Amazing Sport Stories

The mountaineers are climbing the final peaks, and three of them are neck-and-neck. The other two are close behind. They say it’s not a race, but their sense of competition is intense. Can they all make it? This episode was updated on 17 May 2024, to correct an error in the temperature on the summit of Nanga Parbat.

Then there were five. Two super-fast new challengers are powering up the peaks, and the pressure is on. Edurne Pasaban, Gerlinde Katlernbrunner and Nives Meroi have been climbing the world’s highest mountains at a rate of around one a year. With the arrival of the South Korean climbers Oh Eun-sun and Go Mi-young, the stakes are supercharged.

A near-death experience motivates a mountaineer to scale the world’s highest peaks. But two others are trying at the same time. They say this is not a race, but they are locked in competition to be the first woman to reach the summit of the 14 peaks.

The female climbers vying to make history. Their challenge? To scale the fourteen highest peaks in the world. They come from South Korea, Spain, Italy and Austria to pit themselves against some of the harshest environments on earth, more than 8000 metres high in the Karakoram and Himalayan mountains. It is a dangerous quest. Who will realise their dream? The four-part season, with Joanna Jolly and...

On Easter Monday, 1957, stewards waited near the start of a half-marathon race in Doncaster, in the north of England. They each clutched a photograph of a man who, they had been told, must not be allowed to compete under any circumstances. That man, John Tarrant, was lurking in the crowd in disguise, ready to once more defy those who tried to stop him. One of Britain's finest long-distance athlete...

The first Brazilian striker to play for Barcelona scored more times than Ronaldo and Romario combined, had a better goals-to-games ratio than Neymar or Rivaldo and got the goal that knocked Real Madrid out of the European Cup for the very first time - before crossing that bitter divide two years later. For Brazil, he holds a goalscoring record that Pele never matched, yet was prohibited from playi...

When Leon Edwards was nine years old, he moved with his mum and younger brother from a one-bedroom shack in Kingston, Jamaica, to start a new life in Birmingham, England. Four years later, his mum got a phone call at 2am. Leon could her crying. His dad, a gang leader, had been murdered. Over the next few years - the "darkest" of his life - Leon was himself drawn into a world of gang violence. This...

From the Curse of the Bambino, to the Drake Curse, the Curse of the Billy Goat and the Curse of County Mayo... this St Patrick’s Day, we’re exploring why some sports fans and players believe their teams could actually be cursed. Why are sport and superstition so intrinsically linked? Whether it’s wearing lucky pants on match days, sitting in the same spot for every game or even peeing on the field...

"The audacity!" Roberta 'Bobbi' Gibb had just received a nine-word slap to the face: "Women are not physiologically capable of running a marathon." That was the reply she received when she applied to enter the Boston Marathon. She crumpled the letter and threw it on the floor. Bobbi knew she’d be running the race - whether they let her or not. This is the story of one woman’s battle against deroga...

When former Dutch boxing champion Barry Groenteman used to visit his grandmother at her retirement home, he would often see an older man shadow-boxing. "He showed me his ring with the Star of David on it. And my grandmother would whisper: 'That's Ben Bril.'" This is the story of a Jewish boxer from Amsterdam who had his life transformed by invasion, violence and anti-Semitism. A champion forced in...

There had been no apology. The “Black 14” moved on. Decades later, was that about to change? The American footballers had tried to take a stand against racism but they can’t forget what happened that day in 1969, back in Laramie, Wyoming. It has affected the entire course of their lives. Then, one of them receives a phone call. This four-part season includes interviews with eight of the Black 14:...

Kicked off the Wyoming Cowboys, the “Black 14” watch the next game from the stands. Then, they turn to the courts to try to seek justice. It is October 1969 and word of their dismissal, for wanting to stage a protest against racism, has spread around the university campus. Their story is about to go national. The next match is against Brigham Young University, but they cannot play. This four-part...

