Fastest 1500m (metric mile) time – This belongs to Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco who ran the distance in 3 minutes 26.00 seconds in Rome in 1998. His average speed was therefore 16.3 mph (26.2 kph).

Boxing

Shortest knock out time – In 1946, in Lewiston, Maine, Aurele ‘Al’ Couture knocked out Ralph Walton in a record (though somewhat debateable) 10½ seconds including the referee’s count.

Longest bout time – The longest recorded bout took place in New Orleans in 1893 between Andy Bowen and Jack Burke. It lasted into 111 rounds at which point both boxers declined to come out of their corners. Each round was three minutes so this was, scarily, about 5½ hours of boxing time – see http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/bowen-andy.htm for more detail.

Fastest century time – Shahid Afridi of Pakistan holds this record. He took just 37 balls to reach 102 against Sri Lanka in Nairobi in 1996 - see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yFiOyyKnWvU for some of this amazing innings.

Fastest bowling time – Jeff ‘Thommo’ Thomson has a good claim to this. He was measured to have achieved almost 100 mph (161 kph) which would mean a batsman having under four tenths of a second between the ball leaving the bowler’s hand and having to deal with it (assuming crease to crease travel) – see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=puu9GwiyqNM for ‘Thommo’ in action.

Fastest goal time – This is held, to an extent officially (according to the English FA) by Mark Burrows who shot and scored in 2.8 seconds from the kick-off for Cowes Sports Reserves against Eastleigh Reserves at Eastleigh, near Southampton, England, in April 2004. For a more verifiable, pretty much equivalent time, see the video clip - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d5e4xyufRFs - of Frederico Chaves Guedes’ 3.17 second goal in Brazil in 2008.

Fastest sending-off time – David Pratt of Chippenham Town (England) appears to have the dubious honour of holding the fastest sending-off time record for lunging at a Bashley player just 3 seconds into an English Southern Premier League game in December 2008.

Fastest Everest ascent time – This disputed but upheld time of 8 hours 10 minutes from base camp to summit (with oxygen) was achieved by Pemba Dorje Sherpa in 2004. The 11,443 feet (3,448 metre) vertical distance was thereby achieved at an average rate of 0.4 feet per second (0.12 m/s).

Fastest 2000m skull time – This 6 minute 35.40 second time was rowed by New Zealander, Mahe Drysdale, at Eton in 2006. This is equivalent to a speed of 11.3 mph (18.2 kph).

Fastest 2000m eight time – This 5 minute 19.85 second time was achieved by the American crew in the 2004 Athens Olympic final. This is equivalent to a speed of 14.0 mph (22.5 kph).

Fastest rugby union try time – This looks to be down to Steve Munford of Sutton and Epsom RFC, Surrey, England, who in April 2008 scored a try in 7.5 seconds from the start of the match – see www.rfu.com.

Fastest rugby league try time – Not far behind is Lee Jackson’s 9 second try for Hull FC (England) against Sheffield Eagles in the Yorkshire Cup semi-final in 1992 and a Wentworthville Magpies (Sydney, Australia) player in a similar time in a match against Newtown Jets in 2009 – see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiF8Zo3S8f8.

Longest match and game time – These records were both set in the 1983 Chichester (England) Festival Final when Pakistan’s Jahangir Kahn beat Egypt’s Gamal Awad 9-10, 9-5, 9-7, 9-2 in a match which lasted 2 hours, 46 minutes. The first game lasted a record 1 hour, 11 minutes with Awad winning 10-9 (from 1-8 down).

Fastest 100m time (long course - 50m) – This was achieved in 47.05 seconds (freestyle) by Eamon Sullivan of Australia at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It is equivalent to a speed of 4.8 mph (7.7 kph) - see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tmeIYsLWyDA.

Fastest 1500m time – This 14 minute, 34.56 second time has lasted a while. It was swum by Grant Hackett of Australia at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. It is equivalent to a speed of 2.6 mph (4.21 kph).

Fastest serving time – This is realistically credited to Andy Roddick who beat his previous record of 153 mph with a 155 mph (249 kph) serve in a Davis Cup match against Belarus in 2004. This speed meant the receiving player had just over one third of a second to play the ball (assuming baseline to baseline travel) – see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv5J8IcWwfU.

Longest match time – For proper tennis matches (high level, sensible rules), Wimbledon 2010 saw the longest tennis match in the history of the sport between American tennis player John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut. The record-breaking contest lasted for a total of 11 hours and five minutes - a punishing 665 minutes. The battle concluded after play stretched over three days. The 6ft 9in Isner won 3 sets to 2, with the last set being won with after a staggering total of 70 games to 68.