It’s been an interesting year in sports! Here are eight sporting moments that stirred the soul in 2008, and eight more that we’d rather forget.
SO NEAR – AGAIN – FOR CADEL
Cadel Evans is the only Australian to stand on the podium at the end of the Tour de France. Now he’s done it twice, finishing second to a Spaniard in each of the past two years. The margin this time was 58 seconds, which seems nothing in the context of three weeks of gut-busting effort through the mountains, fields and villages of rural France. But such are the team tactics in this arcane but compelling event that Evans had no real chance of making up sufficient ground on Carlos Sastre in the final couple of stages. “To come in two times second is a bit bitter,” Evans said, even before embarking on the last stage into Paris. He’d been snappy throughout much of the race, his mood not helped by a ninth-stage crash that left him bruised and weak, nor by the superior firepower in Sastre’s CSC team that enabled them to usher their man safely to the finish. With seven-time champion Lance Armstrong and 2007 winner Alberto Contador returning in 2009, Evans knows he may have missed his best chance of winning the race.
SHARK TURNS THE DIALS ON TIME MACHINE
It was like dozing off on the couch and waking up in 1986. You blinked and rubbed your eyes in disbelief. There was the Shark, blond mane streaming behind him, striding down the fairways at Royal Birkdale with his name atop the British Open leaderboard. The wind howling in off the Irish Sea had blown away many of the game’s modern heroes, but not Greg Norman. The 53-year-old took a leave pass from his honeymoon with Chris Evert and, amazingly enough, led after the second round and again after the third. With nine holes to play he was still in front, but it was then that reality bit. Padraig Harrington ground out a superb closing nine and won handsomely. Norman would up in a tie for third. The dream was over.
BUDDY SOARS TO 100
Lance “Buddy” Franklin was one of the heroes for Hawthorn as they upset red-hot favourites Geelong to win the AFL grand final in front of more than 100,000 people. Twelve years earlier, Hawthorn had only just avoided a merger with Melbourne. The most memorable game of the year, however, was Hawthorn’s round-22 matchup with Carlton, when Franklin became the first Aboriginal player to kick 100 goals in a season. At the other end, Carlton spearhead Brendan Fevola went agonisingly close to joining him in the ton-up club. Needing eight goals to reach triple figures, Fevola was held goalless until halftime. But he cut loose with seven majors that took him to the brink. Amid almost unbearable tension his teammates did everything they could to get the ball to him but when the final siren sounded, Fevola became the the first player in league history to finish a season stranded on 99 goals.
BEAVER GOES OUT WITH A BANG
The NRL grand final was over as a contest. With 10 minutes or so remaining, the only thing that seemed to matter to the delirious Manly fans was getting Steve Menzies over the tryline just one more time. On went the daggy headgear, and back out onto the field went “Beaver”, for the last time in his 349-match NRL career. By this time the Sea Eagles were so in the zone, and the Storm so demoralised, that anything seemed possible. And so it proved. Bounding downfield on 34-year-old legs, Menzies seized on a pass from halfback Matt Orford, then flicked it out to left winger Michael Robertson, who had already bagged a hat-trick of tries. Robertson ran out of room, hooked the ball back inside, and there was Beaver, clutching it above his head, wheeling on a sixpence, and dotting it down for his 180th career try. If one moment defined Manly’s 40-0 victory – the biggest in any premiership decider – this was it. It was also the defining moment of Menzies’ footballing life.
THE HEIGHT OF OLYMPIC ACHIEVEMENT
In the history of Citius, Altius, Fortius no one has done the altius bit quite like Steve Hooker. With a ginger shrubbery of hair just about held in place by a headband, he hoisted himself over a bar suspended 5.96 metres in the Chinese sky, the highest anyone has jumped in an Olympic event. Hooker already had the gold medal in his keeping after a heart-stopping series of vaults in which he missed four heights twice before clearing the bar on his third and final attempt. It was his country’s first male track and field Olympic gold since Ralph Doubell in the 800m in Mexico City 40 years earlier. Then came the record attempt. Watched from the stands by Sergei Bubka, the godfather of pole-vaulters, Hooker accelerated down the runway, planted his pole and soared over the bar, clenching his fists in triumph on the long fall back to earth.
