ON THIS DATE
1928 — At Moritz, Switzerland, Sonja Henie becomes the youngest Olympic figure skating champion. At 15 years and 315 days, easily beats Austria’s Fritzi Burger and American Beatrix Loughran. 1932 — Sonja Henie wins her sixth straight World Figure Skating title. 1944 — One day after playing in a high school basketball game, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall signs with the Cincinnati Reds. 1951 — Manhattan District Attorney Frank S. Hogan orders the arrest of three CCNY basketball players on bribery charges, and two professional gamblers and two intermediaries in a game-fixing scandal that involves college teams across the countr y.
1973 — Richard Petty wins his fourth Daytona 500. Petty gets two breaks when Cale Yarborough blows his engine on the 153rd lap and Baker blows his engine with 15 miles to go.
1978 — Fifteen competitors, including founder U.S. Naval Commander John Collins, travel to Waikiki to take on the first Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon. The triathlon of a 2.4-mile swim, 112mile bike race and a 26.2-miles marathon is won by Gordon Haller in 11 hours and 46 minutes.
1986 — San Antonio’s Alvin Rober tson records the second quadruple-double in NBA history, with 20 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals in the Spurs’ 120-114 win over Phoenix.
1990 — Dale Earnhardt blows a tire with one mile remaining in the Daytona 500, giving unheralded Derrike Cope the biggest upset in stock car racing histor y.
1995 — Utah guard John Stockton becomes the first NBA player with 10,000 assists in a 10898 victory over the Boston Celtics.
2001 — Dale Earnhardt, the greatest stock car star of his era, is killed in a crash on the last turn of the last lap of the Daytona 500 as he tries to protect Michael Waltrip’s victory.
2006 — Shani Davis becomes the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history, capturing the men’s 1,000-meter speedskating race. Joey Cheek makes it a 1-2 American finish at the Turin Games.
2010 — Figure skater Evan Lysacek becomes the first U.S. man to win the Olympic gold medal since Brian Boitano in 1988, shocking everyone with an upset of defending champion Evgeni Plushenko.
2012 — Shenneika Smith’s 3-pointer from the wing with 8 seconds left lifts St. John’s to a 57-56 win over No. 2 Connecticut, snapping the Huskies’ 99-game home court winning streak. It’s the Huskies’ first home loss to an unranked opponent in nearly 19 years.
2013 — Brittney Griner scores 25 points, including the 3,000th of her career, to help No. 1 Baylor rally past third-ranked Connecticut 76-70. Griner is the eighth player in Division I history to reach the milestone.
2017 — Mikaela Shiffrin wins a third straight slalom title at the ski world championships to retain her unbeaten record at major events. The 21-year-old American beats home crowd favorite, Wendy Holdener of Switzerland. Shiffrin’s gold medal streak in slalom includes each world championships she entered, starting in 2013, and the 2014 Olympics. Her victor y gives the United States its first world title at St. Moritz in the 10th of 11 medal events.