Year in Review 2008 : SPORTS

Sushil gets Bronze at Beijing


Unheralded Sushil Kumar rose from obscurity to find his rightful place in the history of Indian sports when he won the bronze medal in men's 66kg freestyle category at the Beijing Olympics in Beijing. Down in the dumps after his opening round defeat, Sushil came up with an incredible show, beating Doug Schwab (USA), Albert Batyrov (Belarus) and finally the losing semifinalist Leonid Spiridonov (Kazakhstan) in the repechage rounds to earn his slice of history.

India gets a new ‘youth icon’ – Vijender Singh


Vijender Singh won his middleweight (75 kg) bout and registered a semi final berth to ensure that India will come back from Beijing with its first ever Olympics boxing medal. Eventually he got bronze but the colour of the medal ceased to be an issue for this nation of billion which was coming back from world’s biggest sporting extravaganza with only a solitary medal since 1996. Cuba’s Bayeaux Correa ensured that Vijender never made it beyond the semis but even then the plucky pugilist left his mark, on his opponents torso and definitely inside his fans heart.

Usain Bolt – The lightening that struck twice


Usain Bolt's eyes darted to check the numbers on the trackside clock once, twice, three times, more and then Usain ‘bolted’. That’s all he needed to do to win, start the race, rest was almost a foregone conclusion. The ridiculous ease with which he won the ‘glamour events’ of the Olympics made the IOC chief to caution him about showing respect to his opponents! Maybe he meant ‘show mercy’ because not only he won, he won by setting records (9.69 sec for 100 m, 19.30 sec for 200m) and specifically in the 100 meters he won despite easing out to thump his chest during the last 15-20 meters.

It was meant to be Phelps' Olympics


The number of gold medals won by Phelps at these Olympics — eight — will live forever. He got his eighth gold medal, with the 4x100m medley relay, slashing the world record by 1.34 seconds. This was just one of the many records he slashed enroute his 8 Gold medals. This event within the ‘mega-event’ that the Beijing Olympics was sparked a debate about Phelps being the greatest Olympian ever. While there were a few doubting Thomases around but everyone agreed that this feat will be really difficult to match and even if one looks into the annals of history, finding a parallel will be tough.

Ganguly walks away with head held high


The announcement came at the time and place of his choosing, when the world was least expecting it. In his usual shocking style, arguably India’s best cricket captain, Saurav Ganguly announced his retirement from international cricket at the end of a press conference leaving more questions than answers. Some spoke about ‘voluntary retirement schemes’ others scoffed at them but the fact remained when he finally did it, he did it on his terms and with a lot of style. Imperious and impulsive at the same time, Dada galvanized a side that was being weighed down under the cloud of match-fixing and eventually took it to the dizzying heights of a World Cup final. As far as Ganguly is concerned there were no half measures, everything moved from one extreme to another.