History Awesome / Sports

* 27 October 2015, Glasgow, UK: On home soil, the British women's gymnastics team accomplishes what they never have before and land ''on the podium'' in a Worlds team final competition, behind only the dominant United States and a rock-solid China. While it will take more than one Worlds to say that the Big Four[[note]]USA, China, Russia (who collapsed in the final after a solid qualification round) and Romania (who had a total meltdown in qualifications and didn't even ''make'' the team final for the first time in forty years)[[/note]] has truly been broken, it is definitely safe to say that the British women are on their way up in this sport.

** Special mention goes to rookie Maverick Viñales in the Suzuki. The Suzuki is rather underpowered (having 20 bhp less than the majority of the top team); and having no seamless gearbox, which is a must have for the latest bikes. However, the Suzuki have a large advantage at handling, which Viñales uses to perfection here. While he finished 6th, he ended up just 6 seconds behind the leaders; ''16 seconds'' ahead of the team's target[[note]]They expected to be behind by 22 seconds at the end of the race[[/note]].

-->"And here it is! The 37 year wait is over! American Pharoah ''is finally the one!'' ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis American Pharoah! Has won!]]'' '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis The Triple Crown!]]'''"

** [[TheDeterminator Andrea Iannone]]; [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/moto-gp-racer-kills-seagull-6655193 despite being struck by a seagull early in the race]]; manages to keep up despite having a slightly inferior bike that is the Ducati. [[TookALevelInBadass The [=GP15=]'s much improved handling compared to any other previous Ducati]][[note]]It still have the amazing straight line speed that any other Ducati's have[[/note]] certainly help him to keep up, with the best moment being pulling off an amazing double overtake late in the race.

** [[TheDeterminator Andrea Iannone]]; [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/moto-gp-racer-kills-seagull-6655193 despite being struck by a seagull early in the race]]; manages to keep up despite having a slightly inferior bike that is the Ducati. The [=GP15=]'s much improved handling compared to any other previous Ducati[[note]]It still have the amazing straight line speed that any other Ducati's have[[/note]] certainly help him to keep up, with the best moment being pulling off an amazing double overtake late in the race.

** [[NonActionGuy Jorge Lorenzo]] really has meet up his KryptoniteFactor here. He can't pull off a huge lead which he would control the rest of the race; and every time he was involved in a battle (especially if he lost a large lead midway the race, as the Japanese GP proved), he has a large chance to lose the race. So he decided to keep calm and hoping for the best. Amazingly, he still managed to lead the majority of the race (and mostly avoiding the scrap between Marquez, Rossi, & Iannone), and with 2 laps to go looks sure to win, until...

** ...one particular [[InstantExpert Marc Marquez's]] amazing comeback. As they crosses the line to start the final lap, he was fourth, 0.8 seconds behind Lorenzo. What did he do? [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He overtakes both Rossi and Iannone after they run a little bit wide at the Southern Loop, and manages to make up that gap in the final lap alone, even overtaking Lorenzo for the win on the last few corners, setting the fastest lap in the process]]. Oh, do we mention that with this victory, he already have a total of [[CrazyAwesome 50 Grand Prix wins at the age of just 22]]?

** Jorge Lorenzo really has meet up his KryptoniteFactor here. He can't pull off a huge lead which he would control the rest of the race, so what did he do? Keep calm and hoping for the best. He still managed to lead the majority of the race, and with 2 laps to go looks sure to win, until...
** ...one particular [[InstantExpert Marc Marquez's]] amazing comeback. As they crosses the line to start the final lap, he was fourth, 0.8 seconds behind Lorenzo. What did he do? [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He overtakes both Rossi and Iannone after they run a little bit wide at the Southern Loop, and manages to make up that gap in the final lap alone, even overtaking Lorenzo for the win on the last few corners, setting the fastest lap in the process]]. Oh, do we mention that with this victory, he already have 50 Grand Prix wins at the age of just ''22''?
** Special mention goes to Maverick Viñales in the Suzuki. The Suzuki is rather underpowered (having 20 bhp less than the majority of the top team); and having no seamless gearbox, which is a must have for the latest bikes. However, the Suzuki have a large advantage at handling, which Viñales uses to perfection here. While he finished 6th, he ended up just 6 seconds behind the leaders; ''16 seconds'' ahead of the team's target[[note]]They expected to be behind by 22 seconds at the end of the race[[/note]].

