Nice record you broke there — be a shame if I broke it by more

Men's 400-meter hurdle results have us reminiscing about athletes who beat the best... but were bested themselves

In 1983, Edwin Moses broke his own world record in the 400-meter hurdles, blazing home in 47.02 seconds at a meet in Koblenz, Germany. The following year, Moses won his second Olympic gold medal in the event, but he never did break the 47-second barrier — that didn’t happen until Kevin Young ran a 46.78 to win gold at the 1992 Olympics.

As the hurdlers lined up for Tuesday’s gold medal race in Tokyo, only three other men — Abderrahman Samba of Qatar, Norway’s Karsten Warholm, and American Rai Benjamin — had ever gotten under 47 seconds, with Warholm having set the world record at 46.70 last month in Oslo.

Alison dos Santos of Brazil joined the sub-47 club with a 46.72 on Tuesday, but that wasn’t enough for gold because the world record got broken — shattered, in fact — as Benjamin ran a once-unthinkable 46.17… which also wasn’t enough for gold because Warholm became the first man to go under 46 seconds, at 45.94.

For nearly 29 years, 46.78 was the time to beat, then it was 46.70 for a month, and despite destroying the previous world record, Benjamin only gets to come home with a silver medal. He does, however, have company, because he’s not the first athlete to do what nobody else has done before… except for another person doing the same thing at the same time. Here’s a look back at some folks who can relate to what Benjamin experienced in his Olympic moment.

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Sammy Sosa

Image for article titled Nice record you broke there — be a shame if I broke it by more — Image: Getty Images

In 1998, thanks to MLB expansion thinning out pitching staffs around baseball, and also to certain nutritional advances (nudge, nudge) and training techniques (wink, wink), Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire spent the summer waging a full assault on the single-season home run record, set at 61 by Roger Maris in a previous expansion year, 1961. Sosa did win the National League MVP award as he led the circuit in runs scored, runs batted in and total bases, and he also beat Maris by five homers.

Of course, Mark McGwire hit 70, and at no point did Sosa hold the record. It was the first of a record three 60-homer seasons for Sosa, who led the league in none of those years — McGwire topped hm, 65-63, in 1999, while Barry Bonds hit a still-record 73 to Sosa’s 64 in 2001.

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Brian Sipe and Tom Brady

In 1979, Chargers quarterback Dan Fouts threw for 4,082 yards, the first NFL quarterback ever to eclipse 4,000, and the first pro to reach the mark since Joe Namath’s 4,007-yard season for the 1967 Jets in the AFL.

Then, in 1980, Sipe led the Browns to an 11-5 record and their first playoff appearance in eight years, throwing for 4,132 yards. Unfortunately for Sipe, Fouts went ahead and added nearly 20 percent to his previous record, throwing for 4,715 yards in 1980.

This means Sipe is basically the same as Tom Brady, as in 2011 the Patriots quarterback threw for 5,235 yards, well ahead of Dan Marino’s record of 5,084 from 1984, but also well behind Drew Brees’ record-setting 5,476 yards for the Saints… a mark that Peyton Manning would break by one yard, two years later.

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Seimone Augustus

The WNBA scoring record was a Minnesota Lynx thing, as Katie Smith had set the standard with 739 points in 2001. Five years later, Augustus set a new team record at 744, but was not even close to being able to claim the league mark because Diana Taurasi went ahead and became the first WNBA player to score 750 points in a season, 800 points in a season, and 850 points in a season, winding up at 860. Augustus reached 769 the following season, and the only higher-scoring WNBA campaigns than that, ever, are Taurasi’s record season, Taurasi’s 820 points in 2008, and Maya Moore’s 812 in 2014.

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U.S. and Australia 4x200 freestyle relay teams

In 2009, the Australian quartet of Ariarne Titmus, Madison Wilson, Brianna Throssell, and Emma McKeon set the world record of 7:41.50 at the world championships in Gwangju, South Korea. Two years later in Tokyo, the Aussies had three of the same four swimmers in the pool, with Leah Neale subbing in for Thorsell, and they swam a 7:41.29 to eclipse their old world mark… and get the bronze medal.

The Americans? Allison Schmitt, Paige Madden, Katie McLaughlin, and Katie Ledecky made history by breaking 7:41, at 7:40.73, an incredible performance that left them four-tenths of a second in arrears to the record-setting team from China, Yang Junxuan, Tang Mehan, Zhang Yufei, and Li Bingjie.

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Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, and Bobby Orr

Now the benchmark for a great offensive season, posting 100 points in an NHL campaign simply had never been done before 1968-69, when Phil Esposito of the Boston Bruins put up 126, with 49 goals and 77 assists. Bobby Hull led the league with 58 goals, but wound up well off the lead with 107 points, while Gordie Howe’s 44 goals and 59 assists added up to 103 points. Two years later, Esposito’s Bruins teammate Bobby Orr racked up 139 points, thanks to a record 102 assists, but since a lot of that was helping Esposito reach 76 goals, it also meant Esposito notched 152 points, a record that stood until 1981, when Wayne Gretzky started rewriting hockey history as an autobiography.

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Tonja Buford-Bailey

If Rai Benjamin really wants someone to commiserate with, it’s Tonja Buford-Bailey, who went to the 1995 world championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, shaved 0.12 seconds off Sally Gunnell’s record of 52.74 seconds in the women’s 400-meter hurdles…. and lost by one one-hundredth of a second to fellow American Kim Batten. The following year in Atlanta, Buford-Bailey took the bronze in the Olympics, with Batten getting silver behind Deon Hemmings of Jamaica. The record that Batten set and Buford-Bailey nearly equaled stood until 2003, and they still rank 11th and 12th fastest of all time heading into this year’s Olympics — neither ever ran faster than they did at those worlds in Sweden.

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Nice record you broke there — be a shame if I broke it by more

Men's 400-meter hurdle results have us reminiscing about athletes who beat the best... but were bested themselves

Sammy Sosa

Sammy Sosa

Brian Sipe and Tom Brady

Brian Sipe and Tom Brady

Seimone Augustus

Seimone Augustus

U.S. and Australia 4x200 freestyle relay teams

U.S. and Australia 4x200 freestyle relay teams

Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, and Bobby Orr

Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, and Bobby Orr

Tonja Buford-Bailey

Tonja Buford-Bailey

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