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69 free Hardest Sports trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These are the hardest sports trivia questions on BrainPickle: sixty-two multiple-choice stumpers built for people who already know the easy stuff. Nobody here is asked how many players are on a basketball team. Instead you get the pitcher who threw a no-hitter while tripping, the town where Wilt scored 100, the goalie who was first to shoot and score, the marathon runner dosed with rat poison, and the record that Wayne Gretzky would still hold if he had never scored a goal. The set roams across baseball, American football, soccer, basketball, hockey, cricket, tennis, golf, boxing, athletics, cycling, rowing, snooker and the Olympics, so a specialist in one sport will still hit walls in another. Difficulty climbs from tough to genuinely expert; a strong pub-quiz player should expect to miss a third of these. Every answer was checked against a primary source, mostly the encyclopaedia entry for the athlete, match or record in question, and every question shows its source after you answer. Use it for a hard round at trivia night, to settle arguments, or just to find out how deep your sports knowledge really goes.
30 of 69 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pitcher threw a 1970 no-hitter against the Padres while, by his own account, on LSD?
Dock Ellis
Dock Ellis later said he thought it was an off day and only learned he was pitching that afternoon; he walked eight batters and hit one, but no Padre got a hit.
Q 02Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 was played in which unlikely city?
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey, Pennsylvania hosted it on March 2, 1962, one of several Warriors 'home' games played away from Philadelphia that season; the arena was only about half full, with 4,124 fans.
Q 03How did Fred Lorz briefly 'win' the marathon at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics before being found out?
He rode part of the course in a car
He rode part of the course in a car: Lorz quit with cramps at nine miles, hitched a ride, resumed running when the car broke down near mile 19, and was nearly crowned.
Q 041904 Olympic marathon winner Thomas Hicks was kept going with brandy, egg whites and which poison?
Strychnine
Strychnine, a rat poison that acts as a stimulant in small doses and was legal then, was dosed to Hicks by his handlers; he had to be helped across the line and nearly died.
Q 05After the 1980 'Miracle on Ice', which team did the US beat to clinch the gold medal?
Finland
The Soviet game was not the final: it was a medal-round game. Two days later the Americans trailed Finland after two periods and scored three times in the third.
Q 06Who is the only golfer to win all four majors of his era in one calendar year, in 1930?
Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones did it as an amateur, retired at 28, and then co-founded the Masters, which is why the pre-1934 Grand Slam involved a different set of four events.
Q 07The only perfect game in World Series history was thrown in 1956 by which Yankees pitcher?
Don Larsen
Don Larsen threw it in Game 5 against the Brooklyn Dodgers, a few days after being knocked out in the second inning of Game 2.
Q 08What was the score of the fifth set when John Isner finally beat Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010?
70–68
70–68 in the fifth set ended a match that ran 11 hours and 5 minutes across three days; Wimbledon later introduced a final-set tie-break so it cannot recur.
Q 09Whose 400 not out against England in 2004 set Test cricket's individual-innings record?
Brian Lara
Brian Lara made 400 not out at Antigua in April 2004; ten years earlier he had set the first-class record of 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham.
Q 10Who ran the second sub-four-minute mile, 46 days after Roger Bannister's first?
John Landy
John Landy ran a world-record 3:57.9 in Turku; the two then met in the 'Miracle Mile' at the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver, which Bannister won.
Q 11When Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990, what were the odds against him?
42 to 1
42 to 1 was the line at the Mirage, the only Las Vegas book to post odds; Douglas, whose mother had died weeks earlier, stopped Tyson in the tenth round for his first defeat.
Q 12How many teams took part in the first FIFA World Cup in 1930?
13
13 teams entered, with only four European sides making the sea voyage to South America; the hosts beat Argentina 4–2 in the final before 68,346 people.
Q 13In 1987 Ron Hextall became the first NHL goaltender to do what?
Shoot the puck into the opponent's net for a goal
Q 21Against which team did Kobe Bryant score 81 points in January 2006?
Toronto Raptors
Toronto Raptors were the victims on January 22, 2006; the Lakers trailed by 18 in the third quarter and won 122–104, with Bryant scoring 55 after halftime.
