuries as England won the two match series. Between the Tests and the ODI series, England played Australia in a five match ODI series (this was due to Bangladesh's participation in the 2010 Asia Cup during June). England won the series, with Strauss making half-centuries in the second and third games. When Bangladesh returned for the ODI series, Strauss scored a half-century in the first game and a career-best 154 in the third, in which he shared a stand of 250 with Jonathan Trott who also made a century. England won the three-match series 2–1, and Strauss was named Player of the Series. In the accompanying ODI Series Strauss made 126 in the 2nd match of a 5 match series.
A controversial series against Pakistan followed. Strauss struggled for form in the Test series, with just one half-century, as England won 3–1, bowling Pakistan out for three sub-100 scores. He found form in the five-match ODI series though, with a century and two fifties as England won 3–2 in their final series before the 2010-11 Ashes series.
The Ashes (2010–11).
Strauss headed to the 2010–11 Ashes series hoping to join Mike Brearley and Len Hutton as the only England captains to win the Ashes both home and away, and the first to win an Ashes series in Australia since Mike Gatting in 1986-7.
Strauss won the toss on the opening morning at the Gabba (Brisbane) and elected to bat, however was caught at gully for a third-ball duck. England's first innings total of 260 was not enough, and Australia built a 221-run first innings lead. Despite the large deficit, England fought back; Strauss and Cook scored 188 for the first wicket. Strauss made his 19th Test hundred, eventually out for 110; stumped for the first time in his Test career. Fellow-opener Cook scored an unbeaten 235 and Jonathan Trott 135, also unbeaten, as England declared at 517–1. Australia scored 107–1 in their second innings before a draw was declared.
In the second test match at the Adelaide Oval, Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat but Strauss' bowlers skittled the Aussies for 245, thanks to James Anderson's 4–51 . England then made 620–5 before declaring but Strauss was out for 1 in that innings. England then bowled Australia out again for 304, with Graeme Swann taking 5–91 and England winning by an innings and 71 runs.
In the third test match at Perth, Strauss won the toss and chose to bowl first. England bowled Australia out for 268 on day one and Strauss scored 12* to guide England to 29–0 at stumps. Strauss started well and guided England to 78–0 within the first hour of the day's play but a batting collapse saw England bowled out for 187, thanks to Mitchell Johnson's 6–38. England struck back and took three Aussie wickets but Australia got to stumps on day two on 119–3. Strauss' team then bowled the Aussies out for 309, meaning England required 391 to win but batted poorly to be bowled out for just 123, with Ryan Harris taking 6–49 and England losing by 267 runs.
Strauss won the toss at the MCG and elected to bowl on the Boxing Day Test. The decision was an inspired one as England bowled Australia out for 98. In reply, Strauss and Cook had made a 159-run opening stand with Strauss passing 6,000 Test runs before being caught for 69. After England made 513, they bowled Australia out for 258 to win by an innings and 157 runs, therefore retaining the Ashes.
In the fifth and final Test at the SCG in Sydney, Strauss lost the toss and Michael Clarke, Australian captain in the absence of the injured Ponting, elected to bat. England bowled Australia out for 280. In reply, Strauss made 60 from just 58 balls before being bowled by Ben Hilfenhaus. England continued to make a score of 644 their highest score on Australian soil, thanks to centuries from Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Matt Prior. Australia fell for 281 in their second innings, handing England a third win by an innings in the series, and an overall 3–1 Ashes victory.
2011 World Cup.
In England's opening match of the ICC World cup 2011 against Netherlands, Andrew Strauss hit a better than run-a-ball 88 to get England off to a good start and help them clinch a 6 wicket victory. He maintained this good form the next game, scoring an impressive 158 off 145 chasing an imposing 339 which hosts India had set them. The match ended in a thrilling tie.
The third game saw Strauss score 34 off 37 balls as scored 327 against Ireland, but England nonetheless suffered a shock defeat, thanks to a 50-ball 100 by Kevin O'Brien and a 162-run partnership for the 6th wicket.
England then won a thrilling match against South Africa on 6 March, bowling their opponents out for 165 in Chennai to defend a low score of 171, with Stuart Broad claiming 4 vital wickets. The English bowlers derailed the strong Proteas batting lineup, which collapsed from 63 for no loss and lost all their wickets for 102 runs. However, the group stage ended in another shock defeat, this time to Bangladesh, and although England qualified for the quarter-finals, they were comprehensively beaten by Sri Lanka. Strauss duly stepped down from the ODI captaincy and retired from One Day International Cricket.
Retirement.
Strauss announced his retirement from cricket on 29 August 2012 after 100 test appearances. As a token of appreciation, his teammates bought him 100 bottles of wine, of which he said "I think that will furnish me nicely into retirement!" Alastair Cook, his vice-captain and opening partner, was named as his successor. Cook had previously captained England in test matches, as well as being the current ODI captain.
Management.
In April 2015, a reorganisation at the ECB saw Paul Downton's role of managing director made redundant. Strauss was appointed to the newly created role of director of England cricket in May 2015 and his first act was to sack the incumbent coach Peter Moores. Another early move was to rule out an imminent return to the England team for Kevin Pietersen, who had fallen out with the previous management team. He oversaw the appointment of Trevor Bayliss as coach, and encouraged a greater emphasis to be given to limited overs cricket. Strauss resigned his position on 3 October 2018, citing a wish to spend more time with his wife, Ruth, while she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer. She died on 29 December that year, aged 46.
Achievements.
Test cricket.
Test records against each opponent.
Above data from ESPNcricinfo and current as at 25 December 2015.
Test analysis by year.
Above data from ESPNcricinfo and current as at 20 July 2012.
One Day International cricket.
ODI records against each opponent.
Above data from ESPNcricinfo and current as at 24 January 2012.
ODI analysis by year.
Above data from ESPNcricinfo and current as at 24 January 2012.


