Sporting Witness Podcast
Eye-witness accounts from sporting history. We take you to the events that have shaped sport through the eyes of the people who were there.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive and testimony. Sporting Witness is for those fascinated by sporting history. We take you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes, you become a fan in the stands as we take you back in time to examine memorable victories and agonising defeats from all over the world. You鈥檒l hear from people who have achieved sporting immortality, or those who were there as incredible sporting moments unfolded.
Recent episodes explore the forgotten football Women鈥檚 World Cup, the plasterer who fought a boxing legend, international football鈥檚 biggest ever beating and the man who swam the Amazon river. We look at the lives of some of the most famous F1 drivers, tennis players and athletes as well as people who鈥檝e had ground-breaking impact in their chosen sporting field, including: the most decorated Paralympian, the woman who was the number 1 squash player in the world for nine years, and the first figure skater to wear a hijab. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the tennis player who escaped the Nazis, how a man finally beat a horse in a race, and how the FIFA computer game was created.
Episodes to download
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Football's Coming Home
Thu 17 Jun 2021
How England sparked a mood of national euphoria at Euro 96 before it ended in tears
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The Van Basten wonder goal
Thu 10 Jun 2021
How an amazing volley gave Holland their first victory at a big international tournament
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Denmark's shock Euros win
Thu 3 Jun 2021
How the Danes won the Euro 92 championship despite not even qualifying for the tournament
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Indonesia's badminton heroine
Thu 6 May 2021
How Susi Susanti won the first Olympic gold medal for her badminton-obsessed country
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Anthony Robles
Thu 29 Apr 2021
The one-legged wrestler who won a national college title in the United States in 2011
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The Scottish club that toppled Real Madrid
Thu 22 Apr 2021
Led by Alex Ferguson, Aberdeen beat the Spanish giants to win a European trophy in 1983
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The athlete who changed the rules on sex tests
Thu 15 Apr 2021
How a Spanish woman hurdler won the right to compete despite having male chromosomes
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Kuwait at the football World Cup
Thu 8 Apr 2021
The Gulf state's first and only World Cup appearance, with a camel as team mascot
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Ghana's runaway sprinters
Thu 1 Apr 2021
How two Ghanaian athletes escaped during the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand in 1990
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Fighting for women's boxing
Thu 25 Mar 2021
The story of Gail Grandchamp, who campaigned for the right of women to box in the USA.
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When Col Gaddafi's son played football in Italy's Serie A
Thu 18 Mar 2021
In 2003, A.C. Perugia signed Al-Saadi Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan dictator
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Zimbabwe's Paralympic pioneer
Thu 4 Mar 2021
How Elliot Mujaji won the first ever Paralympic gold medal for his country in 2000.
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The Gay Games
Thu 25 Feb 2021
The first international sports event for LGBT athletes was held in San Francisco in 1982.
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The first woman to play in the NHL
Thu 18 Feb 2021
Manon Rh茅aume became the first and only woman to play in the National Hockey League
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Nova Peris - Australia's first aboriginal Olympic champion
Thu 11 Feb 2021
How the hockey-player from Darwin broke barriers by winning an Olympic gold medal in 1996
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The NFL's Rooney Rule
Thu 4 Feb 2021
The activist and champion who pushed for American football's landmark diversity policy
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Mianne Bagger - Golf's transgender pioneer
Thu 28 Jan 2021
In 2004, Mianne Bagger became the first transitioned woman to play professional golf
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The woman who won the Paris-Dakar rally
Thu 14 Jan 2021
In January 2001, Germany's Jutta Kleinschmidt won one of the biggest races in motorsport
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Brad Snyder - From the battlefield to Paralympic gold
Thu 7 Jan 2021
The American serviceman who won swimming glory a year after being blinded by a bomb
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Cameron Hughes - sports entertainer
Thu 31 Dec 2020
The Canadian who's made a career out of dancing at big sports events around the world
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Joey Dunlop - Northern Ireland's motorsport hero
Thu 17 Dec 2020
The motorbike world champion whose high-speed triumphs united a divided country
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Stop the Springboks
Thu 10 Dec 2020
How campaigners used direct action to stop South Africa's apartheid teams touring the UK
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Learie Constantine - West Indies cricket pioneer
Thu 3 Dec 2020
How the West Indian all-rounder took England by storm in the 1920s and 30s.
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Maradona and the "Hand of God" goal
Thu 26 Nov 2020
Ex-England striker Gary Lineker on Maradona's legendary World Cup quarter-final in 1986
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Judit Polgar - the chess champion who defied stereotypes
Thu 19 Nov 2020
How the chess prodigy overcame sexism in her sport and defeated the all-time greats.
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The 'Blind Maradona'
Thu 12 Nov 2020
The story of Silvio Velo, the captain of Argentina's world-beating blind football team
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India's Queen of the Oceans
Thu 5 Nov 2020
How Bula Choudhury was the first woman to swim straits of the world's seven seas.
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Natalia Partyka - Youngest paralympian
Thu 29 Oct 2020
The Polish table tennis champion who began her Paralympic career aged just 11.
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Viv Anderson - first black England footballer
Thu 22 Oct 2020
In November 1978, the defender became the first black Englishman to play for his country.
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Surfing the world's biggest waves
Thu 15 Oct 2020
Garrett McNamara broke the world record for biggest wave ever surfed in 2011 at Nazar茅