Sporting Highlights for 1989
Here are the sporting highlights of the world of sport in 1989.
With six grand slam titles already under his belt, tennis great Ivan Lendl was finally able to win his first Australian Open. Though he was able to repeat his success in Australian Open the following year also, the eight time grand slam winner was never able to crack the Wimbledon, failing twice in the finals.
Kareem Abdul-Jabar was a scoring machine in the NBA. His skyhook shot has never been replicated by anyone. In April, at the age of 42, Kareem retired from the game after scoring 38,387 points in a career that lasted 20 years. It would be a near impossible task for anyone to surpass his record that has stood for over 25 years.
In November, cricket great Sachin Tendulkar made his test debut against Pakistan when he was just 16 years and 214 days old. Sachin scored his first fifty in the second test during the series and scored his first century the following year. He retired with 51 centuries in test cricket and 49 centuries in ODI, the most by any player in both formats.
The year's Tour de France was won by Greg LeMond of the United States. LeMond, when he won the event in 1986, was the first American ever to win the race. He would go on to win the tour for the third time in 1990. LeMond also won the Road Race World Championship that year which he had also won for the first time in 1983.
At Hillsborough in Sheffield UK, 96 Liverpool fans died in a crush at the start of a semi-final FA Cup tie with Nottingham Forest. The crush was a result of poor crowd management and police control which led to too many fans entering the central pens instead of being divided over all pens.
Below is a timeline of some significant results in the world of sport for the year 1989.
| Date | Results |
|---|---|
| Jan | Tennis Australia Open won by Ivan Lendl and Steffi Graf |
| Feb | Super Bowl held in Miami won by San Francisco |
| April | Golf Masters won by Nick Faldo (1st win) |
| May | Tennis French Open won by Michael Chang and A. Sanchez Vicario |
| June | Golf US Open won by Curtis Strange |
| July | the Cycling Tour de France won by Greg LeMond |
| July | Tennis Wimbledon won by Boris Becker and Steffi Graf |
| July | Golf The Open Championship won by Mark Calcavecchia |
| Aug | Golf US PGA won by Payne Stewart |
| Sep | Tennis US Open won by Boris Becker and Steffi Graf |
| Oct | The Baseball World Series won by Oakland Athletics |
Please note that the dates for past events are not always known, and are sometimes just placed in the month that the current event is held. If no exact date is listed, then it is just an estimated month that it was held.
If you have a correction or know of events that should be included here, please let me know.
Related Pages
- Ballon D'or Winners for 1989
- Timeline (all years) in the world of sport
- For future sporting events, see the Calendar of Major Sporting Events
- More about the World of Sport
Any comments, suggestions, or corrections? Please let us know.
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