NO DOWN SIDE
What Steve Hooker did on the way up, Matthew Mitcham did on the way down. Standing on a platform even higher than the bar Hooker had cleared the previous night, Mitcham seemed in no position to prevent a Chinese clean sweep of all eight diving gold medals. He trailed Zhou Luxin by 32.50 points in the 10m platform final, with just one dive remaining. His response was to choose the hardest dive in the book – a back two and a half somersault with two and a half twists. He absolutely nailed it. Four of the judges gave him perfect 10s, and a score of 112.10 points made it the greatest dive in Olympic history. It put him almost five points clear of Zhou and gave Australia its 14th and final gold medal of the Olympics. The astonished Chinese hailed Mitcham as one of the superstars of the Games.
BART’S TEARY DOZEN
It was a Melbourne Cup that was more about the man than it was about the horse. Bart Cummings had to brush tears out of his 80-year-old eyes after Viewed gave him an astonishing 12th victory in the great race. Not that he admitted to crying. “Hayfever”, Cummings said as he prepared to receive the three-handled loving cup he had first hoisted for Light Fingers 43 years earlier. Once again Cummings proved his almost mystical ability to prepare a horse to run two miles at Flemington on the first Tuesday in November. Among those in awe of him were the world’s leading trainer Aidan O’Brien, who saddled three in the race, including Septimus, rated the world’s best stayer. O’Brien’s horses tried to run the locals off their feet and finished 18th (Septimus), 20th (Allessandro Volta) and 21st (Honolulu). Cummings, meanwhile, celebrated with his good friend and fellow octogenarian Dato Tan Chin Nam, who has owned four of Bart’s 12 winners. Typically, Cummings was already turning his mind to the next Melbourne Cup. “There’s a baker’s dozen coming. Always look ahead, boys,” he said.
RUBBING THEIR NOSES IN IT
The Wallaby forwards were the butt of a thousand jokes when they arrived in London to face England at Fortress Twickenham. The English forwards had been shoving them around in the set pieces for years, and this was going to be no exception. Soon, however, it became apparent that all was not as anticipated. Had the forwards swapped uniforms before they ran on? Suddenly it was the yellow jerseys of the Wallabies doing all the pushing and shoving, and the white jerseys of England getting dumped in the mud. Seizing their chance, the Wallabies took a strike against the head, and then broke England’s scrum open like a ripe watermelon. For Australian rugby supporters it was a sweet, sweet sight, and went a long way to erasing the heartache of the 2003 World Cup final and the quarter-final in Marseilles in 2007.
AND THE ONES WE’D RATHER FORGET
+ HARBHAJAN SINGH allegedly calling ANDREW SYMONDS a “monkey” during the acrimonious Sydney Test. The Indians threatened to take their bats and go home before a bungled ICC investigation ended with Harbhajan being convicted on a lesser charge of abuse.
+ NBL chief executive CHUCK HARMISON admitting that NBL games were getting outrated by Gilligan’s Island re-runs, not long before the demise of the SYDNEY KINGS and BRISBANE BULLETS, two of the most powerful clubs in a once robust league.
+ Reigning champion NATHAN ALLEN being the star turn at the media launch for the 2008 Stawell Gift and promptly getting arrested for importing anabolic steroids. The police were in the room for the press conference.
+ NICK D’ARCY celebrating his selection for the Beijing Olympics by hitting former swimmer Simon Cowley hard enough to break multiple bones in his face. D’Arcy was sacked from the Olympic team. He later pleaded guilty to assault and is back swimming competitively while he awaits sentence.
+ GREG NORMAN’S closing holes in the British Open when he led with nine to play. All the old nightmares swam back to haunt us.
+ Unbackable favourite LEISEL JONES forgetting to breathe in the final lap of the 200m breaststroke final in Beijing. Jones had previously swum three seconds faster than anyone else in the field, but had to settle for silver.
+ RICKY PONTING reverting to part-time bowlers when Australia had a chance of forcing victory in the fourth Test in Nagpur and thus hanging on to the Border Gavaskar Trophy. India got off the hook and sealed a 2-0 series win.
+ BILLY SLATER throwing a suicidal pass near his own line late in the second half of the rugby league World Cup final. The ball bounced up into the grateful arms of Benji Marshall and the resulting try effectively gifted the title to the jubilant Kiwis.
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