** ...one particular Marc Marquez's amazing comeback. As they crosses the line to start the final lap, he was fourth, 0.8 seconds behind Lorenzo. What did he do? [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He overtakes both Rossi and Iannone after they run a little bit wide at the Southern Loop, and manages to make up that gap in the final lap alone, even overtaking Lorenzo for the win on the last few corners, setting the fastest lap in the process]].

** [[CoolOldGuy Valentino Rossi]], the oldest one of the field, shows a huge determination in order to stay with the leader to defend his championship lead. While he ended up in 4th, it was amazing to see a 36-year old man keeping up with the youngsters, especially considering [[HesBack his amazing turnaround after he failed miserably when he joined Ducati]].
** [[TheDeterminator Andrea Iannone]]; [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/moto-gp-racer-kills-seagull-6655193 despite being struck by a seagull early in the race]]; manages to keep up despite having a slightly inferior bike that is the Ducati. The [=GP15=]'s improved handling compared to any other previous Ducati certainly help him to keep up, including pulling off an amazing 2-bike pass late in the race.

** Jorge Lorenzo really has meet up his KryptoniteFactor here. He can't pull off a huge lead which he would control the rest of the race, so what did he do? Keep calm and hoping the best. He still managed to lead the majority of the race, and with 2 laps to go looks sure to win, until...

** Special mention goes to Maverick Vinales in the Suzuki. The Suzuki is rather underpowered (having 20 bhp less than the majority of the top team); and having no seamless gearbox, which is a must have for the latest bikes. However, the Suzuki have a large advantage at handling, which Vinales uses to perfection here. While he finished 6th, he ended up just 6 seconds behind the leaders; ''16 seconds'' ahead of the team's target[[note]]They expect to be behind by 22 seconds at the end of the race[[/note]].

** ...one particular Marc Marquez's amazing comeback. As they crosses the line to start the final lap, he was fourth, 0.8 seconds behind Lorenzo. What did he do? [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He overtakes both Rossi and Iannone after they run wide at the Southern Loop, and manages to make up that gap in the final lap alone, even overtaking Lorenzo for the win on the last few corners]].

** [[TheDeterminator Andrea Iannone]]; [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/moto-gp-racer-kills-seagull-6655193 despite being struck by a seagull early in the race]]; manages to keep up despite having a slightly inferior bike that is the Ducati. The GP15's improved handling compared to any other previous Ducati certainly help him to keep up, including pulling off an amazing 2-bike pass late in the race.

* The rise of Main/RollerDerby as a sport. After the crash and burn of the extremely gimmicky [=RollerJam=] (a heavily choreographed, purely SportsEntertainment version of the sport that featured a figure-8 track and an "alligator pit" (a water-filled pool that skaters could be knocked into), a DJ in Texas had the idea of a version of roller derby that combined punk rock and burlesque. After he skipped town before the first bout was even staged, the women of the TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls (the same league fictionalized in ''Film/WhipIt'') put together a workable set of rules, pooled their funds to rent a practice space and hire a band for halftime and went and created a competitive sport out of what had previously been mere spectacle. The split of TXRD into the Lonestars (banked track) and the Texas Rollergirls (the inventors of Flat Track roller derby, which changed the face of the sport by eliminating the expensive and heavy wooden track and allowing leagues to practice anywhere they could rent space without needing to store and maintain a track) could have ended the sport but instead transformed it and brought it to the world. By the time the Women's Flat Track Derby Association was formed in 2005, roller derby had already spread nationwide and by the first WFTDA Championships in 2007, worldwide. By 2013 there was serious talk about roller derby being brought to the OlympicGames, which may happen for the 2020 games (as roller sports as a whole are being considered for the 2020 Games), which may be the fastest a sport has ever gone from ground-zero to an Olympic sport.

