Sports-On this day... May 3
May 1 (Reuters) - ON THIS DAY -- MAY 3
May 3, 1998
SOCCER - Arsenal's Ian Wright, Marc Overmars, Martin Keown & Dennis Bergkamp celebrate after the club sealed the Premier League title with two games to spare following a 4-0 win over Everton at Highbury.
In Arsene Wenger's first full season in charge of Arsenal, the London side finished top of the standings, eventually finishing the season a point ahead of Manchester United.
Bergkamp was their top league scorer with 16 goals while Overmars and Wright contributed 12 and 10 respectively.
May 3, 2003
SOCCER - Manchester United's David Beckham celebrates after scoring their first goal in a 4-1 Premier League victory over Charlton Athletic before Ruud van Nistelrooy grabbed a superb hat-trick.
Victory meant that leaders United secured their eighth league championship in 11 seasons after defending champions Arsenal were beaten the following day.
An emotional Beckham waved to home supporters at Old Trafford after the game before he left his boyhood club for Spanish giants Real Madrid in July that year.
May 3, 2009
TENNIS - Spaniard Rafa Nadal plays a shot to Serb Novak Djokovic during the final of the Rome Masters. World number one Nadal overcame stubborn early resistance from defending champion Djokovic to claim the crown with an entertaining 7-6 6-2 win.
It was Nadal's fifth and final title that year, following successes in Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Indian Wells and the Australian Open.
His most shocking failure came at Roland Garros later that month, where he lost to Swede Robin Soderling in the fourth round -- an event that he had won in the previous four years.
May 3, 2009
CYCLING - Rabobank's team rider Oscar Freire of Spain celebrates winning the fifth and final stage of the Tour de Romandie cycling race in Geneva.
Former triple world champion Freire, who also won the second stage as he recorded his first victories of the year, held off American Tyler Farrar and compatriot Koldo Fernandez in the final sprint.
Liquigas' Roman Kreuziger topped the overall standings to become the first and only rider from the Czech Republic to win the race.
May 3, 2012
SOCCER - Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas puts the team's flag around the neck of the Cibeles statue in central Madrid after they clinched their 32nd La Liga crown and first in four years.
Real set a Liga record for most goals in a season with 121 in 38 games, Cristiano Ronaldo leading the way with 46.
With 32 wins and four draws, Real also became the first team to reach 100 points -- a record equalled by Barcelona in 2012-13.
May 3, 2014
SOCCER - Napoli's Marek Hamsik holds aloft the Coppa Italia trophy as he celebrates with his team mates after they beat Fiorentina at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
Lorenzo Insigne scored twice in the first half before Dries Mertens added a third as Napoli won 3-1 despite going down to 10 men when Gokhan Inler was sent off after the break.
It was the fifth time Napoli had won the Cup and the second time they lifted the trophy in three years after beating Juventus in the 2012 final.
May 3, 2015
MOTOGP - Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo leads Honda rival and fellow Spaniard Marc Marquez at the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez de la Frontera, southern Spain.
Lorenzo claimed his first MotoGP victory of the season with a pole-to-flag win ahead of reigning world champion Marquez.
He trailed team mate Valentino Rossi for much of the season but pipped the Italian by five points to clinch his fifth world title overall.
May 3, 2016
SOCCER - Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri leaves the San Carlo restaurant amid wild celebrations from fans a day after the club sealed a historic Premier League title victory.
The Foxes upset 5,000-1 odds to claim their maiden top-flight title with Italian Ranieri at the helm, eventually winning the league by 10 points.
To commemorate the title triumph, Ranieri also invited the famous Italian singer Andrea Bocelli to serenade the supporters at their final home game.
May 3, 2016
OLYMPICS - A pilot waves a Brazilian national flag during the arrival of the Olympic flame in Brasilia for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
The Olympic torch, lit in Greece, started its relay in Brasilia on May 3 and ended at Rio's Maracana Stadium on Aug. 5.
Former tennis world number one Gustavo Kuerten, ex-basketball player Hortencia Marcari and former marathon runner Vanderlei de Lima ran with the flame inside the stadium with the latter lighting the cauldron.
May 3, 2019
ATHLETICS - South Africa's Caster Semenya wins the women's 800 metres at the Diamond League in Doha, Qatar two days after losing an appeal over controversial rules limiting testosterone levels in female athletes.
Semenya set a meet record with a time of one minute 54.98 seconds and the Olympic 800 metres champion confirmed she had no plans to take medication to lower her testosterone levels to comply with new rules that would come into effect on May 8.
"Since I have been in sport I have never really felt very supported, I've never felt recognised mostly by women," she said in August after the Swiss Federal Tribunal reversed a ruling that temporarily lifted the testosterone regulations. (Compiled by Rohith Nair and Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
