T-Moments That Inspired You

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The one currently at the forefront of my mind involves Lance Armstrong. It was 2001 and Armstrong had been taking some stick about whether he could handle it in the mountains. Armstrong waited until the final climb of L’Alpe d’Huez and powered past his arch-rival Jan Ullrich, but before he left him in his wake he turned over his shoulder and gave Ullrich a stare that said ‘fuck you, buddy!’, before leaving him for dead.
After the race Ullrich said he couldn’t watch as Armstrong powered away; that one look essentially broke Ullrich’s will.

This is one of my favourite T-Moment from history of sports.anyone seen the movie about Prefontaine?
Lasse V?ren was just amazing!

In the 10000m final at Munich Olympics on 3 September, Viren was one of a group of runners who followed a world record pace set by Dave Bedford (Great Britain) in the early stages. However, in the 12th lap, Viren got involved in a tangle and fell down, causing Mohamed Gammoudi (Tunisia) to fall as well. Viren immediately got to his feet and quickly rejoined the leading group, although Gammoudi was not so lucky. The leading group was down to five with 600 metres to go, when Viren started a sprint for home, running away to win the gold medal in a new world record time of 27min 38.4sec. By comparison, the 5000m final held seven days later started at a much more sedate pace with no one willing to take the lead. In an effort to negate the effects of the ‘kickers’, including Viren, Steve Prefontaine (USA) started a sustained surge with 4 laps remaining. Viren and Gammoudi stayed with him, and then in the back straight on the final lap, Lasse hit the lead, lost it momentarily to Gammoudi, before sprinting off the final curve to win his second gold medal in 13min 26.4sec.


This is another great one.

Mexico 1986 World Cup.
The second goal after hand of god,
Maradona scored the best goal in the history of soccer.He started from midfield, passed 5 English players and then the goalkeeper and rolled it into the net!

This was an incredible one and finally broke the English Team, Argentina later won the World Cup.
it`s been voted around the world many times as the best soccer goal in the history.

Maradona = coke-snorting, chubby cheat (but I’m English, so a little biased).

Check him out, he one fat mutha!!!

Dan

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That pic of Muhammed Ali standing over Sonny Liston yelling at him to get up is pretty hardcore… I think thats my favorite…

There are a ton with Jordan… In a game against Utah, Jordan dunked on Stockton, and a Jazz fan yelled “Dunk on someone your own size!” On the NEXT possession, Jordan dunked on 7’0" Melvin Turpin, then asked the fan, “Was he big enough for you?”

nice…

T-Moments that are inspiring to me are:

That picture of Adolph Hitler watching Jesse Owens totally embarass the German sprinters, what must have gone through Hitler’s head!?!

This story chokes me up everytime…

At 7:00 am when the race began Christian’s journey was on. He muscled his way through the 2.4-mile swim in 1:23:43, not bad for a Triathlete who hates to swim. Then came the bike leg, which would howl winds of up to 50 mph in the racers face trying to break the best of them. Christian had been on his bike for six hours and 105 miles when his race came crashing down. A passing motorcycle unexpectedly swerved on the course and flipped him over the handlebars landing in a lava field on his back. Not knowing what had happened he pried himself off the rocks to his feet only to find a mangled broken bike. With determination and the never-quit character of a true Ironman, Christian used his only option; carry his bike over his shoulder for the 7 miles that remained. The worst part was that he would have to do it wearing only his socks and make it within the time limit. After 2 ? hours of no water and agonizing pain from his blistered feet the only way possible for Christian to continue his quest, was to eventually run to the transition area, which he did, and came in safely 1 minute before the cutoff. What remained was a mere 26.2-mile marathon.

Carefully placing wraps around his extremely raw and blistered feet, the final stage was under way. With each step gritting his teeth and having flashbacks from earlier in the week when he overheard comments how lottery winners are not real Triathletes and shouldn’t be allowed to compete with the elites at Ironman, Christian dug deep and crossed the finish line. 16 hours 9 minutes and 48 seconds after his journey began… Christian Sadowski was an Ironman.

[quote]TriGWU wrote:
This story chokes me up everytime…

At 7:00 am when the race began Christian’s journey was on. He muscled his way through the 2.4-mile swim in 1:23:43, not bad for a Triathlete who hates to swim. Then came the bike leg, which would howl winds of up to 50 mph in the racers face trying to break the best of them. Christian had been on his bike for six hours and 105 miles when his race came crashing down. A passing motorcycle unexpectedly swerved on the course and flipped him over the handlebars landing in a lava field on his back. Not knowing what had happened he pried himself off the rocks to his feet only to find a mangled broken bike. With determination and the never-quit character of a true Ironman, Christian used his only option; carry his bike over his shoulder for the 7 miles that remained. The worst part was that he would have to do it wearing only his socks and make it within the time limit. After 2 ? hours of no water and agonizing pain from his blistered feet the only way possible for Christian to continue his quest, was to eventually run to the transition area, which he did, and came in safely 1 minute before the cutoff. What remained was a mere 26.2-mile marathon.

