Sports push the human body to strange and wonderful extremes, from marathon tennis matches to home run records that stood for decades. Along the way, athletes have set some truly astonishing world records.
We fact-checked this list against Guinness World Records and other reliable sources, so here are 19 sports facts you can actually trust.
The longest tennis match in history lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes of playing time, spread across three days. It was played between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010.
The fastest pitch ever officially recorded in baseball was 105.1 mph, thrown by Aroldis Chapman in 2010.
The first nationally televised perfect game (300) in bowling was bowled by Bob Koehler in 1958.
The longest drive in golf history is credited to Mike Austin, who hit a ball 515 yards during a 1974 U.S. Senior National Open qualifier.
The record for most goals scored by a single player in one soccer match is 16, set by French amateur player Stéphane Stanis in 1942.
Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes once ran roughly 350 miles nonstop, without sleeping, over about 80 hours in 2005.
The heaviest weight ever lifted by a human is widely cited as 6,270 pounds, a 'back lift' performed by strongman Paul Anderson in 1957 (the claim was later removed from Guinness World Records for lack of witnesses, but it remains a legendary feat in strength sports).
The official world record high jump by a horse is 8 feet 1 1/4 inches, set by the horse Huaso, ridden by Chilean rider Alberto Larraguibel, in 1949.
The Guinness World Record for the longest basketball shot is 113 feet 6 inches, made by Joshua Walker in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 2022.
The fastest speed ever reached by a human on a bicycle is 183.9 mph, achieved by Denise Mueller-Korenek drafting behind a race car in 2018.
Michael Phelps has won more Olympic medals than any athlete in history: 28 medals between 2004 and 2016.
The longest recorded surfing ride lasted 3 hours and 55 minutes, achieved by Gary Saavedra on an artificial wave channel in Panama in 2011.
Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single NBA game in 1962, still the most ever by one player in a game.
The longest table tennis rally on record lasted 2 hours and 12 minutes, played between Alex Ehrlich and Paneth Farcas at the 1936 World Championships.
Barry Bonds holds the single-season home run record with 73 home runs in 2001.
Freediver Mateusz Malina holds multiple world records for swimming underwater on a single breath without fins, covering more than 250 meters (over 800 feet).
Dutch wheelchair tennis player Esther Vergeer won 470 consecutive singles matches between January 2003 and her retirement in 2013, one of the longest winning streaks in any professional sport.
The Guinness World Record for the longest indoor volleyball marathon is 101 hours, set by club SVU Volleybal in Amstelveen, Netherlands, in 2017.
The NFL record for most touchdowns scored by one player in a single game is 6, a mark shared by Ernie Nevers (1929), Dub Jones (1951), Gale Sayers (1965), and Alvin Kamara (2020).
The longest ski jump ever recorded is 832 feet (253.5 meters), set by Stefan Kraft in Vikersund, Norway, in 2017.
We write every article to be genuinely fun — and genuinely true. Each fact is checked against reputable sources before it goes live. Spotted something off? Tell us and read our fact-check policy.
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