As the year 2009 comes to its end, most of us would ask ourselves “Where did all the time go?” Most of us probably haven’t stuck to the New Year’s resolutions we made, while some may have (probably if the resolution was not to make any resolutions this year). But there are some people who we know made the most of the opportunities that came their way, those who’s achievements in the past 12 months will be remembered forever.
These aren’t ordinary men and women, for it takes something special to do what they have done. How often has a person run 100 metres under 9.6 seconds? How often does a team win 6 major tournaments in the World? Who else has won World Boxing titles in 7 different weight divisions? Who else has won 15 Grand Slam singles titles?
These sportspersons achieved what would be unimaginable for the most of us. But, the question is, who’s achievements lie above the others’? Who defined the year more than anyone else? TheSportsCampus.com takes a look at some of the greatest feats from 2009, and tries to pinpoint who stands out as our Sportsperson of the Year.
Athletics / Swimming – Men Men’s athletics this year has seen three quite stellar performers. Two are well storied and publicised while the third has never quite been accorded the recognition he deserves. Let’s start off with the Jamaican – we all know who I’m referring to here. The man persists with his love affair with world records and he produced two more of those along with a meet record at the World Championships in the Berlin World Championships in June. Once again, just as in Beijing, Usain Bolt ran away with the sprint crowns leaving his opponents in his wake, with no chance whatsoever of claiming victory. He also confirmed Jamaica as the premier force in the sprints anchoring the 4*100 run.
Our next contender also hoofs it on the track. The opposite end of the running spectrum, Kenenisa Bekele has dominated the longest of distances for the better part of this decade. Indeed in the last couple of big ticket events – the Olympics and the World Championships he has effectively reproduced what Usain Bolt produced, but over the longest distances – 5000 & 10000m. He too is the holder of Olympic & World Championship doubles but in his case over the long distances. And with the world records as well. Sadly though this stalwart of athletics & paragon of long distance running has not been given the publicity & public acknowledgment he so obviously deserves. He does though undoubtedly merit a chance to contend for the athletics nomination and TheSportsCampus does not deny him this.
Its just impossible to talk about athletes these days without a mention of Michael Phelps. Its a little difficult to improve on the incredible high of 8 golds, surely the zenith of all Olympian achievement, but Michael manages to produce performances that would for anyone else be a career high. At the 2009 World Aquatics Championships, he won a remarkable 6 medals including 5 golds setting 4 world records in the process. He lost his first race since time immemorial to Paul Biedermann in the 200m freestyle. But even that loss was tempered by the polyurethane swimsuit worn by the German. It’s a testament to Phelps’ remarkable abilities as a swimmer that totally unaided by this new technology he still did what he did in the pool. Truly a human fish and certainly not a drifting guppie at that.
So of all these illustrious performers who does get the final nod? Bekele unfortunately is the first to get eliminated since he did not actually break a world record this year while the others broke multiple. It’s a really close tussle between the runner & the swimmer but Usain Bolt probably edges it because of the sheer incredibility of his timings. The bloke doesn’t come from the Bubka school of breaking records bit by bit. He just sets off and absolutely annihilates them. 0.11 seconds under previous record times that he set just about a year prior to Berlin, in Beijing, has simply not happened before in the documented history of athletics. And for that Usain Bolt is TSC’s choice for Male Athlete of the Year and is nominated for the TSC Sportsperson of the Year.
Women Just like the men, the women too have a couple of extremely accomplished contenders for the Female Athlete of the Year – Blanka Vlasic & Yelena Isinbaeva. Both women have scaled the heights in their respective events this year taking gold in the World Championships. The latter of course has dominated her profession for several years now and is widely regarded as the greatest female pole vaulter in history. The former has the talent and the ability to scale the same peaks and is just about hitting her stride in getting there.
By setting two more world records – indoor & outdoor – Isinbaeva yet again wrote her name into the record books. This time her indoor record was even more special as it marked the first ever time that a female athlete has touched the 5m mark indoor. She later in the year also proceeded to set the world record of 5.06m outdoors. She also won all of the IAAF Golden League events to claim her share of the $1million prize money awarded for this feat. All this emphatically emphasized her domination of the sport inspite of not winning in the World Championships at Berlin.
Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic was the co-favourite with Belgian Tia Hellebaut for the High Jump at the Beijing Olympics but was denied the gold on the countback rule. In the next major event, this year at Berlin, she clearly showed everyone who was boss. She won the gold there clearing 2.04m and then less than 2 weeks later set a personal best of 2.08m which is a just a cm off the long standing world record of 2.09m set by Stefka Kostadinova. She also won 5 out of the six IAAF Golden meets losing the other again on a countback, which really does tell of a stellar year.
