Sarah Ulmer left nothing in the tank and took out the Olympic 3000m individual pursuit gold. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Alistair Cook's massive innings of 294 in about 13 hours against India was the latest example of a sporting feat of endurance and ability. The Herald on Sunday sports team bring you their top 10 other great feats of durability and persistence.
ONE: Mark Greatbatch's 146 not out at Perth to stave off defeat versus Australia
Greatbatch's 1989 feat already transcends New Zealand cricket. Not a season goes by where fans fail to re-tell it in gutsy glory at clubrooms around the country, generally followed by a statement such as: "They don't make them like that any more."
Perhaps they don't. Australia made 521 for nine and asked New Zealand to follow on after dismissing them for 231. Early wickets against the pace attack of Terry Alderman, Geoff Lawson, Merv Hughes and Carl Rackemann on a fast, bouncy WACA, left Greatbatch - assisted by Jeff Crowe and Martin Snedden - to bat for five minutes shy of 11 hours and face 485 balls at a strike rate of 30 to save the test.
Greatbatch restricted himself to two Guinnesses at the pub each night, didn't play the cut shot until the final half hour and resisted a barrage of sledging, led by a then 24-year-old Steve Waugh. The stocky left-hander also suffered the ignominy of forgetting his trousers on the final morning and having to pour himself into the strides of the skinnier John Bracewell. Fortunately someone fetched his from the team hotel laundry by lunch, leading to a more comfortable final afternoon.
- Andrew Alderson
TWO: Steinlager 2 versus Fisher & Paykel
It was the nautical duel round the world that captured New Zealand's imagination. Steinlager 2, skippered by the late Sir Peter Blake, faced off against Fisher and Paykel, helmed by Grant Dalton, in the 1989-90 Whitbread race. The battle came to a head on the fourth leg, which finished in Auckland. As they raced in the early hours of the morning, the two yachts were neck and neck down the east coast, both desperate to claim the hometown glory. Legend has it that Blake overheard a caller to a Auckland radio station describe a sharp south-west wind change at Titirangi. In response Blake ordered his crew to drop their spinnaker, changed to a genoa and sheeted this in the race to the line.
Meawhile, Dalton was caught out by the windshift and blown downwind. Steinlager sailed into Auckland harbour to a rapturous welcome, ahead of Fisher and Paykel by just six minutes. The next leg was a marathon - from Auckland through the Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn to Punta del Este in Uruguay - but the margin at the finish was only 21 minutes, again to Blake. The fifth leg was won by a similarly narrow margin, before Blake took overall line honours and the Whitbread trophy at his fifth attempt, sailing into Southampton only 36 minutes ahead of Dalton, having traversed the globe.
- Michael Burgess
THREE:The All Blacks versus South Africa to win their first series in the Republic in 1996
It took almost 70 years of heartbreak, political unrest, intense rivalry, jostling for advantage, controversies over issues like neutral referees and cheating and a rugby Holy Grail so keenly sought that many careers were ended as the All Blacks sought to overcome the Boks in their own back yard. Significantly, then All Blacks captain Sean Fitzpatrick rated the 1996 series win higher even than the 1987 World Cup win and his exhausted slump to the ground and triumphant fist-bash on the Loftus Versfeld turf is a never-to-be-forgotten All Black image.
John Hart's All Blacks - dubbed "The Incomparables" after the win - also secured their place in history with a pulsating test match. The All Blacks led 21-11 at halftime but the Springboks came back at them ruthlessly in the second half. With the score at 30-26, legendary No 8 Zinzan Brooke dropped the goal which sewed up the match and the series. Even then, however, it wasn't done. The Boks unleashed a furious assault on the All Blacks line for the last passage of the game; met by equally desperate defence. It was only a few minutes but it felt to all All Black fans like an eternity; another example of extreme endurance, but this one in a bubble of time.
