‘We could feel the gravity of it. It was electrifying’: 50 photographs that reshaped sport

By Neil Leifer

It’s no hyperbole to say that the photograph above is an iconic image of an iconic person in an iconic sporting moment. Neil Leifer photographed Muhammad Ali dozens of times during his heyday in the 60s and 70s as Ali won the heavyweight crown three times. Foremost among those images is this, of Ali berating Sonny Liston in the first round of their world title fight in 1965. Liston had gone down easily from the “phantom punch” – with many suspecting mobsters had paid him to lose early – and Ali was furious, gesticulating at Liston to get up and fight. The picture was created in an era when boxing rings were clean white canvases on which bloody duels were fought over 15 rounds, and colour film photography produced lustrous results. The picture was somehow overlooked for the front cover of Sports Illustrated, for whom Leifer worked, and only decades later pulled from the archives and given its due. JW

By Patrick B Kraemer

It required video slowed to one frame per 10,000th of a second – as well as a snafu involving the official timekeeper Omega – to decide that Michael Phelps (left) had beaten Serbian Milorad Cavic (right) in the final of 100m butterfly at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Also capturing the race’s dramatic last gasps, as Phelps windmills desperately to outtouch Cavic’s glide to the wall, was Patrick Kraemer, a Swiss former swimmer who specialises in underwater photography for aquatic sports. The victory meant the American equalled Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record of seven golds in a single games – an eighth soon followed. “I saw it slowed down and it’s almost too close to see,” said a triumphant Phelps. LR

By Tony Duffy

The indelible image of Bob Beamon’s 8.9m “leap of the century” at the