2013 Review

To call this a review makes it sound too authoritative.

Instead here’s a highly personal, selective, subjective Hornby-style list of my favourite sporting events I saw live this year, in chronological order:

1. Man U 1 Real Madrid  2, Uefa Champions League round of 16. Modric.

2. Barcelona 4 Milan 0, UCL round of 16. Messi.

3. Wales v England, 6 Nations rugby. A close contest was expected, but Wales ran away with it in the end

4. Uefa Champions League final (Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund) Robben wins a big final

5. Froch v Kessler super-middle world title. A ring war.

6. Djokovic v Nadal, French Open semi-final. If Nole hadn’t fouled the net…

7. Murray v Verdasco, Wimbledon QF. Comeback

8. Sabine Lisicki v Agnieska Radwanska, Wimbledon SF. Great variety with net play, lobs, drop shots & 9-7 in the final set.

9. Djokovic v del Potro, Wimbledon SF. Best match of the tournament.

10. Wimbledon Final, Murray v Djokovic. The final game alone, the tension was nearly unbearable.

11. Mo Farah’s last lap sprint, 10k final, World Championships

12. San Francisco 49ers 42 Jacksonville Jaguars 10

13. Nadal v Federer, SF, ATP World Tour Finals. I was courtside for the two GOAT contenders.

14. Man City 6 Arsenal 3. My team got whopped, but in a cracking game

Maturing with Age

Modern advances in conditioning, diet, and training methods mean some athletes can now compete at the top level well into their thirties & beyond.

I’ve posted on this before, thought it was quite recently, but a trawl of the archive shows it was a 2008 vintage.

http://ronstersramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/no-country-for-old-men.html

Anyway, that post used boxers as an example of athletes disproving  the ‘over 30’ rule. This month  Floyd Mayweather put on another exhibition, schooling  Canelo Alvarez. Mayweather,  36, conceded 13 years to his previous unbeaten opponent, plus 15 pounds on fight night, but was far too slick for the Mexican.

Chris Horner, 41, was the oldest starter of the Vuelta but became the oldest man ever to win a cycling Grand Tour. The previous record for oldest tour winner was 36.

There were thrilling sprint finishes in two endurance events, the Great North Run (Bekele v Farah) & the deciding event of the men’s Triathlon world series (Gomez v J Brownlee).

Rafa Nadal continued his brilliant, unbeaten hard court form this year, winning his second US Open title.

Performance of the Month

Horner.

Honourable mention:

Wilson Kipsang set a new world best today for the marathon, he completed Berlin in 2:03:23

Mo at the Double

There were several stand-out performances at the World Athletics championships. There was Bolt, of course, who did the sprint treble (100, 200m, 4x1 relay) again. Tirunesh Dibaba continued her record of having never lost a competitive 10k race, & is now 11 for 11. The devastating kick finish is now a Mo Farah trademark, and he used it twice as he had to dig deep  to complete the 5 & 10k double. Bekele is the only other man to have done the ‘double double’ at both the Olympics & worlds.

Rafa Nadal’s awesome form continues. He won two Masters titles on hard courts in August, including on the fast courts of Cincinnati, which is supposed to be his weakest surface. His only blip has been Wimbledon, with a staggering 11 finals & nine titles this year.

Performance of the Month

Mo Farah.

Honourable mentions:
Nadal.
Katie Ledecky , successor to Becky Adlington as the long-distance swimming queen. She set 2 world records and won 4 golds at the worlds.

MF Simply Brilliant

A brief, post-Olympic, August round-up.

Performance of the Month

Mo Farah (see last blog).

Honourable mentions:
The South African Test cricket team. Their series win over England meant they deposed them as the world no. 1 Test side.
Rory McIlroy, who won the US PGA by eight shots, his 2nd major at a younger age than Tiger Woods achieved it.
Laura Robson, who beat two former Slam champions, Clijsters & Li Na, to become the 1st British woman since Sam Smith in '98 to reach the fourth round of a Slam. 

As Good As It Gets

Olympics Review

Team GB had done exceptionally well in Beijing, London 2012 was even better.

Some Brits underperformed, but mostly they overperformed. The home crowd roar inspired them to ignore burning lungs, tired legs, aches & pains.

What a turnaround from Atlanta 96 where GB won just one gold (plus eight silver & six bronze). I expect GB to struggle to match that medal haul in the future, & finish around 5-6^th in the medal table in Rio.

A highly personal idiosyncratic choice of fave moments:

The first Saturday night athletics, natch.

Gemma Gibbons, who belied her lowly world ranking (42) to win silver in the judo. She mouthed ‘I love you mum’ to the skies, in memory of her late mother, after her exhausting, golden score victory in the semi-final over the world champion.

David Rudisha, who had declared before the 800 metres final he intended to break the world record, & did exactly that, leading from gun to tape with a blistering run.

The women’s triathlon ending in a sprint finish.

The exuberant, joyful celebrations of Jade Jones when she won taekwondo goal.

Andy Murray finally winning a best of five sets final, & doing it against Federer. In the gold medal match his level of play & focus was exceptional, and made the great man look ordinary.

Performance of the Games

So many exceptional performances to choose from, including the usual suspects such as Bolt & Phelps. I’ll go for Mo Farah in the 5000 metres. Most of the opposition were fresh, not having done the 10k. In the home straight it seemed the Kenyan was catching, but Farah found another gear, then it seemed the Ethiopian Gebremeskel was gaining on him, again he found the strength to kick clear.

Premier League Predictions

Man City to regain title, but by a more comfortable margin this time-5 points. United to be the closest challengers, pushed closely by Chelsea.

August Review

Some standout performances from the World Athletics Champs I particularly enjoyed:
Kirani James & David Rudisha in the 400 & 800 m respectively. James ran down the more fancied American Merritt in the final straight, Rudisha led from gun to tape.The Brits: Mo Farah’s gold & silver in the 5 & 10k, Dai Greene (G in 400 m H ). Hannah England’s unexpected silver in the 1500 m marks her out as a great prospect for 2012. Both Ennis & Idowu expressed their disappointment with silver medals, but will be spurred on to go one better at London 2012.
Bolt’s DQ from the 100 m is a strong argument for the current one false start DQ rule, brought in to suit TV scheduling, to be changed. As the rule stands you can be eliminated for only twitching in the blocks. The idea that the Olympic final could be run potentially without the sport's biggest star on the start line is madness to me. The IAAF need a re-think.


Performance of the month: the England test cricket team reaching the no.1 spot in the world rankings with a 4-0 series sweep of (previous no.1 team) India.