13 December: The Court of Arbitration for Sport bans AmericanTim Montgomery for two years in a case stemming from his involvement with the controversial "sports nutrition" center BALCO. Although Montgomery never tested positive for drugs, CAS found the circumstantial evidence against him overwhelming. It also struck all his results from 2001 on from the books, including a then world-record time of 9.78.
**This race; however, wasn't without controversy as only 6 of the 20 drivers participated. Because of safety issues with the tires, the Michelin-shod teams pulled out to the utter disappointment of the fans.
**Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to lead a lap in the Indianapolis 500. She wins the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year award after finishing fourth, the highest finishing position by a woman in the race's history.
*The overall and LMP1 class victores were won by JJ Lehto, Marco Werner, and Tom Kristensen in the #3 Champion Racing AudiR8. Kristensen becomes the only driver to have won 7 overall victories at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
*The LMP2 class was won by Thomas Erdos, Mike Newton, and Warren Hughes in the #25 RML LolaMG.
The San Antonio Spurs win their third NBA title in the past seven years, defeating the Detroit Pistons in the first seven-game NBA Finals in eleven years. Tim Duncan was named NBA Finals MVP for the third time in his career. Only three others have accomplished this feat. (Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O'Neal. The match-up between the Spurs and Pistons, though panned by the media and low-rated, is the first NBA Finals to match the last two NBA champions in over a decade.
Women's Division I: Baylor defeats Michigan State 84-62 in the final. It is the first Women's National Title game in several years to not involve either Tennessee or UConn. Baylor coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson becomes the first woman to win NCAA Division I basketball titles as a player and coach.
May 7 - Diego Corrales defeats Jose Luis Castillo by 10th round knockout, for the WBO-WBC lightweight title unification. Both men were exchanging a brutal amount of punishment throughout the fight, before a dramatic tenth round in which Corrales scored a TKO after getting knocked down twice. The fight was highly regarded as one of the greatest of all-time and won Ring Magazine fight of the year.
January 10 - The ICC World XI (344 for 8) beat the ACC Asian XI (232) by 112 runs to win the first of two scheduled one-day internationals for the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal; the second was never played. It is the first time an ODI has been played that has not been between two cricketing nations.
16-19 June: U.S. Open - Michael Campbell came from behind in the fourth round to win his first major with an even par score. He was the first New Zealander to win a major since Bob Charles won the British Open in 1963.
June: U.S. Women's Open - Birdie Kim holes a 30-yard sand shot on the 72nd hole to set the stage for a two-shot win over teenage amateurs Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang. This was the first LPGA win for the previously little-known Korean.
20 March: Vijay Singh's tied second place finish at the Bay Hill Invitational restores him to Number 1 after just two weeks.
22 May: Vijay Singh returns to Number 1. Neither he nor Woods played the previous weekend, but Singh lost fewer old points than did Woods, enabling him to surpass Woods.
13 June: Woods and Singh exchange places atop the World Rankings once again.
February 16 - The 2004-05 NHL season was canceled by league commissioner Gary Bettman. This was the first time that a North American professional sports league had to cancel a season due to a labor dispute.
Asashoryu Akinori wins all six basho (tournament) in 2005 (a new record) and wins eighty-four bouts (out of ninety) setting a new record for victories in a single year. His seventh straight basho championship is also a new record.