Bobby Aloysius

Bobby Aloysius (born 22 June 1974) is an Indian athlete from Kerala, who competes in the high jump event. Currently, she is residing in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. She held the Indian and South Asian records in high jump between 1995 and 2012 of 1.91m. Bobby participated in the 2004 Athens Olympics, won silver in 2002 Busan Asian Games and won gold in the Jakarta Asian Championships.
Personal life.
Bobby was born in Chemperi, Kannur, Kerala, India. Bobby travelled around the world several times and eventually lived in Shrewsbury, United Kingdom until 2009. She had also worked as the Assistant Secretary (Technical) of Kerala State Sports Council in Thiruvananthapuram till 2013. She is married to Shajan Skariah, who is the founder and chief newsreader of an online channel named Marunadan TV. The couple have three children. They have three children, Stefan Holm Skariah, Gangotri Skariah and Ritwik Skariah. She is an alumnus of Calicut University.
Career.
Bobby established the national record of 1.91m in women's high jump during the Olympic qualifications in 2004 in Chennai. "“I badly wanted to qualify for the Olympics and I put everything into that jump in Chennai and cleared 1.91m,"" she said in an interview at the Maharaja's Stadium in 2011. Her national record remained unbeaten till 2012, when Sahana Kumari cleared 1.92 m for the London Olympics. Bobby also won the women's High Jump event at the National Domestic Circuit Meet held in 2003 in Chennai, in addition to her international wins.
Bobby has also worked with the Kerala state government to improve sports development in her state. Serving as the Assistant Secretary (Technical) of Kerala State Sports Council, Bobby organised the Sports Council's High Jump Carnival, held at Thiruvananthapuram with the athletes performing to heavy music in 2011. She aimed to implement the higher secondary sports quota online allotment scheme during her service. In 2013, she submitted her resignation letter to KSSC as she claimed that they had denied her the opportunity to get appointed to the National Games Office by holding back the order.
Awards.
After applying for the Dhyan Chand Award multiple times and losing the chance to receive it, Bobby was finally awarded with it in 2018. She was presented the award on 25 September by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhawan. In one of her interviews, she said "I'm lucky to win it this time. I've been applying for this honour ever since Dhyan Chand Award was instituted in 2002.The honour will motivate me to take coaching seriously. After Nayana James left me after just one year of training under me, I stopped coaching. Now, I am planning to make a comeback to serious coaching."


