The Hart Attack and The Hart Breaker

He’s married to American singer Pink, but if that doesn’t deserve kudos on its own, American freestyle motocross rider Carey Hart takes the title of dux of cool school for his famous “Hart Attack” manoeuvre, which involves pulling a handstand while jumping on a motorbike.Not only was Hart the pioneer of this move, but he was also the first man to land a backflip on a motorbike, a move known as the “Hart Breaker”. Neither trick is recommended on long weekends when double demerit points are in effect.

The Fosbury Flop

In the old days of high jumping, everyone stuck with the scissors kick. But when American Dick Fosbury used his revolutionary curved backwards leap to win gold at Mexico City 1968, the jump he invented took his name and has been the de facto ever since.

The Bradbury

If ever you achieve success through no great skill of your own, you’ll have “done a Bradbury”, in the tradition of Australia’s famous short-track speedskating gold medallist, Steven Bradbury. There’s also a strong case for the use of Alexander Downer’s name, too.

The Mankad

Of all the ungentlemanly, unsportsmanlike acts in cricket, nothing beats the “Mankad”. The act takes its name from Mulvantrai Himmatlal “Vinoo” Mankad, who famously ran out Bill Brown in ’48, when the Aussie batsman was backing up too far at the non-striker’s end. Technically, the Mankad is a fair dinkum way of getting someone out, but anyone with a shred of decency avoids it.

The Axel Jump

Axels, double-axels and triple-axels are figure-skating jumps initiated with a forward rotation. They’re named after Norwegian Skater Axel Paulsen, not, as we suspected, BeverlyHills Cop character Axel Foley. That doesn’t mean you can’t perform them to a backdrop of Harold Faltermeyer music.

The Cruyff Turn

Take a football to your local park. Pretend you’re going to cross it, but instead tap the ball with your instep between your legs and continue goalwards, thus bamboozling your imaginary opposition. Congratulations, you’ve just completed the move named after legendary Dutch footballer Johann Cruyff.

The Falcon

Rugby league legend Mario Fenech is a level-headed fellow, on account of the number of times the ball thudded into his melon during his playing career. Today, in honour of the man known as the “Maltese Falcon”, any player donged on the scone is said to have done a Falcon.

The Leotard

Without leotards, we’d have to take gymnasts and practitioners of dance sports seriously, as no proper sportsperson competes in a silly pink piece of spandex. The garment takes its name from 19th century French acrobat Jules Leotard.

The McTwist

We interviewed snowboarder Torah Bright once and smiled politely as she told us about her penchant for “McTwists”, which, apparently, are “backside 540s while grabbing mute”, whatever that means. Point is, it’s a gnarly snowboarding and skate move named after American skater Mike McGill.

The Ruy Lopez chess opening

We don’t understand the mysterious code used to describe chess moves. But the following – 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 – is the classic Ruy Lopez opening, named after 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura. And he’s the last 16th-century priest you’ll read about in these pages.