- Paul Lewis
FOUR: Abebe Bikila and the barefoot marathon gold medal, 1964
This astonishing little man produced two staggering feats of endurance - winning the marathon gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics running barefoot and then following it up with another gold in the same event at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. A member of the Ethiopian Imperial Bodyguard, his humble beginnings decreed that he did not feel comfortable in shoes - so he ran barefoot. After 41km, Bikila was in the lead with Morrocco's Rhadi Ben Abdesselem but burned him off by stepping up the pace as he passed the Obelisk of Axum - a large trophy looted from Ethiopia by Italian troops.
The barefoot Bikila was nearly skittled by a runaway Italian riding a scooter near the stadium finish - what else? - perhaps an omen in view of what happened to him later in life. In 1964, this time wearing shoes, Bikila returned and won the gold in Tokyo - astounding the world by doing exercises after his comfortable win and generally behaving as if he had just been out for a Sunday jog and thought a mere marathon was too short. He would have run the marathon in 1968 in Mexico too - but suffered a car accident when driving the car given to him by a grateful Ethiopian government. His neck was broken and he was paralysed, spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair until he died of a brain haemorrhage aged only 41. Tragedy wasn't confined to Bikila from this event. The bronze medallist of 1964, Japan's Kokichi Tsuburaya, also showed the strain when he realised injuries suffered training would prevent him from competing in the 1968 Olympics. He cut his own throat with a razor blade, dying next to a piece of paper which read: "Cannot run any more".
- Paul Lewis
FIVE: Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman, Zaire 1974, for the heavyweight championship of the world.
For seven rounds, Foreman pummelled Ali. But intuitively, Ali knew he could beat the huge, imposing and powerful champion if his giant rival punched himself out - the much-celebrated "rope-a-dope" strategy. For most of the first seven rounds, Ali, with his corner screaming at him, lay on the ropes and let Foreman batter him while he covered up. He taunted Foreman. "Is that all you got, George?" and "I thought you had some punches. You all used up. You a weak man." The truth was that Ali was occasionally being lifted into the air by the force of Foreman's blows.
But he was right. Foreman was using himself up. In the eighth round, with 20 seconds left Ali finally attacked, coming off the ropes and surprising Foreman with a blistering combination. At this stage, let Norman Mailer finish the story in what is still one of the finest pieces of sportswriting ever: "Then a big projectile exactly the size of a fist in a glove drove into the middle of Foreman's mind, the best punch of the startled night, the blow Ali saved for a career. Foreman's arms flew out to the side. In a doubled-over position he tried to wander out to the centre of the ring. All the while his eyes were on Ali and he looked up with no anger, as if Ali, indeed, were the man he knew best in the world and would see him on his dying day. Vertigo took George Foreman and revolved him.
". . . He went over like a six-foot 60-year-old butler who has just heard tragic news, yes, fell over all of a long collapsing two seconds, down came the champion in sections and Ali revolved with him in a close circle, hand primed to hit him one more time, and never the need, a wholly intimate escort to the floor."
- Paul Lewis
SIX: Kiwi Max Telford, the first man to run through Death Valley
The gag went as follows: Only two things in the world have run non-stop through Death Valley, California in the height of summer and survived. One is Highway 190, the other is Max Telford. Originally a Scottish knitwear worker before moving to New Zealand, Telford completed his run through one of the hottest places on Earth in the Mojave Desert in 1982.Temperatures are around 55 degrees during the day. At night it drops to about 40 degrees. If you're inclined to have a crack, then beware heat stroke, renal shutdown, brain damage and possibly death - hence its name.
Telford's endurance capacity was astonishing. He racked up a world record for non-stop running - 131 miles (211 kilometres) as well as running from Auckland to Wellington in five days, 13 hours. He also did the Forrest Gump of runs, trotting off from Anchorage, Alaska and finishing 106 days and 8224km later in Nova Scotia, Canada. Telford started running huge distances after missing a New Zealand marathon spot at the Mexico Olympics. Recently he was looking after a chain of hairdressing salons in the Philippines with his wife Jojing.
