5 top scoring athletes from around the world

Three-time world snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan has achieved a 'maximum break' a record nine times across the course of his career. Photo / Getty Images

Here are a handful of athletes from around the world who have acheived some of the best scores in their respective sports.

NADIA COMANECI
Romanian gymnast

At just 14, Nadia Comaneci was one of the stars of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal after becoming the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event.

The feat came during the team portion of the competition, her routine on the uneven bars was scored at a 10.0. It was the first time in modern Olympic gymnastics history that the score had ever been awarded. The scoreboards were not even equipped to display scores of 10.0-so Nadia's perfect marks were reported on the boards as 1.00 instead. Over the course of the Olympics, Comaneci would earn six additional 10s, en route to capturing the all-around, beam, and bars titles and a bronze medal on the floor exercise. The Romanian team also placed second in the team competition.

Sadly, the perfect 10 is now consigned to a thing of the past after a new accumulative system of points, awarded for content and execution, made its Olympic debut in Beijing.

PHIL 'THE POWER' TAYLOR
English darts player

A nine dart finish is the ultimate checkout in the game of darts, constituting a perfect game. It is notoriously difficult to achieve, even by the game's top professionals. A single game (known as a leg) of darts requires a player to score 501 points. As a result of the combinations of scoring it means that nine throws is the minimum necessary.

In the history of major darts events, no other player has been able to achieve this rare feat more than England's Phil Taylor, a 14-time world champion. On top of his numerous world titles, Taylor has over 75 other major tournament wins to his name.

RONNIE 'THE ROCKET' O'SULLIVAN
English snooker player

Three-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan has achieved a "maximum break" a record nine times across the course of his astonishing, at times controversial, career.

The highest snooker break possible without the benefit of an opponent's foul is 147. The 147 is amassed by potting all 15 reds with 15 blacks for 120 points then all six colours for a further 27 points. O'Sullivan first achieved this remarkable feat when he was only 15, a year before turning pro.

GARFIELD SOBERS
West Indies cricketer

Former West Indian captain Garfield Sobers is widely regarded as cricket's greatest ever all-rounder, but his biggest claim to fame was a remarkable batting feat achieved in the late 60s.

In 1968 Sobers became the first batsman ever to hit six sixes in a single over of six consecutive balls in first-class cricket. The feat consisted of five clean hits for six and one six where the ball was caught but carried over the boundary by Roger Davis.

Sobers was playing as captain of Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in Swansea; the unfortunate bowler was Malcolm Nash. His tally of 36 runs in an over broke a 57-year-old record of 34 runs, held by Ted Alletson. In 1984-85, Indian batsman Ravi Shastri equalled the record by scoring six sixes in an over while playing for Bombay versus Baroda.

DON LARSEN
New York Yankees pitcher (baseball)

A "perfect game" is defined by Major League Baseball as a game in which a pitcher (or combination of pitchers) pitches a victory that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base. Thus, the pitcher cannot allow any hits, walks, hit batsmen, or any opposing player to reach base safely for any other reason. The feat has been achieved only 17 times in major league history - the most famous instance of which was in the 1956 World Series when New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen achieved the unique feat against the Brooklyn Dodgers in game five. His perfect game remains the only no-hitter of any type ever pitched in post season play.