Once again just as with the men, it’s only splitting hairs that can decide which of these athletes did the better this year. Indoor & outdoor world records put Isinbaeva ahead and the sheer consistency of her performance through the year, override her shoddy showing in Berlin. For Blanka it was a case of so near yet so far. A centimetre higher and she could have been ‘it’. For now though TSC picks Yelena Isinbaeva for Female Athlete of the Year.
Boxing: Would anyone have believed a few years ago if someone told them that an Asian boxer will soon be rated as amongst the greats, along the likes of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis? Manny Pacquiao’s stock has risen tremendously since 2007, having beaten the biggest names around. Currently, he is professional boxing’s biggest draw, and not just for his fighting skills.
Pacquiao is famed for his genial behaviour. In a sport dominated by loud-mouthed contestants, Pacquiao’s demeanour makes him an instant hit with the fans. In fact, in 2008 the House of Representatives of Philippines issued a Resolution which recognized Pacquiao as “a people’s champ” – “for his achievements and in appreciation of the honour and inspiration he has been bringing…to the Filipino people.”
In 2009 Pacquiao won two bouts, against England’s Ricky Hatton, which gave him the IBO and Ring Magazine’s light welterweight titles. The bout was decided in only two rounds. Then, in November, Pacquiao picked up the WBO welterweight title after beating Miguel Cotto via a technical knockout. Boxing promoter Bob Arum said after the bout: Pacquiao is the greatest boxer I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen them all, including Ali, Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard.” Pacquiao is an easy pick as a nominee for TheSportsCampus.com’s Sportsperson of the Year award.
Cricket – Batsman: The standout performer of the year was undoubtedly Tillakaratne Dilshan, after some great performances all throughout the year. It’s sometimes shocking to believe that he is the same player that was dropped from the ODI squad only last year. Crucially, since his return he’s been used as an opener and that seems to have made all the difference for him. He scored 6 Test centuries in 2009, 4 ODI centuries, picked up the T20 World Cup Player of the Series award, and was the highest run-getter in International cricket with over 2,500 runs. And who can forget the Dilscoop, the trademark shot he used to great effect at the T20 World Cup where he’d scoop the ball over the wicketkeeper.
Bowlers: Mitchell Johnson, the LG ICC Cricketer of the Year, was the leading wicket-taker with 107 wickets in all forms of the game at an average of 29.00. A lot of his success goes down to his relatively new found ability to swing the ball into the right handed batsmen. He’s also more than useful with the bat, with a century and a 96 not out in the Tests series of Australia’s Tour of South Africa.
Football: Spanish La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup, and last weekend, the FIFA Club World Cup. Barcelona won everything that they possibly could in 2009, a feat that has never been emulated before, and may possibly be never achieved again (unless Barca do it themselves). And, more importantly, they picked up these trophies playing football the way it should be played, the reason it’s known as ‘The Beautiful Game’.
And at the heart of this Barcelona side lies a diminutive genius who goes by the name of Lionel Messi. It’s amazing to think that, as a child, his growth hormone deficiency problem may have prevented him from ever gracing the pitch, or at least be the player that he is. He made the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, and Wayne Rooney look ordinary. Players like Messi are rare, probably the once-in-a-generation kind. Diego Maradonna calls him his heir, but truly speaking, Messi could very well go onto become greater than Maradonna. Despite all the adulation, he doesn’t seem to have let it go to his head. Even opposing fans can’t help enjoying watching him play, even if it’s their side that he’s shredding apart. The Ballon d’Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year gala are all a waste of time. Everyone knows who the Best Football Player in the World is, and hence Messi is a nominee for TheSportsCampus.com’s Sportsperson of the Year award.
Formula One: A year that started so horribly could not have ended better for a certain Britton. As Honda pulled the plug on their F1 team as the global economic crunch hit the Japanese car manufacturers hard, Jenson Button didn’t even know whether or not he’d be racing at the onset of 2009. But once Ross Brawn had bought the team, and the season began, he couldn’t have scripted his fairy-tale story any better. He was always considered a good driver, but had never been in a competitive car before and had only picked up one Grand Prix win before amassing 6 of the opening 7 races.
