MLB catch of the season, relay showreels and a penalty one-two
1) It’s the Prix de l’arc Triomphe on Sunday so let’s get ourselves in the mood with a highlights reel: Enable will be going for a historic hat-trick at Longchamp so watch her win in 2017, and repeat the feat last year. Here’s some footage from the vaults of Seabird triumphing in 1965, Sea the Stars pulling clear and holding on during his all-conquering year in 2009, and Dancing Brave in 1986, with Pat Eddery on board, the jockey claiming the second of three consecutive Arc wins.
2) Trust the Orioles’ Stevie Wilkerson to leave the catch of the season until the last game of the MLB season, against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. It’s quite something.
3) Tottenham can take a just a shred of comfort from the fact that their 7-2 home defeat by Bayern Munich is not actually their worst hammering in Europe. That sorry record is owned by the class of 1995, who lost 8-0 at Cologne in the Intertoto Cup. To be fair to manager Gerry Francis, though, he fielded a squad of loan players and reserves. “We had no players,” said Francis. “We were all looking at players just to see if we could get a team out that was the best standard we could manage. We got some sort of permission to bring players in. Alan Pardew was one of them.” Ah.
4) Track action at the World Athletics Championships concludes this weekend, as is traditional, with relay finals, so let’s spin back to some classic races of yesteryear. Here’s the American 4x100m quartet of Emmit King, Willie Gault, Calvin Smith and Carl Lewis setting a then-world record in Helsinki 36 years ago. Lewis was anchored the USA’s world record-breaking team at the 1991 championships in Tokyo. But the American hold on the mark was shattered with Jamaica’s emergence – the team of Steve Mullings, Michael Frater, Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell in 2009, and again two years later when Bolt led them home alongside Nesta Carter, Frater again and Yohan Blake.
Here’s another triumphant Jamaican performance, from Beijing 2015, when Veronica Campbell-Brown, Natasha Morrison, Elaine Thompson and the all-conquering Shelly-Anne FraserPrice stormed home in championship record time. And let’s roll back the years to some of the most impressive British performances – Joan Baptiste, Kathy Cook, Beverley Callender and Shirley
Thomas taking silver behind East Germany in 1983. Over in the 4x400m, clear five minutes from your day and enjoy Roger Black, John Regis, Derek Redmond and Kriss Akabusi’s miracle of Tokyo 1991.
5) Chile v Uruguay seven-a-side: tasty goal, tasty reaction.
6) Shakhtar Donetsk’s youth team revive memories of Thierry Henry and Robert Pires with this one-two penalty against Atalanta, though the Ukrainian side scored this one effortlessly, unlike the Arsenal pair back in 2005. Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez made no such mistakes when they teamed up in 2016.
Our favourites from below the line last week
1) Is this a goal or not? No technology check was available.
2) Some snooker flukes, flair and farces.
3) Supercar mishaps: when plans go wrong.
Spotters’ badges: Mike Smith, whobroughtoranges Guardian YouTube football channel Do subscribe, if you fancy. Guardian YouTube sport channel Do subscribe, if you fancy.