Bachendri Pal

Bachendri Pal (born 24 May 1954) is an Indian mountaineer, who in 1984 became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. She was awarded the third highest civilian award Padma Bhushan by Government of India in 2019.
Early life.
Bachendri Pal was born to a Bhotiya family on 24 May 1954 in Nakuri village, in the Uttarkashi district in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand. She was one of five children to Hansa Devi, and Shri Kishan Singh Pal, – a border tradesman who supplied groceries from India to Tibet. She was born only five days prior to the first anniversary of the original ascension of Mount Everest by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. She completed her M.A. and B.Ed. from D.A.V. Post Graduate College, Dehradun. She started mountaineering at the age of 12 when, along with her friends, she scaled a high peak during a school picnic. On the invitation of her school principal, she was sent to college for higher studies and, during her course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, became the first female to climb Mt. Gangotri and Mt. Rudragaria in 1982. In that time, she became an instructor at the National Adventure Foundation (NAF), which had set up an adventure school for training women to learn mountaineering.
Pal encountered stiff opposition from her family and relatives when she chose a career as a professional mountaineer rather than a schoolteacher. However, she soon found success in her chosen field when, after summitting a number of smaller peaks, she was selected to join India's first mixed-gender team to attempt an expedition to Mount Everest in 1984.
Ascent.
In 1984, India had scheduled its fourth expedition to Mount Everest, christened "Everest '84". Bachendri Pal was selected as one of the members of the group of six Indian women and eleven men to attempt the ascent of Mount Everest ("Sagarmatha" in Nepalese). The team was flown to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, in March 1984, and from there the team moved onwards. Recalling her first glimpse of Mount Everest, Bachendri reminisced, "We, the hill people, have always worshipped the mountains... my overpowering emotion at this awe-inspiring spectacle was, therefore, devotional." The team commenced its ascent in May 1984. Her team almost met disaster when an avalanche buried its camp, and more than half the group abandoned the attempt because of injury or fatigue. Bachendri Pal and the remainder of the team pressed on to reach the summit. Bachendri Pal recalled, "I was sleeping in one of the tents with my teammates at Camp III at an altitude of . On the night of 15–16 May 1984, at around 00:30 hours IST, I was jolted awake; something had hit me hard; I also heard a deafening sound and soon after I found myself being enveloped within a very cold mass of material."
On 22 May 1984, Ang Dorje (the Sherpa "sirdar") and some other climbers joined the team to ascend to the summit of Mount Everest; Bachendri was the only woman in this group. They reached the South Col and spent the night there at Camp IV at the altitude of . At 6:20 a.m. on 23 May 1984, they continued the ascent, climbing "vertical sheets of frozen ice"; cold winds were blowing at the speed of about and temperatures touching . On 23 May 1984, the team reached the summit of Mount Everest at 1:07 p.m. and Bachendri Pal created history. She achieved this feat on the day before her 30th birthday, and six days before the 31st anniversary of the first ascension of Mount Everest.
After.
Bachendri Pal continued to be active after ascending the highest peak in the world. She successfully led:
Social service.
Bachendri Pal, along with Premlata Agarwal and a group of ace climbers including Mt. Everest summiteers, arrived in Uttarkashi and carried out relief and rescue operations in the remotest high altitude villages of the Himalayas that had been ravaged in the 2013 North India floods.
Awards and accolades.
Bachendri Pal has been conferred with following awards and accolades:


Riaz Ahmed (volleyball)

Riaz Ahmed (born 7 April 1939) is a former volleyball player from India. He represented the India national team as a senior player at the 1966 Asian Games.
Career.
Riaz Ahmed was born in Mallepally, a suburb of Hyderabad. He was the eldest son of Syed Mohammed Rizvi and Afsar Jahan. He was encouraged to play volleyball from his Soccer coach in high school, because he noticed how Riaz was a one of a kind Athlete. In 1958, Riaz became a member of the Andhra Pradesh Police Academy volleyball team. In 1960, he joined the India men's national volleyball team camp with Tilakam Gopal, Abdul Basith, Balwant Singh and many other Police cadets. Riaz represented the National Team several times from 1961 to 1973.
Riaz played for India's national volleyball team in the Asian Games in Bangkok (1966) and Jakarta (1962), where India took the 4th Seat and won a Silver Medal . He was one of the Indian team's most Senior players that influenced great players such as Jimmy George who played in the Asian Games in Tehran (1974), Bangkok (1978) and in Seoul (1986) where India won the bronze medal. He was captain of the Indian team that played at Saudi Arabia in 1985, and led the Indian team to victory in India Gold Cup International Volleyball Tournament at Hyderabad in 1986.
Ahmed competed in the following international competitions:
In the Inter-Civil Services All India Tournaments, Ahmed alongside Tilakam Gopal
represented the Andhra Pradesh Civil Service volleyball team
At the All India Inter Departmental Nationals, he represented the Andhra Pradesh Police Team:
At the All India Inter-Police Meets, he represented the Andhra Pradesh Police Team and helped the team to the following results:


Dondinho

João Ramos do Nascimento (2 October 1917 – 16 November 1996), nicknamed Dondinho, was a Brazilian footballer who played as a centre forward. He was the father, mentor and trainer of Brazilian legend Pelé. During his own playing career, Dondinho played for a number of small clubs and had an opportunity to play for Atlético Mineiro.


MLS Cup ring

The MLS Cup ring is an award in Major League Soccer given to the winners of the league's annual championship game, MLS Cup. Since only one Philip F. Anschutz Trophy is awarded to the team (ownership) itself, the MLS Cup ring offers a collectible memento for the players and team management to keep for themselves to symbolize and recognize their victory. Awarding a ring is traditional in sports in North America, as opposed to the majority of the world where a medal would be award to each individual team member.
Details.
These rings are typically made of silver or white gold with diamonds. They usually include the team name, crest, and MLS Cup winning year. Normally the rings are manufactured by Jostens, a sports memorabilia company, although the 2017 rings were made by Baron Jewelry.
Value and resale.
Replicas and copies of MLS rings are seen as valuable to sports memorabilia and soccer communities. The 2015 MLS Cup ring awarded to the Portland Timbers had a special Timbers Army ring that sold for $5,000.