After facing racism on the field, “the Black 14” American footballers have made a decision. They’re going to ask the Cowboys’ head coach, Lloyd Eaton, if they can wear black armbands to protest at their next game against the Mormon-run Brigham Young University (BYU). They don’t expect convincing him will be easy. But they’re totally unprepared for his reaction, which will rock their lives forever....

Sport, racism and protests are about to change the lives of “the Black 14” American footballers. It’s 1969 in the United States. They’ve arrived on scholarships at the University of Wyoming to play for its Cowboys American football team. It was a predominantly white college. The team is treated like a second religion. Then, the players make a decision to take a stand against racism in a game again...

In 1969 Wyoming, racism is rife and 14 young black American footballers decide to take a stand. But the repercussions will change their lives forever. BA Parker takes us back to America’s turbulent 1960s to explore the injustice suffered by the “Black 14”. The four-part season is coming soon.

It’s 1998 and Iran have just played the USA in one of the most eagerly awaited matches of the World Cup in France. Now on the eve of the final, in a building on the Champs-Elysees, two acquaintances – one Iranian, one American – are hatching a plan. They’re hoping to change geopolitics, through football. This is the story how their idea for a simple friendly match would lead to death threats, an F...

Hundreds of years ago, the Native people of Alaska's coastal whaling settlements had a unique way of communicating when a hunt had been successful. A messenger would run inland and, when within sight, jump and kick both feet into the air. The passage of time has seen that disappear, but once a year the tradition is revived. This is the story of what’s officially known as the World Eskimo-Indian Ol...

Looking out from a balcony in Nazare, over slumped, drying wetsuits, you can see it all. The stretch of sand, the salt haze, a spike of cliff and a scarlet lighthouse. Most of all, you can see the waves, a backdrop of bubbling white water and that distinctive churning white noise. This is the story of Nazare, a small town in Portugal where you’ll find the world’s biggest waves, some the size of a...

It's a scorching hot June afternoon in the middle of an Italian heatwave. Two sisters are in the foothills of the Dolomites, about to start a 10km climb. They’re elite cyclists Fariba and Yulduz Hashimi, two of the best from their country, but they're not used to riding around bends, with cars in their way. It's far from the dusty landscape of northern Afghanistan where they come from, where often...

The deafening roar of shells exploding, a cacophony of bullets whizzing past, the air thick with smoke. This is Belgium, 1914 and life in the trenches for British and German soldiers is the definition of misery. But for one beautiful, spontaneous moment, peace and football replaces the fighting with a Christmas Truce. This is the story of what happened that day in no man's land on the Western Fron...

As Mayo prepare for the All-Ireland Championship, a formidable obstacle stands in their way. Will the men from Mayo finally win the coveted tournament and vanquish talk of the curse once and for all? Meanwhile, the truth about what really happened that day in Foxford more than 70 years ago is finally within reach. Episode 3 of 3. Let us know what you think of #AmazingSportStories

Was County Mayo’s Irish football team really cursed in 1951? Sports reporter Dave McKenna hears from the last remaining member of the 1951 Mayo All-Ireland squad. Does he remember a priest cursing the team? And does he believe the curse is real? Dave’s investigation leads him to the town of Foxford, the site where legend dictates it all began. And sad news changes the course of the investigation....

Is County Mayo’s Gaelic football team cursed? You might have heard of the “Curse of Bambino” for the Boston Red Sox in US baseball. This is the story of Ireland’s equivalent. Irish-American sports reporter Dave McKenna investigates this curious case to find out if a decades old hex is behind their recent failures. Did the team really disrespect a funeral in 1951? And did that cause the mysterious...

Ireland’s “cursed” Gaelic football team – our next amazing sport story. Can County Mayo’s failure to win the All-Ireland Championship really be the result of a curse put on the team more than 70 years ago? The three-part season with Dave McKenna is coming soon.

At 200 miles, it might not be the world's longest race, but Tunnel Ultra is certainly the darkest. It's a gruelling two-day endurance event where competitors run underground laps in single-file, to a backdrop of classical music. Headphones are banned but hallucinations are all but guaranteed, with sightings of abominable snowmen, giant slugs and orange blobby monsters all reported. So why do peopl...