- Andrew Alderson
SEVEN: Sarah Ulmer's oxygen debt after the Olympic 3000m individual pursuit gold, 2004
The sight of Ulmer screaming around a velodrome then screaming for air afterwards is a national sporting image never to be forgotten. Her career culminated with Olympic pursuit gold at Athens in 2004. Ulmer set a world record with 3m 26.4s in the opening round but trumped it with 3m 24.537s in the final against Australian Katie Mactier - a record she held until last year. For anyone who got up to watch that phenomenal feat in the early hours, Ulmer's extraction from her bike Zeus' with barely a joule of energy left to function, was an extraordinary snapshot of exhaustion - and joy. Ulmer extended herself beyond coach and partner Brendon Cameron's stopwatch expectations to beat her Australian rival by three seconds. She seemed to have little concept of pain threshold.
- Andrew Alderson
EIGHT: The endless FA Cup tie
Back in 1980, Liverpool and Arsenal met each other five times in 19 days, with essentially the same group of players involved. It started with the FA Cup semifinal at Hillsborough on April 12, a 0-0 draw meaning a replay four days later. In that match, Arsenal's Alan Sunderland forced another replay. Three days later the two teams met in a league match at Anfield, which also ended in a draw (1-1).
The next replay, the Gunners led for most of the match (again through Sunderland) before current Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish netted in stoppage time. The third replay - held just three days later - was shifted to Highfield Road in Coventry, as Aston Villa were sick of the wear and tear on their pitch. Recent Arsenal signing Brian Talbot scored the only goal - perhaps to the relief of both sets of exhausted players. Arsenal went on to lose 1-0 to West Ham in the final, after an unlikely Trevor Brooking headed goal.
- Michael Burgess
NINE: Sir Steven Redgrave - five gold medals in consecutive Olympics
For 16 years between Los Angeles 1984 and Sydney 2000, Redgrave was supreme in at least one Olympic rowing discipline; be it the coxed four, coxless pair or four. At 38 in Sydney he was perhaps most tested in the coxless four final after being diagnosed with diabetes and taking insulin since 1997. However, Redgrave was always in safe medical hands. His wife Ann, herself a former Olympic rower, was the rowing team's doctor for the latter part of his career.
His final gold medal came after the crew had placed fourth at the Lucerne world cup just three months out from the Games. They had been unbeaten for three years previously. It resulted in a memorable man-love moment on Penrith Lakes after beating a surging Italy by a quarter of a length. Redgrave's long time crewmate, Matthew Pinsent, himself an eventual winner of four Olympic golds, danced down the boat for a Redgrave bear hug. The result came after Redgrave's post-Atlanta gold request to "shoot me if you see me in a boat again". Wisely no-one did.
- Andrew Alderson
TEN: Rafael Nadal at the 2009 Australian Open
While there have been many feats of endurance in tennis over the years, few could match the courage of Nadal two years ago in Melbourne. In the semifinal, he battled compatriot Fernando Verdasco over five gruelling sets in what became the longest match in Australian Open history. Rather than just a serving duel, this was a brutal baseline battle, with Verdasco hitting an incredible 95 winners alone. After five hours and 14 minutes, Nadal prevailed, winning 193 points to Verdasco's 192.
The match had gone into the early hours of the morning. Just a day later, Rafa would face a rested Roger Federer -who had enjoyed a comparative three-set cruise past Andy Roddick on the Thursday night. Most expected Nadal to have nothing left and when Federer took the match to a fifth set it seemed an obviously exhausted Nadal would slump. "You are watching a man who defies belief,'' said TV commentator Fred Stolle, "someone has to go down there and tell him he is gone because he will never believe it.'' After a four hour, 22 minute battle that went past midnight, Nadal prevailed.
- Michael Burgess