AUG. 8 — THIS DATE IN SPORTS HISTORY
■ 1902 — The United
States, led by William Larned, beats Britain three matches to two to capture the Davis Cup.
■ 1903 — Britain wins the Davis Cup by beating the United States 4-1.
■ 1936 — At the Berlin Olympics, the United States finishes 1-2-3 in the men’s decathlon. Glenn Morris sets a world record with 7,900 points, followed by Robert Clark and Jack Parker.
■ 1945 — Harry Pownall drives Titan Hanover to a two-heat sweep to win the 20th Hambletonian Stakes. ■ 1981 — Shiaway St.
Pat, driven by Ray
Remmen, wins the first Hambletonian Stakes run at the Meadowlands in
East Rutherford, N.J. in four heats.
■ 1982 — Ray Floyd, who shot a record 63 in the opening round, wins the PGA championship by three shots over Lanny Wadkins.
■ 1984 — Carl Lewis sets the Olympic record in the 200 meters with a 19.80 clocking.
■ 1987 — Mack Lobell, driven by John Campbell, wins the Hambletonian in straight heats with a record-smashing performance. Mack Lobell wins the second heat, and the race, by 6¼ lengths over Napoletano in 1:53 3-5, a fifth of a second off the world all-age trotting record set by Prakas in 1985.
■ 1992 — The Dream Team picks up its gold medal and Carl Lewis anchors a worldrecord 400-meter relay, winning his eighth gold medal in three Olympics. The U.S. basketball team beats Croatia 117-85, with the 32-point margin of victory the smallest of the Games. In the 400,
Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell and Lewis set a world record of 37.40 seconds. Steve Lewis anchors another worldrecord as the Americans won the 1,600 relay by nearly half the length of a football field. The team of
Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Michael Johnson and Lewis ran the 1,600 in 2:55.74.
■ 2001 — Damion Easley goes 6-for-6 with a home run and three RBIs as Detroit routs Texas 19-6. The Tigers tie a modern major league record by scoring 13 runs in the ninth inning.
■ 2006 — Roger Goodell is chosen as the NFL’s next commissioner. Favored for months to get the job, he is unanimously elected by the league’s 32 owners on the fifth ballot.
■ 2010 — Los Angeles Sparks forward Tina Thompson scores 23 points to become the WNBA’s all-time scoring leader in a 92-83 loss to the San Antonio Silver Stars. She surpasses Lisa Leslie’s career total of 6,263 points. Thompson is the last of the original WNBA players.
■ 2012 — Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings of the United States become the first three-time gold medalists in Olympic beach volleyball history. The duo beat Jennifer Kessy and April Ross 21-16, 21-16 in the allAmerican final, extending their Olympic winning streak to 21 matches.
■ 2012 — Brittney Reese wins the long jump, becoming the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic long jump since Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1988. Caster Semenya makes her Olympic debut three years after being forced to undergo gender tests, finishing second in her 800 heat.
■ 2015 — Katie Ledecky ends her world swimming championships in spectacular style, lowering her own world record by 3.61 seconds in the 800-meter freestyle for her fifth gold medal. The 18-year-old American completes a sweep of the 200, 400,
800 and 1,500 freestyles in Kazan, Russia. She was the anchor leg on the victorious 4x200 free relay, too. ASSOCIATED PRESS