Scout’s Overview
📡 🚨 Weekly Sports Radar: Atherstone Ball Game

The record we’re looking at here is: The World’s Most Violent Sport (still played today)

There’s only one rule: whoever is holding the ball at 5 PM wins. The game lasts exactly two hours, and there are no pauses or formal restarts. Played annually in the English town of Atherstone, hundreds of participants take to the main street to fight over possession of a massive, specially-made leather ball.

There are no teams, no referees, and virtually no rules. It’s a free-for-all where punching, wrestling, and even climbing on buildings are all part of the spectacle, as long as it happens on Long Street. The game dates back over 800 years, originally played to commemorate Shrove Tuesday and a local victory in a medieval match between Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Emergency services prepare for it weeks in advance, and shops along the route board up their windows in anticipation of the yearly mayhem.

🏋 Athlete of the week: Michael Phelps

When it comes to breaking records, we can only look at one person: Michael Phelps, an American swimmer, widely regarded as the most decorated Olympian of all time.

Let’s break his records down:

• Most World Records in Swimming history (39 world records held or broken)

• Most Olympic medals of all time (28 medals)

• Most Olympic gold medals of all time (23 golds)

• Most gold medals at a single Olympics (8 golds in 8 events)

• Only Swimmer to Win the Same Event 4 Olympics in a Row (200m Individual medley, gold in every Olympics from 2004 - 2016)
  
  He has more gold medals than 161 countries. Insanity.

🏟️ Venue of the week: Deep Dive Dubai

Deep Dive Dubai is officially recognised as the deepest diving pool in the world at 60.02 meters (197 feet). Inside its structure lies an entire submerged city, complete with apartment rooms, arcade machines, cars, and tunnels, all underwater, designed for divers to explore. While this opened as a tourist attraction at first, it hosted the 2024 technical diving summit, and has hosted 2 diving competitions this year.

🧤 Fit Check: Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot” jersey

You are looking at the most expensive jersey in sports history. Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot” jersey from the 1932 World Series is the most expensive sports jersey ever sold, fetching $24.12 million in June 2024. It is the most expensive jersey ever sold because it’s tied to one of baseball’s most iconic moments, when Babe Ruth supposedly pointed to centre field during his at-bat, then smashed a home run exactly where he had gestured.

🏆 Sports Calendar

Here’s a look at the ongoing and upcoming sports events this week:

From the bench
🥇 Record Breakers

All these records were broken THIS WEEK:

• Hana Moll, a pole vaulter, set a new NCAA outdoor record, but what’s crazy here is that the record was previously held by her twin sister.

• Karsten Warholm crushed the 300-meter hurdles world best time, just 2 months after he last set it himself!

• I don’t watch a lot of basketball, but even I know this is sick- Caitlin Clark hit three 3-pointers in a row, in just 38 seconds, becoming the three 3s scorer in the WNBA.

• Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar has not only secured his first Criterium du Dauphine title in Cycling, but he has also marked his 99th win of his career, the most wins for any active rider.

• Northern Ireland won the World Cup of Darts for the first time in history

• George Mills became the British men’s 5,000m record-holder after beating the previous 14-year-old record.

• Armand Duplantis has done it again. Our previous athlete of the week has broken the men’s pole vault world record for a 12th time, this time with a clearance of 6.28m at the Diamond League. As a reminder, he has won gold at the previous two Olympics, the last two World Championships, the last three Indoor World Championships, the previous three European Championships, and the previous four Diamond League finals. What’s crazy is that each time he breaks the world record, he gets $100,000.

• Not a record, but this is a crazy story: Matt Vogt, a dentist, has made it to Golf’s US Open (one of four major golf tournaments), despite being ranked 2,078th in the world amateur rankings.