-->"Buster Douglas was never that good before and never that good since. But on that one night in Tokyo, he was pretty near perfect." ''' - sportscaster Charlie Steiner'''

* Adam Scott's (no relation to the ParksAndRecreation actor) 2013 season will go down as one of the greatest in the history of Australian golf. He starts off by breaking his country's curse in the Masters with one of the most clutch 72nd hole birdies ever to force a sudden death playoff he'd win in two holes. He follows it up with a T3 at the Open Championship, a T5 in the [=PGA=] Championship, and then wins a [=FedEx=] Cup playoff event holding off the likes of Justin Rose and Tiger Woods for good measure.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYHKUNV0FXs "And after twenty-two years... RAYMOND BOURQUE!"]] Those were the words of ESPN's Gary Thorne as Canadian hockey legend Ray Bourque, who in 1998 had been named the greatest player never to have won the Stanley Cup, finally got his chance to lift the Cup as part of the victorious Colorado Avalanche in 2001, at the end of the twenty-second and last season of his professional career.

* The 2012 StanleyCup run of the Los Angeles Kings. One of the six [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague 1967 expansion franchises]], the Kings had been consistently [[OvershadowedByAwesome sideshowed]] by more famous, talented teams throughout their 45 years in the NHL, and even getting ''[[TheChosenOne Wayne Gretzky]]'' in 1988 couldn't seal the deal (their closest approach to the Stanley Cup was the 1993 final series, where the Gretzky-led Kings lost in five games to the Montreal Canadiens). For decades, they had been derisively dubbed "[[ButtMonkey The Kings Without a Ring]]".\\

* Awesome/StanleyCup

* James "Buster" Douglas. Having been a middling heavyweight fighter with a 29-4-1 record and a reputation for never training seriously, he got a championship fight with the "baddest man on the planet" Mike Tyson in 1990 simply because there was no one else left to contend. The fight was held in Tokyo because no American venue was interested, and it was believed it would be such a one-sided fight that only about eight U.S. journalists went to Japan. Then Douglas' mother passed away mere days before the fight, causes suspicion that would just distract him even further. Instead, it motivated Douglas to train harder and be more focused than ever before, and the result was him just picking him apart the previously invincible Tyson for nine rounds before finally knowing him out in the 10th to take the World Heavyweight Championship. It it still considered the greatest upset in boxing history.

* Two performances at the 2015 U.S. Figure Skating National Championships, by best friends and training mates, Ashley Wagner and Adam Rippon. Wagner [[https://youtu.be/kS_QPOKIe74?t=5m38s brought the house down]] after her Moulin Rouge! themed long program, including two triple-triple combinations. Rippon [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBcusUyB8zE attempted one of the absolute hardest jumps anyone can perform]]: a quad lutz, a jump that begins with a counter-rotation and includes four revolutions in the air. He landed the rest of his jumps with ease, including two triple axels, a jump he has historically struggled with. Both performances smashed the old U.S. record in their respective disciplines for the long program. Wagner easily won her third National title, and Rippon stood on the podium for the first time since 2012, with a silver medal. In addition, both skaters are considered to be "older" by skating standards, and they had a ''major'' TakeThat to their detractors.

* The 2004 MLB ALCS. The Red Sox were down three games to none after a ''soul-crushing'' 19-8 loss to their hated rivals, the New York Yankees. They pulled out a MiracleRally in the twelfth inning to win Game 4 - then they took Game 5 (in '''14''' innings), and six, and finally Game Seven, which they won, becoming the first team in MLB history to rally from a 3-0 series deficit in the process and creating indisputably the single greatest series comeback in the history of the sport. They went on to sweep the World Series in four straight games - and brought the title home to Boston for the first time since '''1918'''. Considered by most the greatest moment in baseball history, and surely the greatest eight-game run by any baseball team.

** The crowning moment was the Giants' game-winning drive in Super Bowl XLII in which they came in trailing by four points. Giants running back Brandon Jacobs converted a 4th and 1 on the Giants' 37. Three plays later, Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel dropped an interception that could have sealed New England's perfect season and the Giants faced 3rd and 5 on their own 44 with 1:15 left in the game. On the very next play, Eli Manning scrambled around Patriots defenders and threw downfield to David Tyree who [[http://projectshanks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/david-tyree-catch.jpg pinned the ball against his helmet.]] Plaxico Burress then caught the game-winning touchdown with 35 seconds left in the game.