Of the others who were left in the chasing pack, Sebastian Vettel was one to catch the eye. Nicknamed ‘Baby Schumi’, the German provided some great excitement with his attacking style of driving. Luckily for the fans, his consistency in the early and middle part of the season managed to stretch out the Driver’s Championship race till the penultimate Grand Prix in Brazil, despite Jenson Button’s early wins. Lewis Hamilton also showed glimpses of the form he was in the previous two years, but McLaren’s car was a disappointment and he was out of contention to defend his Driver’s title right from the beginning.
Taking Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button head to head, you have to go for Button as the best F1 driver this season. True his form dipped later, but during that time the Brawn car had lost a large part of the lead it had at the start of the season. He showed great nerve to capture the Driver’s Title, with his performance in the Brazilian GP a standout. Despite starting 14th on the grid, he finished 5th and ended Vettel’s chance of extending the Championship to the final race in Abu Dhabi. Hence, he’s our F1 Driver of the Year, and nominee for the Sportsperson of the Year.
Tennis – Men: Roger Federer Two Slams, all four slam finals, ATP World Tour Champion, 10000+ points & 2 Masters Series wins. This series of statistics alone would be enough to put their holder in any frame of discussion for athlete of the year. When we read a little further into these stats and the story behind them it only increases their potency. Slam no.1 was the French Open, making Roger Federer only the 6th man in history to complete the box set of slams. It was also the slam that drew him level with Pete Sampras on 14 slams won. The next was at Wimbledon. Winning that left Federer as the lone holder for the record of most slams won by a male tennis player. It was also his 7th consecutive final on the Wimbledon turf, a feat last achieved over a century ago when the challenge round rules applied. When he regained the year end no.1 ranking from his nemesis Rafael Nadal he became only the second player to have achieved that (the first being the original Iron Man – Ivan Lendl).
It was a glorious summer for the Federer Express. After a rather painful start to the year, he first got married and then a few weeks later beat his tormentor Rafael Nadal on the clay at Madrid. He followed this up by finally winning the French open in his tenth attempt – an achievement much delayed, but like all things that you wait a long time for, it tasted even sweeter. He then went to his favourite place on the tennis calendar – Wimbledon. And there he won his 15th slam after a soul wrenching encounter with old rival Andy Roddick. He then had twins. Had they been boys they might just have been named Roland & Wimbledon. Being born girls saved them from what could have been an excruciating fate. Either way, the kind of man Federer is, he would be hard pressed to say which set of twins he cherished more.
Perhaps though, the astonishing thing about this year is what it is not. It isn’t Federer’s winningest year on the circuit. The man he is most often judged against never had a year at the slams that was better than what Federer did this year. The man who is Federer’s biggest nemesis had his greatest year last year and even he just about equaled Federer this year. This puts all that the Swiss Maestro has done in perspective, making it hard to look beyond him for the title of Sportsman of the Year.
Tennis – Women: Serena Williams There are 4 slams and a year ending tourney that make up the set of top events on the tennis tour. When one player wins three of these and in the process regains the top ranking, the contender for the sportswoman of the year from the tennis domain is quite easy to decide. Serena Williams, much like Federer, won two slams and as if to make up for her less than commensurate results at the lesser tour events won the year end championships as well. Add to that three victories in the women’s doubles with sister Venus and you have the icing on the cake. To put the cherry on top she also set a record for most money won in a single year on the WTA Tour. The performance that most underlined her dominance this year was the Year End Championships which she went through unbeaten ensuring she finished with the year as World No.1.
As the song goes “Let’s start at the very beginning …. ” at the Australian Open. Jelena Jankovic was the top seed, but it was Serena & Dinara who contested the final. Perhaps contested is inappropriate as Safina stamped her authority in a one-sided demolition. She then won Wimbledon with a superb display to beat her sister & defending champion Venus. She then regained a much deserved top ranking in October usurping Dinara Safina. The younger Williams then proceeded to put on a dominant display in the tour finale to assert her authority and signal her intentions for 2010.
Her immensely successful year though was marred by an ugly incident at the US Open. As has been well documented by TheSportsCampus, Serena’s mortal threats to the line judge on being called for a foot-fault to set up a match point cast a shadow over the rest of her achievements. In addition her somewhat unsporting comments on Dinara Safina were in poor taste. While her behaviour is questionable, her quality of tennis was not and it is for that that she is the only real female contender from the sport of tennis for Sportswoman of the Year.
Nominees: 1. Usain Bolt 2. Yelena Isinbaeva 3. Manny Pacquiao 4. Tillakaratne Dilshan 5. Mitchell Johnson 6. Lionel Messi 7. Jenson Button 8. Roger Federer 9. Serena Williams
There’s your list Sports Fans. Register your vote for who you think deserves to win. We’ll announce our verdict on 29th December!