Deepali Deshpande

Deepali Deshpande (born 3 August 1969 in Mumbai) is an Indian sport shooter. She won a silver medal in rifle shooting at the 2004 Asian Shooting Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was selected to compete for India at the 2004 Summer Olympics, finishing nineteenth in the rifle three positions. Deshpande also served throughout her sporting career as a member of the Indian Shooting Federation under her coaches Laszlo Szucsak and Sunny Thomas.
Deshpande qualified for the Indian squad, along with her compatriot Anjali Bhagwat, in the women's 50 m rifle 3 positions at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by shooting a minimum qualifying score of 571 to obtain a seventh-place finish and assure an Olympic slot from the Asian Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She fired 194 in the prone position and 189 each in both standing and kneeling to aggregate a total record of 572 points, ending her up in nineteenth place from a field of thirty-two prospective shooters.


Peter Heatly

Sir Peter Heatly, (9 June 192417 September 2015) was a Scottish diver and Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation. He competed in the 3 m springboard and 10 m platform at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics, at the 1950, 1954 and 1958 British Empire Games, and at the 1954 European Championships. He won five British Empire Games medals and one European medal, while his best Olympic result was fifth place in 1948. Heatly was knighted in 1990, before being inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002, the Scottish Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2016.
Early life.
Born in Leith on Coburg Street, Heatly was educated at Leith Academy and began his diving career with Portobello Amateur Swimming Club (PASC). He was inspired to become a diver after watching Pete Desjardins dive at Port Seton. Heatly was eleven years old, and Desjardins asked to see him dive and gave him tips.
By the age of thirteen Heatly had become the East of Scotland Champion (1937), and he held this title until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The outbreak of war put things on hold; however, Heatly became a record holder in the 440-yards and 880-yards during this time. Heatly studied engineering at the University of Edinburgh and continued to train with PASC.
Heatly wanted to enlist; however, as he was doing well with his studies at University, he was advised to join the Officers' Training Corps instead. When he graduated from University, he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers, but before he could be posted, the war ended. Healty became an apprentice at Rosyth's Naval Dockyard; however, he kept up his training at the sports facilities nearby and became a Scottish Freestyle Champion in 1946, a title he kept until 1958.
Heatly married Jean Hermiston in 1948; he ran the family business of heating and ventilation, and a building and construction company while competing internationally and raising his four children.
International competitions.
At the 1948 Olympics, Heatly placed fifth in the platform and 13th in the springboard. At the 1950 British Empire Games in Auckland, New Zealand, he won a gold medal in the platform and a silver in the springboard. Heatly had been unable to practise for most of the five-week journey by ship to Auckland, except for one training session which took place in a U.S. base in Panama.
At the 1952 Olympics, Heatly placed 12th in the platform and 16th in the springboard. At the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada, he won a gold in the springboard and a bronze in the platform. The same year he won a bronze in the platform at the European championships.
At the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales, Heatley was appointed as captain and flagbearer for the Scotland Team. He won a gold medal in the platform, and retired from competitions after that.
Later life.
Heatly became the Chairman of Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland (now Commonwealth Games Scotland), in 1967–1971, Chairman of the Scottish Sports Council, (now sportscotland), in 1975–87, and Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation, in 1982–90. Heatly has a unique connection with the Commonwealth Games as he has consecutively attended seventeen games, from 1950 to 2014, in an official capacity as a competitor, organiser, Chairman of the Federation, as the Life Vice President of the Federation, team manager and Chef de Mission.
Healty was also the President of Scottish Swimming on two separate occasions, Chairman of the British Swimming Federation, was a Councillor for the City of Edinburgh and was an integral part of the planning of the Royal Commonwealth Pool. He also served in many roles on both the European (LEN) and World (FINA) Technical Diving Committees from 1966 to 1988.
Honours.
Heatly was awarded a CBE in 1971 and was knighted in 1990, before being inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002, the Scottish Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2016. He was made Deputy Lieutenant of the City of Edinburgh in 1984, and held honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh (1992) and St Margaret's College (1994).
Personal life.
Heatly had four children by his first wife Jean, who was also known as Bertha; she died in 1979. He re-married Mae Cochrane; she was also a widower with four children of her own. Together Peter and Mae had twenty grandchildren; Mae died in 2003.
Heatly was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the 1980s but lived with the disease for nearly thirty years before he died. His grandson James Heatly won a bronze medal in the 1 m springboard at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.