2021: A year
of sporting
magic we
so needed
Owen Slot
Chief Sports Writer
GES-SPORTFOTO/GETTY IMAGES
pages came increasingly to resemble
the front, a mirror to the challenges
of everyday life.
So here is your postscript. Sport did
remain the great distraction from the
issues that have haunted 2021 and
maybe, because of that, it was more
important than ever. Was there
indeed a greater moment in 2021 than
Raducanu, 5-3 up in the second set of
a US Open final that no one dreamt
possible, 7.4 million television sets in
the UK watching her, and nailing the
match-winning ace?
Or Charlotte Worthington on her
BMX, landing the 360-degree backflip
to win gold in the Tokyo Olympics?
Or Jason Kenny, sniffing his chance
in the keirin and launching a crazy
sprint to victory? Or Jos Buttler
destroying the Sri Lanka attack in the
T20 World Cup and flicking a full toss
over square leg to reach his century?
Or the Czech Republic’s Patrik Schick
spotting David Marshall, the Scotland
goalkeeper, off his line and lobbing
him from 49.7 metres?
The sporting year was about
watching brilliant young people and
that sharp intake of breath when
they do something you can’t believe.
It was the sense of anticipation when
Grealish came on for England. It was
Marcus Smith, 22, leading impossible
comebacks for Harlequins, a goose
step and a pass to Louis Lynagh, then
20, to score in the corner. It was
Romain Ntamack, also 22, running it
back from his dead-ball area against
the All Blacks. It was Bryson
DeChambeau on the sixth tee at Bay
Hill, taking a line across the water
and turning a 555-yard par five into a
par three. It was Sky Brown, Britain’s
13-year-old skateboarder, twice failing
to land her big trick — the kickflip
indy — but coming back for more
and, third time lucky, winning bronze.
It was about incredible defiance of
age too. It was a 50-year-old Phil
Mickelson holing out from the sand
on the fifth at Kiawah Island en route
to becoming the oldest major winner
in the US PGA Championship. It was
about Mark Cavendish in the
handsome Breton town of Fougères,
five years after his previous Tour de
France stage win, sweeping round the
leading wheel with 50 metres to go
and claiming another.
And then doing the same thing two
days later, and then twice more again,
to leave him tied on 34 stage wins
with Eddy Merckx. It was about
James Anderson in Melbourne, on
day two of the third Test, rolling back
the years with four outstanding spells
and persuading insomniac optimists
back at home, still up watching, or
listening or just blinking at the
evidence on their phones, to allow
sport to kid us again that maybe, just
maybe, there remained a chance.
It was about Joe Root and Dawid
Malan on a long, hot, third afternoon
at the Gabba settling in with a
character and resilience that sold
us false hope. It was even about
the implosions that followed:
England, like 11 spent swimmers,
choking their art, and the grim
diversion this provided.
It was about women setting new
standards, such as Rachael Blackmore
on Minella Times jumping the last at
Aintree with the longest run-in in the
country between her and becoming
the first woman to win the Grand
National. It was about Lizzie Deignan
making a break in the inaugural
women’s Paris-Roubaix and holding
the lead for 82km to the finish.
It was about moments when the
human spirit soared. It was about
Gianmarco Tamberi, of Italy, and
Mutaz Essa Barshim, of Qatar,
perfectly tied in the Olympic high
jump and agreeing to share the gold.
It was moments when we so lost
ourselves in the magic that we forgot
everything else. And how badly did
we need it.BUKAYO SAKA’S EURO 2020
FINAL PENALTY IS SAVED
Of course, it wasn’t only Bukayo Saka
who didn’t score in the shoot-out.
Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho
had gone before him. However, it was
Saka’s penalty — right, low, an easy
parry for Gianluigi Donnarumma, the
Italy goalkeeper — that brought an
end to an England odyssey that was
about so much more than football.
We will carry on calling it Euro
2020, but that was part of the story. It
was a tournament that rung in what
we thought was the end of the Covid-
19 pandemic. Stadium capacities rose
throughout, as (it seemed) the Covid
cure was working, and thus we drunk
in and celebrated the England team,
for many, like never before. Did we
ever so admire them, and so like what
they stood for? Euro 2020 was their
success and with it came that rare old
feeling of national unity as we waited
anxiously to see when the sensible
head boy Gareth Southgate was going
to bring on Jack Grealish.
