Ten of the Best Sporting Moments from 2008

It was a cracker of a year for sport in 2008. As an Olympic year, you would expect quite a few great sports stories, but the Olympics were almost a minor player in a year that had everything. Football, tennis, basketball, golf, cricket, even Formula One, all produced memorable results that will be discussed for years to come.

In an effort that is doomed to failure, here is my list of the big sports moments of 2008.

10. The Death of the Gentleman’s Game

Australia and India squared off in one of the most mean-spirited and nasty games of cricket ever played. Claims of cheating, racism, and verbal abuse tarnished what was actually a thrilling game of cricket.

Quite unfairly, the Aussies were saddled with most of the blame. The ramifications of that game will overshadow Australia–India competition for years to come. To add insult to injury, the Aussies have also lost their coveted position at the top of the ICC rankings.

9. Spain Finally Gets It Right

The perennial bridesmaid of world football, Spain, finally broke through to win Euro 2008, beating Germany 1-0 in the final. It had been 44 years since the Spaniards had clinched a piece of major silverware and it was well deserved. It was a refreshing change from the set-piece specialists that usually dominate these tournaments, with attacking flair and risk-taking for once being rewarded.

8. Indian Premier League

Whether you love Twenty20 cricket or not, the simple truth is that we can no longer ignore it. Following the success of the inaugural T20 World Cup, Lalit Modi and his BCCI pals decided create the Indian Premier League. The teams are owned by movie stars and industry magnates and the players bought in auctions like prize heifers. It is gauche, it is gaudy, and it is absolutely fabulous entertainment.

7. Celtics Beat Lakers in NBA Finals

One of sport’s great rivalries was revisited for the 11th time in the finals when the two most successful teams in NBA history faced off. The Celtics took the finals series 4-2 and extended their domination over the Lakers in finals to 9-2. Even the regular season MVP, the great Kobe Bryant, couldn’t carry the Lakers to victory.

6. Matthew Mitcham’s Dive into the Record Books

One of the great moments of the Beijing Olympics will have passed unnoticed by most of the world, but Matthew Mitcham pulled off the highest-scoring individual dive in Olympic history.

Mitcham stole the gold medal from Chinese diver Zhou Luxin and prevented China from scoring a clean sweep of the diving disciplines. Mitcham went into the final dive a staggering 34 points behind Zhou, but performed a near perfect and ridiculously difficult dive to beat him by five points.

5. Patriots Fall at the Final Hurdle

Any team that goes through a season up to a grand final undefeated has every reason to be supremely confident. It also has every reason to be extremely nervous, because to lose the final game undoes all of the work that had gone before.

The Pats learned this lesson the hard way, sensationally falling over in Super Bowl XLII and allowing the NY Giants to steal the game with a last minute touchdown pass from MVP Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress. The Pats became the first team to end the season with an 18-1 record and not win the Super Bowl.

4. Beware the One-Legged Tiger

It’s often said about Tiger Woods that he’s so good that he beat most of his opponents standing on one leg. It’s a silly boast, but it turns out that it’s also true as Tiger proved to the world in the 2008 US Open. Not only did he play four rounds extremely hampered by a knee injury, he had to turn up again for the playoff round the next day. He won, of course.

3. Rafa and Roger—Take Two

After thrashing the incomparable Roger Federer in the final of the French Open, everyone assumed that the tables would be turned on Spanish upstart Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon.

The highly anticipated clash eventuated in the final and looked to be heading for a repeat of the French humiliation for Federer at two sets down, but he came back and between them they played one of the great Wimbledon finals—John McEnroe called it the best he had seen—and left us with a changing of the guard at the top of men’s tennis.

2. Phelps Does a Spitz and Then Some

Michael Phelps went into the Beijing Games with some pretty big expectations resting on his shoulders. Quite unfairly, for this phenomenal athlete, anything less than eight gold medals would have been a failure. Phelps didn’t disappoint and delivered the best individual performance ever seen at an Olympic Games, eclipsing Mark Spitz’s remarkable effort from Munich in 1972.

1. Usain Bolts away from the Competition

For me, the standout performance of the year was Usain Bolt’s 100 metre and 200 metre victories at this year’s Olympics. His 100m time of 9.69 shattered the old world record and he did it while hamming it up to the crowd with 15 metres to run.

He could have gone faster! To back that up by lowering Michael Johnson’s long standing record of 19.32 seconds while running into the wind was THE highlight of the year. Oh, and he also won gold in the 4 x 100m relay too.

There were a number of other highlights that are worthy of mention. The Paralympics were inspirational, showcasing all that is good about sport. The Olympics in general were a remarkable feat that hopefully moved forward the evolution of China towards openness.

My personal favourite was Greg Norman’s return to the limelight by leading the British Open after three rounds and exploding in the final round, in a way that only the Shark can manage—vintage stuff.

So that was 2008; a brilliant year for sport. Roll on 2009.