Champions will not back down

For almost six years in the early to mid-1980s, Jahangir Khan was unbeatable, as far apart from his sport’s rivals as Tiger Woods or Michael Schumacher were at the peak of their careers.

The Pashtun from Pakistan played 555 games of squash over a five year, eight month period from 1981 to 1986 and won them all until, finally, Ross Norman of New Zealand took him down in the final of the World Open in Toulouse.

Norman had suffered more than his fair share of defeats by the world number one from Pakistan but he had vowed that one day Khan would leave the door ever so slightly ajar and he would slip through it.