Here are my awards for the best and worst in sport in 2012. The year saw doping scandals, mountains of runs, world records, and somehow managed to fit the Euro football championships in, as well as an Olympics.
Nominations for best sportsperson:
Usian Bolt – Back to back 100 and 200m Olympic gold medals. Holds a world record that will stand for some time yet. Let himself down by wanting to tell everyone how great he was. Went from genius to jerk very quickly.
Michael Phelps – Greatest Olympian ever without a doubt and in the top 10 sportspeople of all time at his third Olympics in a row.
Sally Pearson – Carried the nation on her shoulders and produced a brilliant gold medal in the 110m hurdles.
Lionel Messi – Broke the long standing record for most goals in a calendar year. Continues to play football at a level not seen before. Greatest footballer of all time. Better than Pele and Maradona and more humble than Christiano Ronaldo.
Michael Clarke – Brilliant year with the bat. Just kept on scoring runs. Captaincy proved good, though losing to South Africa in Perth was a disappointment.
Winner: Sally Pearson
Nominations for worst sportsperson:
Lance Armstrong – It was of no surprise that a bloke who had won seven straight tour de France races was up to his eyeballs on drugs.
The sport has been a disgrace and a farce for a long time. How many clean winners have there been in the last 20 years? Maybe one or two.
Armstrong gave it away when his answer became ‘I have never failed a drug test’, which is no different to a kid saying ‘I have never been caught for not doing my homework’.
Quade Cooper – More interested in Twitter than playing sport. Cooper is wasting his obvious talent with a bad attitude.
Luis Suarez – Biggest grub in sport. Even if he is the leading goal scorer this season I wouldn’t want him at Everton.
Israel Folau – What was all of that about? You don’t play top level sport forever and this bloke showed how to perfectly waste two years of his career.
Winner: Lance Armstrong
Nominations for best sporting team:
Spanish national football team – Their play in the final of the Euro championships was a pleasure to watch. They have won three major tournaments in a row and no team in the last 30 years plays the beautiful flowing football they produce. They have quality right across the park.
Melbourne Storm – When they played for a season in 2010 for no competition points because they were caught cheating, they still put in. They could have slacked off but they didn’t. Their reward came two years later when they beat the Bulldogs convincingly in the 2012 grand final.
Western Sydney Wanderers – A team put together at the last minute but have played at a great level in every match this season. Even when they have lost, the effort has been excellent.
Their form by the end of the year was superb and they are entrenched in the top six of the A-League. Special mentions for the two central defenders Beauchamp and Toppo-Stanley who have been dependable rocks at the back. Must now be considered Sydney’s premier football team.
Sydney Swans – Brilliant performance in a memorable grand final
Winner: Western Sydney Wanderers
Nominations for worst sporting team:
Australian Olympic swimming team – Spent far too much time on Twitter, and none of our much hyped male swimmers managed to win gold.
Sydney FC – This club needs the biggest clean out in sport. It appears they are more worried about their image than anything meaningful on the field. As good as it has been for Australian football to have Alessandro Del Piero in the country, he is a big part of the problem.
He plays with the mindset he is better than his teammates, which will make it hard to get them to play like a team. Even if he is better, he needs to help get this unit playing together and for each other.
The fact he clearly took a shot versus Central Coast from a corner shows he is either in the country to show off or has no confidence in his teammates. This team has been a major embarrassment this season to date.
Parramatta Eels – Won the wooden spoon this season which was always going to happen given their recruitment for the last couple of years.
Chelsea FC – May have two major trophies in the cabinet from 2012 but to sack their manager before the end of the year was a disgrace. A club with no soul is meaningless and this club has proven to be nothing more than a big spending toy for owner Roman Abramovich
Winner: Sydney FC
nickyc
Guest
Michael Phelps, "the greatest Olympian ever"? A highly debatable statement, particularly given that he competes in a sport that is very far from globally competitive. How can you justify this claim? I don't know about the best team in 2012, but the outstanding team performance was the comeback victory by the European Ryder Cup team to inflict a seventh defeat on the USA in the last nine matches. From late on the second day they came from 4-10 down to win 14.5-13.5 on American soil in conditions that heavily favored the home team.
neily_b
Roar Rookie
Feel free to rubbish my opinion's like you have with the earlier ones, I don't really care but I do like that you gave the best team award here to the Wanderers, although I do think it's close between them and the Swans. I also think Phelps tarnished his "greatest Olympian" tag when he got caught up in his drug scandal. I like the suggestion of Anna Meares too and, although she didn't win a gold medal, Leisel Jones competing at five Olympics I think was a great achievement too.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
Well, guess what? I can say the same to you. Your opinion is completely wrong.
