Sport review 2016: Olympics, Andy Murray, Anthony Joshua… it’s been another fantastic year in a golden age
Chief sports writer Dave Kidd looks back at the sporting year, including Olympic glory, more boxing world champions and another Wimbledon win for Andy Murray
AN Olympic Games in Rio which began with a Russian drugs scandal — and an Olympic year which ended with London’s glorious summer of 2012 being tarnished by another glut of doping revelations.
A year in which Britain’s most decorated Olympian Sir Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky could not escape a torrent of allegations sparked by Russian hackers.
And a year in which the sporting world bade farewell to two of its most charismatic pioneers in Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer.
But 2016 was also a golden year in what — if we can somehow ignore football — is a true golden age for British sport.
Great Britain astonished the world by finishing second in the Rio Olympic medals table — ahead of mighty China — in their finest performance on foreign soil.
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Britain’s Olympic rise has been an extraordinary story — from a solitary gold at Atlanta in 1996 to 27 of the coveted gongs two decades later. With a further 64 golds to follow from our Paralympians.
Rocket-fuelled by National Lottery funding, Britain’s Olympic triumph provoked sour-grape jibes about ‘financial doping’ from overseas, but pride and joy for this sports-mad nation.
Even if it is a strange sort of wealth distribution which sees many of society’s poorest buying lottery tickets to fund a large percentage of privately-educated competitors playing sports few people are willing to pay to watch between Olympic Games.
Yet while the legacy of London 2012 is often sneered at, it inspired several back-to-back champions in Brazil.
Mo Farah completed a double distance double, despite crashing to the deck during the 10,000 metres.
Charlotte Dujardin earned another dressage gold — her horse Valegro pipping Ed Balls to the title of the most remarkable dancer with two left feet.
Welsh taekwondo ace Jade Jones proved no other woman on the planet is more adept at kicking people in the head, while smiling assassin Nicola Adams was the first woman to retain an Olympic boxing crown.
And cycling’s golden couple Jason Kenny and Laura Trott ensured one household in Cheshire would win more golds in Rio
than the whole of India, Canada or South Africa. Britain’s new Olympic champions included Max Whitlock — who won his nation’s first-ever individual gymnastics gold, then a second within two hours — and Nick Skelton, who bossed the showjumping at the grand old age of 58.
Our hockey women scored a thrilling win over favourites Holland with keeper Maddie Hinch the heroine of a rare penalty shootout success for any British sports team.
Elsewhere the good, the bad and the despicable of the Olympics were summed up by Usain Bolt sprinting to another third gold medal hat-trick; American swimmer Ryan Lochte and three team-mates faking an armed robbery to cover up for a night on the tiles and the lily-livered IOC failing to issue a blanket ban to Russia despite the McLaren Report uncovering systematic state-sponsored doping.
The report’s second part this month revealed how significantly Russian doping scarred London’s Olympics, but not before Fancy Bears hackers exposed widespread Therapeutic Use Exemptions for otherwise banned drugs, provoking questions about some of Wiggins’ achievements, despite no suggestion he had broken rules.
Away from Rio, two men from the class of 2012 graduated with honours in the wider sporting world, allowing Britain to boast the best tennis player on the planet and a heavyweight boxing champion.
Andy Murray’s annus mirabilis saw him reach his first French Open final, secure his second Wimbledon crown, retain his Olympic title and reach world No 1 status with a career-best 24-match winning streak.
It culminated in his destruction of Novak Djokovic at the ATP World Tour Finals as he secured a record third BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, staking a claim for the mantle of the greatest British sports person in history. Anthony Joshua has some way to go to scale those heights but, in the year that Ali, ‘The Greatest’, passed away, the Londoner instilled much-needed star quality to his old heavyweight division.
The 2012 Olympic king won the IBF world heavyweight title by defeating Charles Martin and now awaits a titanic Wembley showdown with old master Wladimir Klitschko.
Tyson Fury, who beat Klitschko last year, retired after failed drugs tests, citing depression.
But there are a dozen current British world champions — none more impressive than Northern Ireland’s Carl Frampton, who defeated Scott Quigg in a super-bantamweight unification bout, then beat Leo Santa Cruz for the WBA featherweight title.
Golfer Danny Willett was another breakthrough act, although he had a contrasting year. A shock Masters winner at Augusta in April, he became the unfortunate villain as Europe surrendered the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in October, just a week after the death of golfing cult hero Palmer.
Willett failed to win a point after his brother Pete had inflamed the crowds by branding them as “imbeciles” in a tongue-in-cheek magazine article.
One European victory over the Yanks was Henrik Stenson’s compelling duel with Phil Mickelson on the final day of The Open at Royal Troon.
Chris Froome — the Kenyan-born, South African-raised, Monaco resident — won a third Tour de France in four years under the British banner.
And England’s rugby union side, inspired by Aussie coach Eddie Jones, bounced back from 2015 World Cup humiliation by winning 13 out of 13 Tests in 2016, including a Six Nations Grand Slam and four victories over Jones’ homeland.
England’s cricketers began the year with a series success in South Africa, during which Ben Stokes clobbered the fastest 250 in Test history.
But the explosive all-rounder was on the receiving end in the World Twenty20 Final — carted for four successive sixes by Carlos Brathwaite as West Indies stole the glory.
An English Test team with grand designs on the world No 1 spot flattered to deceive with a drawn home series against Pakistan, a first Test defeat to Bangladesh and a comprehensive 4-0 drubbing in India.
Next year they will bid to retain the Ashes Down Under, after the Lions have taken on the All Blacks, Joshua has battled Klitschko, Willett has defended his Green Jacket and Murray has continued his assault on world domination.
We can only hope that they, and not the drugs cheats, will dominate the sporting landscape in 2017.