Q 22Jim Thorpe was stripped of his 1912 Olympic medals for having been paid to play which sport?
Baseball
Baseball was the sport: he had earned meagre pay in the Eastern Carolina League in 1909 and 1910; the IOC restored his medals in 1983 and named him sole champion in 2022.
Q 23Who was picked second in the 1984 NBA draft, one spot ahead of Michael Jordan?
Sam Bowie
Shoot the puck into the opponent's net for a goal: he hit an empty net against Boston on December 8, 1987, and the next season scored again in the playoffs, another first.
Q 14Which player hit a world professional record 868 career home runs?
Sadaharu Oh
Sadaharu Oh hit all 868 for the Yomiuri Giants over 22 seasons, using a one-legged 'flamingo' stance, finishing more than 100 clear of Barry Bonds's MLB mark of 762.
Q 15Who broke Bob Beamon's 8.90 m long jump world record after almost 23 years?
Mike Powell
Mike Powell jumped 8.95 m at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, beating Carl Lewis in a duel; Beamon's 1968 leap had itself beaten the old record by 55 centimetres.
Q 16The 'Maracanazo' of 1950 saw Brazil lose the World Cup's deciding match at home to which country?
Uruguay
Brazil needed only a draw in front of an official 173,850 spectators. Uruguay won 2–1 and lifted the trophy for the second time.
Q 17Who is the only driver to win the Formula One World Championship in a car bearing his own name?
Jack Brabham
Jack Brabham did it in 1966, his third title; McLaren and Gurney each won a race in their own cars but never a championship.
Q 18Australia set the record for the largest win in international soccer in 2001, 31–0, against which team?
American Samoa
American Samoa lost 31–0 in Coffs Harbour, with Archie Thompson scoring 13, itself a record; two days earlier Australia had beaten Tonga 22–0.
Q 19How many consecutive games did Cal Ripken Jr. play to set the major-league iron-man record?
2,632
2,632 straight games: he passed Lou Gehrig's 2,130 on September 6, 1995, and kept going for three more seasons before voluntarily sitting out in September 1998.
Q 20Who won the very first Tour de France in 1903?
Maurice Garin
Maurice Garin, a chimney sweep by early trade, won the six-stage, 2,428 km race, which had been invented to boost sales of the newspaper L'Auto.
Sam Bowie, the Kentucky centre, went to Portland, which already had Clyde Drexler at guard; Hakeem Olajuwon went first to Houston.
Q 24How long did Ronnie O'Sullivan's famous 1997 World Championship maximum 147 break take?
5 minutes 8 seconds
5 minutes 8 seconds, at the 1997 World Championship against Mick Price, is listed by Guinness as the fastest maximum; the break earned him £165,000.
Q 25Who set the NFL single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards in 1984?
Eric Dickerson
Eric Dickerson did it for the Los Angeles Rams in his second season; Adrian Peterson's 2,097 in 2012 fell eight yards short of the mark.
Q 26Whose 84-year-old record for hits in a season did Ichiro Suzuki break in 2004?
George Sisler
George Sisler's 257, set in 1920, fell when Ichiro finished with 262; at the time Ichiro also held Japan's single-season hit record.
Q 27Which country gave the 1992 Dream Team its closest game, in the Olympic gold-medal final?
Croatia
Croatia lost the final 117–85, 'closest' being relative: the Americans won their eight games by an average of almost 44 points.
Q 28Who is the only tennis player to complete a calendar-year 'Golden Slam'?
Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf did it in 1988, beating Gabriela Sabatini in the Seoul Olympic final after sweeping the four majors.
Q 29Who is the only male athlete to win both the 200 m and 400 m at the same Olympic Games?
Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson did it in Atlanta in 1996 wearing golden Nike spikes, running the 200 m in a world-record 19.32 seconds.
Q 30Who scored the fastest World Cup goal to that point, 10.8 seconds into a 2002 match?
Hakan Şükür
It came in the third-place play-off against South Korea, which Turkey won 3–2. Bryan Robson's 1982 strike had held the record at 27 seconds.