Carefully placing wraps around his extremely raw and blistered feet, the final stage was under way. With each step gritting his teeth and having flashbacks from earlier in the week when he overheard comments how lottery winners are not real Triathletes and shouldn’t be allowed to compete with the elites at Ironman, Christian dug deep and crossed the finish line. 16 hours 9 minutes and 48 seconds after his journey began… Christian Sadowski was an Ironman.

I watched that on TV and no doubt, that is INSPIRING. I remember feeling choked up myself over his determination. If anyone deserves the title of Ironman it is Christian Sadowski.

MB

John Elway doing the helicopter for the first down in Denver’s first Super Bowl win.

Non sports T-Moment, the book and movie Alive about the Andes plane crash survivors when the main guy refused to die on the mountain and he and one other guy walked out of the mountains to save the rest of the survivors. That was one of the most inspiring moments, I ever read about or saw re-enacted in a movie.

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Man, this is a good thread.

There are so many in recent memory, one’s that I’m sure will be discussed in future posts. So, thus, I’m going to dig back in history to nearly 45 years ago.

That’s when Chuck Bednarik, one of the last dude’s to play both ways (Linebacker and Guard) knocked Frank Gifford THE FUCK OUT essentially winning the 1960 championship game for the Philly Eagles…

Later when Gifford met up with Chuck at a hall of fame dinner, Frank asked Chuck, “I made you famous didn’t I Chuck?”

He didn’t boast or brag or rag on Frank about it, all he said was “Yes, you did Frank”

I wasn’t even born till 1974, but my dad always talked about this guy being a true man, and what being a football player was all about. Funny how those stories stick in your head.

Conversley, I was in a postition this previous Father’s day to acquire an autographed Eagles helmet signed by Chuck himself for my dad.

He chalked it up as one of the coolest things he’s ever recieved.

GAINER

[quote] but I’m English.
[/quote]

That`s not my fault.

This is actually how Maradona looks NOW.

Another big one:

For the first eight years of his NHL career with Boston, Bourque wore No. 7, the number previously worn by Phil Esposito. But on Dec. 3, 1987, while the Bruins were celebrating Phil Esposito Night, Bourque surprised everyone by pulling off his own No. 7 sweater to reveal that he was wearing another Boston sweater with the No. 77 underneath it. Bourque presented Esposito with this sweater, enabling Boston to officially retire the number.

A few more off the top of my head…

Miami Hurricanes comeback against the Florida Gators two seasons ago to win 33-38… They were down 33-10 with 6 minutes left in the 3rd.

Miami Hurricanes comeback last year against Florida State with a touch down in the last 50 seconds to win the game. They were behind the entire game.

I personally never liked Berlin but he had his moments. Dorsey had much greater comebacks but I cannot pull it off the top of my head.

I can think of numbers 'Canes inspiring moments.

I have personally been in attendance at 4 of the missed field goals by FSU kickers.

I’m still jaded by the screw job when FSU got into the championship over Miami

Even more jaded by the screw job when Miami was called for pass-interference in the championship. ESPN or SI (can’t remember) ran an article on it… calling it the worst official call of that year.

Also in the game… the 45 yard field goal by Sievers to bring it to OT. Swirling win and make it or break it pressure.

But still… the numerous sport comebacks are all inspiring.

The sports T-Moments are always inspiring. Let’s not forget that guy who defended his platoon in Iraq with a .50 CAL and fought until he was shot to death. That took some real balls regardless of fear or being crazy. I work near some SF types and see some acts of super-high often enough to think “even prescription testosterone couldn’t bring me to that level”. You really gotta check out something like that. Still, though, that story about the Ironman Triathlon…that’s really gutsy. Props to that dude.

There is no doubt about those courageous armed services men and women who are fighting in Iraq as we type…IMHO, they are in an entirely different class of their own “T-Nation”; no athletic feat, regardless of it’s “awesomeness” can match even the smallest feat of courage any of our military guys are able to muster up in combat situations. That said…

The guts of athletes such as Darrel Stingly cannot be overlooked.

Maradona’s skills still run circles around Beckham’s…

One of my favorites was the sacrafice that Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon made for Michael Durant in Somalia. They were in the movie Black Hawk Down. They volunteered three times to be inserted to help defend the downed helicopter before being allowed to go and they were only armed with their sniper rifles and pistols plus whatever they could find in the wreckage. They were the only two snipers to ever receive a Medal of Honor.

The USA winning the mens 800 Free Relay in swimming was awesome to me. Klete Keller holding off Ian Thorpe was incredible. This was also in the mix of Michael Phelps trying to win eight gold medals.

This is a great thread,

Ok, here’s two crazy t-man moments from sport. The legendary [or infamous depending on your point of view] Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford playing for New Zealand against France in France sometime in the 80’s. Shelford was certainly not the most gifted player to turn out for the all blacks but in terms of sheer commitment he had and has few equals. Buck put his body on the line against the french and in one ruck had his scrotum ripped open by a french boot. Shelford played on…until the end of the game. Crazy but inspiring. I’ll post the other later.

My favourite: Canada beating U.S.A. in both mens and womens olympic hockey in salt lake. Brilliant.