Beardan
Roar Guru
You are right, it is your opinion, and your opinion im afraid is wrong.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
Uh, I'm not wrong, it's my opinion. You do realize this is an opinion site? And that I'm just as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours?
Beardan
Roar Guru
wrong again im afraid
amazonfan
Roar Guru
I don't think I'm dreaming. Carl Lewis was arguably better.
Beardan
Roar Guru
pretty good suggestions amazon, especially with Meares but your dreaming if you think there has been a better Olympian than Phelps. Tell 'im his dreamin'...
Beardan
Roar Guru
Firstly dont judge a great player by the amount of goals he scores. Its a statistic that helps formulate an opinion but nothing more. And why are you picking the magical age of 22? Ronaldo is a class act but part of being great is playing with and for the team, where he fails big time. Messi cant be great every match. If he got shut out in one or two matches it only proves he is human. As for his failure with Argentina, if Maradona was the coach of Spain they would also go backwards. He has been dished up crap managers at international level. If you cant see Messi is brilliant you should watch the games more closely. Also being a systems player?? Maybe you should watch some of the brilliant individual goals he has scored/set up. If thats what a systems player is, then it would be great if Australia had more systems players.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
"Greatest Olympian ever without a doubt" I think there is tremendous doubt about that. As great as he is, and he's awesome, there's a couple of track & field athletes who can challenge him. Bolt (and I disagree that he's a jerk BTW) could soon challenge for the title. Also, where's Anna Meares? IMO she was the standout of the Olympics considering what she's come back from.
Jayden
Guest
Messi has scored a handball goal, your argument is invalid if you want to go with cheating as for why Messi is better Messi is a system player, evidenced by his inability to achieve with Argentina Best player for me is Ronaldo, for Brazil he scored 16 goals in 3 world cups And I was looking at this yesterday before Ronaldo got injured Pre-injury Ronaldo- 22 years old Total up until 22 Ronaldo 168 appearances 149 goals Messi 144 appearances 88 goals Ronaldo was set to be the greatest ever, came back from multiple injuries, playing in multiple systems and succeeded everywhere Messi can't succeed outside Barca, or any league with a tight defence AKA Chelsea, I remember Nesta shut him out by himself at 34 years of age a few years ago, Messi against Cafu or Maldini etc would see him found out immediately
Beardan
Roar Guru
your obviously a fan of hand balls and head butts. Give yourself a triple Wooblies fanfor suggesting Diego 'handball' Maradona, Zinedena 'headbutt' Zidane and Pele 'I love myself' were better than Messi.
WoobliesFan
Guest
raised eyebrows @ "Lionel Messi – ... Greatest footballer of all time. Better than Pele and Maradona and more humble than Christiano Ronaldo." Messi didnt exactly light up the world at the last WC.....that is by far the best guage for deeming football greatness.....Maradona, Pele...these guys shone when their team needed them most, esp. Maradona. Messi is not even as good as Zidane.
Beardan
Roar Guru
Yeah pretty good ones Jonny buy my care factor in Rugby is 0 so usually when i hear the words Rugby Yawnion i turn the TV volume down.
Jonny Boy Jnr
Guest
Good Article Beardan - however you'll be cursing yourself all week when you realise you forgot to include Robbie Deans, The Horrortahs and the Para-Wallabies. If I was offered $500 to go out and watch those teams i'd decline to play 'Connect Four' against myself with a warm stubbie.
Johnno
Guest
Man City for mine is still far and away the greatest , achievement in 2012, wow that was amazing, one of the best sports moments in the last 50 years.
Fred
Guest
Nice article. However I would go with the Swimming team as the worst team of the year. They expected so much but brought little home. I wouldnt go as far to say the Wanderers are Sydneys premier football team, that title belongs to the Swans ... and will do for least the next two years I reckon. Can't believe you didnt put a horse as best sportsperson!!