Sports Diary 2008

I was dying to post this blog but for the result of the 2nd test between South Africa and Australia prevented from doing so.The year has marked the end of Australian domination in the world cricket. Captain Ricky Ponting would be the most worried man going into 2009. While the omens were already there as the year started with the controversies galore surrounding Border-Gavaskar trophy with Symmonds and Harbhajan in the epicenter. The issue almost divided the world cricket into factions, but the BCCI  was able to salvage justice for Harbhajan Singh after justice Hansen cleared him off all the charges including that of racism as claimed by Australians.

^{The test match victory at Perth following this whole episode gave Indian team a new boost and more than one reason to smile. India recorded one of their most amazing Test triumphs overseas when they beat Australia by 72 runs in the thrilling third cricket Test to snap the champion team's record 16-match winning streak at Perth.} 

Set 413 to win a world record 17th Test in succession, 

the Australians were dismissed for 340 to allow the spirited visitors to reduce the margin to 2-1 in the four match series with one full day to spare. Not many ha

d given the Indians any hope at the WACA, regarded as the fastest pitch in the world, but Anil Kumble and his men came out firing on all cylinders.

 Then again India beat Australia 2-0 in the home series in which innumerable records were broken and India saw its finest players bidding adieu. Sachin Tendulkar became the highest run getter in the history of test cricket by surpassing Brian Lara’s world record. Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble retired form the international cricket after giving so many wonderful moments to the cricket fans in India and the worldwide.

Indian cricket scaled the ever new heights in the year 2008. Virender sehwag scored one double and one triple hundred in the year 2008 and Gambhir and Laxman scored double tons in the same innings in Delhi test against Australia. 4 Indian batsmen scoring more than 1000 runs in the calendar year is itself a testimony to the fact that India was arguably the best test team in 2008. India’s win over England after being pushed to the walls for 4 days gave some very emotional moments to the whole India, as the victory which came from the bat of the Mumbai batsman was quite necessary to heal the peoples’ sentiments which were disturbed by the terrorist attack on Mumbai. The year 2008 also saw the inaugural edition of the much anticipated Indian premier league, There was cricket but with that there were whole lot of other things as well to attract people to cricket stadiums which include loud music, splendid fireworks and cheer girls, which changed the definition of cricket, forever. Shane Warne led his side Rajasthan royals to win the inaugural IPL tournament. 

The year 2008 would be etched in thehistory of sports for more than one reason. The year 2008 witnessed the most expensive summer Olympics being organized by China in Beijing. A total of an estimated US$42 billion were spent on the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, making it the most expensive games ever; the British Olympic

 Association has announced that no more than US$19 billion will be spent on the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, while the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2004 Athens Olympics cost US$7 billion and US$15 billion respectively. “One world one dream” slogan of the Beijing Olympics though proved to be futile for Tibetan protesters who tried to disrupt the torch relay throughout the world. (Some say that the Olympics had no more meaning after the torch was switched off in France in the midst of the relay).

But the 29^th edition of the Olympics would be in the memory of people not only because of the controversies but for the some phenomenon performances. Michael ‘phenomenon’ Phelps became the first

man in the history of the modern games to win 8 Olympic gold medals ( 7 of them in the world record times) surpassing the record of Mark Spitz of 7 golds in Munich Olympics way back in 1972. Usain ‘lightning’ bolt made a clean sweep winning 100 m with a record time of 9.69 seconds in a race dubbed by Michael Johnson as ‘the greatest 100 m performance in the history of an event’, and became the first sprinter since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the three sprint events in a single Olympiad: 100m, 200m and 4X100m relay.

India won its first individual gold as Abhinav Bindra shot the gold in 10m air rifle.Some unexpected medals; courtesy Vijender Singh and Sushil Kumar put India at the 50^th place in the Olympics tally, somewhat respectable position in juxtaposition with previous Olympics. Also special mention of Saina Nehwal and Akhil Kumar who defeated world top seeds in the badminton and boxing resp. and showed great promise for the future. Sania Mirza however struggled throughout the year.

China ended the American domination by winning 51 gold medals and topping the Olympiad charts for the first time, though some controversies marred the Chinese celebration as there were reports of some members of Chinese athletics of being under age. The US ‘Redeem team’ won the basketball title back, which it lost in Athens in 2004.

As the defending Olympics champions, South Korea defended the title with only one remaining archer from the previous games, Park sung Hyun winner of two gold medals, thus extending their winning streak over 6 Olympics and 20 years.

Viswanathan Anand has had a phenomenal 2008 and his biggest moment of the year came when he retained the world championship title defeating the challenger Vladimir Kramnik. The match took place at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, Germany between 14 October and 29 October 2008.

The tennis court in 2008 saw the rise and the fall of some stars. Australian open defending champion and no.1 seed Roger Federer failed to make the mark in 2008 as he could not even manage to enter the finals after suffering a loss at the hands of 

Novak Djokovic who ultimately won 

the Australian open. Again in French open Rafael Nadal defeated ‘fedex’ in straight sets, while Ana Ivanovic lifted the women’s title. Rafael Nadal defeated five-time consecutive Wimbledon champion, Roger Federer in five sets to win his first Wimbledon title and fifth Grand Slam championship. It was the longest championship match in Wimbledon history with play lasting four hours and 48 minutes, and with two rain delays. The event stretched over seven hours ending just before nightfall. It marked the first time Federer lost a Grand Slam championship match other than the French Open. Williams sisters won the last two grand slams of the year with Venus bagging Wimbledon and Serena lifting US open title.

Spain was the European football champions with David Villa being the best player of the tournament, however the biggest spectacle was setup in Moscow when Manchester united  and Chelsea went head to head in the champions league. 

The match went through various roller coasters with Man united prevailing over Roman Abrahamovich’s Chelsea in the penalty shoot outs.

In August 2008,

Jeev milkha Singh achieved the highest ranking for an Indian in any major event at the 2008 PGA Championship in Oakland Hills, finishing at T-9, making him arguably India's best golfer ever.

Singh finished the 2008 European Tour season ranked 12th on the Order of Merit, and after winning the Barclays Singapore Open won his second Order of Merit title on the Asian Tour .

Lewis Hamilton topped the charts of the F1points table of drivers’ championship beating Felipe Massa by just 1 point, while Ferrari won the constructors’ championship. Also this was the first time that an Indian team, force One was participating in the 2008 season with Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fiscichella as the drivers for the team, however no miracles happened as Force One along with both drivers ended the season with 0 points.

The year has been great for the sports but there were some amazing facts in the sports, like Pakistan did not play a single test match in the whole year. This was the last time that baseball and softball were played as Olympic sports. The two have been scrapped from the program of the 2012 London Olympics.

After 1936 it was the first time that a country other than the United States or the Soviet Union has led the medal count. Pakistan was the most populous country not to win an Olympic medal (164 million residents, sixth-largest nation in the world), whereas Iceland was the least populous country to win an Olympic medal.

 

 

Compiled and written by: Abhay Mittal [ Pagal Guy]

abymittal@gmail.com

Photos: Beijing Olympics official website

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