* How about some [[IncrediblyLamePun tennis love]]? {{Wimbledon}} 2011, Men's Quarter finals, [[{{Tennis}} Roger Federer]] vs. [[{{Tennis}} Jo-Wilfried Tsonga]]. Federer takes the opening two sets and breaks Tsonga's serve in the third. Tsonga then plays some stunning tennis, breaks back and breaks Federer's serve, winning the set. He goes on to win the next two sets 6-4. To repeat, Tsonga, seeded ''twelve'' (Roger was 3, but considered a favourite for the title), beat ''one of the best tennis players of all time from 2-0 and a break down.'' This is also the first time in '''Federer's entire career''' that he has lost from 2-0. That sort of awesome deserves a medal all of its own.
* Another {{Wimbledon}} 2011 example in Bernard Tomic. [[ImprobableAge An 18 year old]] [[LandDownUnder Australian]], he had to fight in the qualifiers to even ''get'' to {{Wimbledon}}. In the first round, he beats the 29th seed Davydenko, in round 2 comes back from 2-0 to beat Andreev, in round 3 beats 5th seed Robin Soderling ''in straight sets'', then does the same to Malisse in the 4th round, reaching the quarter-finals. That makes him the youngest player since [[{{Tennis}} Boris Becker]] in 1986 to reach the Quarters, and not only that, but he went on to take a set from Novak Djokovic, the ''world number two'', pushing him right up until the end of the 4th set, which Djokovic won 7-5. He came out of ''nowhere'' to become Australia's number one. AWESOME.
** Speaking of [[{{Tennis}} Boris Becker]], let's mention him. Youngest {{Wimbledon}} champion ever at [[ImprobableAge seventeen]] in 1985, coming out of ''nowhere'' to win that year's Queen's tournament and then go on to take the {{Wimbledon}} title. He took the title ''again'' the next year, 1986. In short, ''{{Tennis}} is full of awesome!''

* Andy Murray winning the men's singles at Wimbledon in 2013, making him the first British men's singles champion since Fred Perry won three tournaments in a row between 1934 and 1936. Though many British tennis fans are old enough to remember Virginia Wade winning the women's singles tournament in 1977 (an awesome moment in itself), far fewer are old enough to remember Perry's victories, and after so many near misses by first Tim Henman in the 1990s and early 2000s and then Murray himself in the early 2010s (including a four-set loss to Roger Federer in the 2012 final), the 77 years of heartbreak finally ended with a straight sets win over Novak Djokovic.

* 2010 Wimbledon: John Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut after 11 hours and 5 minutes of play. The match took '''three days''' to finish, with a final score of 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(7–9), 7–6(7–3), '''70–68''' for a total of 183 games.

* The greatest winning streak in sports; In 1851, the schooner America won the "R.Y.S. Cup". It's known as America's Cup now, and the 1851 victory started the longest winning streak in sports, with the United States defending the cup successfully for one hundred and twenty nine YEARS.

** And speaking of Robin Soderling, one must not forget his pulling off one of the biggest upsets in history at the 2009 French Open, handing Rafael Nadal the only loss he has ever experienced at that tournament, only weeks after Nadal has massacred him at another tournament, and even followed it up with a run to the final(in which Roger Federer made history, but Soderling the "yoker" still stole the victory ceremony). And as if that wasn't enough, the next year he came back and shocked Federer too.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick_Bama_Kick 2013 Alabama–Auburn Iron Bowl]] when Chris Davis caught an Alabama kick nine yards deep in his own end zone in a 28–28 game with 7 seconds left, and running it all the way for the 34-28 win.

* With 13 challengers falling by the wayside in the past years (including one the year before with the same jockey, no less), Victor Espinoza jockeyed American Pharoah to win the Belmont Stakes by more than two lengths to seal the first Triple Crown in thirty-seven years. (And at a point when people were seriously wondering if there would ever be a Triple Crown winner again, no less.)

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