| 17/1/2009 | Athanasia Tsoumeleka, the Greek 20km walk gold champion at the 2004 Athens Games, announces her retirement after being tested positive for banned blood-booster erythropoietin in a retesting of a sample she provided two days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics. On 16/4/2009, IAAF will ban her for two years. |
| 17/1/2009 | 58-year-old former footballer of Doxa Drimou and Iraklis FC fan, Sotiris Serafim, dies of heart attack at Kaftanzoglio Stadium, when at the end of the football match Iraklis-AEK he tried to keep Iraklis fans from participating in the riots that took place during that time |
| 17/1/2008 | Robert James “Bobby” Fisher dies from kidney failure at the age of 65 in his home in Reykjavik. The American chess grandmaster, who defeated Boris Spassky on 1/9/1972, had disappeared from the chess scene for about 30 years and after his arrest in Tokyo for anti-American and anti-Semitic statements, he moved to Iceland in 2005, where he stayed until his death. |
| 17/1/2005 | 76-year-old Italian Bud Spencer, known from the western movies with Terence Hill, receives the Caimano d’Oro award from the Italian Swimming Federation. One week later, he will be awarded swim and waterpolo dimplomas for his achievements in the early 50s among which he was the first Italian to swim the 100m in less than one minute (19/9/1950). |
| 17/1/2001 | St Etienne are stripped of 7 seven league points after fielding players with fake European Union passports. One of them, goalkeeper Maxim Levitsky, had Greek passport |
| 17/1/1998 | More than 100 fans of Gornik and GKS are wounded in violent clashes at Katowice |
| 17/1/1994 | The American sprinter, Helen Stephens, nicknamed Fulton Flash, dies at the age of 76. She had never lost a race in her life including the 1936 Berlin Olympics 100m race, where she beat Stanislawa Walasiewicz, later Stella Walsh. Right after that race, she was accussed to be a man, as her opponent was considered to be unbeatable. Ironically, 44 years later, on 4/12/1980, it was proved that Walsh was never a woman |
| 17/1/1981 | Loukas Panourgias, former player, president and executive of Panathinaikos dies |
| 17/1/1961 | The Cincinnati Royals’ 22-year-old rookie sensation, Oscar Robertson, became the youngest player to receive All-Star MVP honors. Robertson scored 23 points and handed out 14 assists in a 153-131 victory for the West at Syracuse. |
| 17/1/1959 | Cassius Marcellus Clay makes his boxing debut on his birthday. He fights against Benjamin Jacksonworld |
| 17/1/1952 | 18-year-old Nikos Xanthopoulos, the famous actor of the 60s and 70s, issues a sports identity card with AEK in high jump, triple jump and hurdles |
| 17/1/1948 | One of the largest football crowds (83.260) watch the match between Manchester United and Arsenal at Manchester's Maine Road |
| 17/1/1916 | The Professional Golfers Association is formed by 30 players in New York |
| 17/1/1773 | Captain James Cook becomes the first to cross the Artic Circle |