Yet it was more than that too. It was
how we at last got to a final (55 years
of hurt etc) and how we then couldn’t
contain ourselves. It was central
London being trashed. It was the
message that what might have been
the greatest day of many of our lives
as fans was also the day to get
smashed and abuse the capital city.
And for hundreds to go on and
storm Wembley.
Did the shame, at that point,
override the joy? Or did we reach that
point when Saka et al looked at their
phones after the defeat and saw
flooding in the very racial abuse that
they had been going down on one
knee to campaign against.
England played away against
Hungary and Poland in the autumn
and the racial abuse there was
shocking. Yet did the fallout from
Saka’s penalty show that we are any
better here at home? When you see
how the year ended, with the
unravelling at Yorkshire County
Cricket Club, you may well say no.
SIMONE BILES NAILS HER
DISMOUNT ON THE BEAM
When Biles, the United States
gymnast, withdrew from the team
final at the Tokyo Games, she
introduced a whole new conversation
to the Olympics — though in fact she
had only continued the conversation
about the mental burden of
professional sport that Naomi Osaka,
the Japanese tennis player, had
Saka reflects on his penalty miss in the Euro final at Wembley that preceded a
tide of online racism. Below, Hill, had her Tokyo medal chances thwarted by Covidentered into two months before. When
Biles then said that she would come
back to compete in the beam final,
she brought the subject into further
minute focus. Would she be OK? Was
she putting herself in danger?
Then, when she landed her double-
pike dismount, her routine completed
successfully, the bronze medal she
treasured said even more about
professional sportspeople, and that,
though they may seem like
superheroes, they can struggle with
mental health too. Yes, Ben Stokes,
the England cricketer, among them.
“At the end of the day,” Biles said,
“we’re not just entertainment. We’re
humans too.”
And so the conversation continued.
Biles et al threw further light on
mental health. They helped to spread
the word: it’s OK if you don’t feel OK.
Yet that conversation is not so
straightforward for the sports
industry. It is an entertainment
industry, and these heroes are its lead
characters. You won’t see that more
clearly anywhere than in the Formula
One paddock, which is a TV reality
series on wheels.
What happens, though, if, like
Osaka or Biles, you don’t want to be
part of the whole show any more
— or if we, the industry, can no
longer milk them for our
entertainment? 2021 was
the year the rules started
to change.AMBER HILL CONTRACTS
COVID BEFORE
TOKYO
The year was
dominated by
Covid. Of
course it
was. Covid
infiltrated
every
move, and
stopped many of them.
In some ways 2021
was a triumph over
Covid, because sport
carried on. The
British & Irish Lions
tour to South Africa
wasn’t exactly the
highlight we had
hoped; the main
achievement was
that it actually
happened at all.
Not everyone
triumphed over Covid,
though. Especially notthe most antivaxer football clubs. The
World Darts Championship is being
picked apart at present by Covid
withdrawals. “Bubble fatigue” settled
enduringly into the sporting lexicon
and has been one of the many
contributing factors to England’s
Ashes humiliation in Australia,
where four of their coaches
have been forced into isolation.
Yet there will always be more
cricket, more football, more
rugby. The Olympics are
different; they only come
round once in four years (or
five, in this case). Before
leaving for Tokyo,
Amber Hill, a 23-year-
old shooter from
Berkshire who had a
real medal chance,
tested positive —
and that was it.
Olympics over. She
wasn’t alone; many
Olympians missed
their chance of a
lifetime. Covid killed
their dreams.MANCHESTER CITY
WITHDRAW FROM
THE EUROPEAN
SUPER LEAGUE
It was at 9.23pm on April
20 that City announced
they were withdrawing.
An hour and a half later,
four other English clubs
followed. And thenChelsea too. In no time, the
breakaway ESL had been dismantled.
Was 2021 a worse year than normal
for leadership in sport? The
counterargument is back to Covid:
this was the year when administrators
(largely) kept the show on the road.
However, look at F1 and the
shambolic end to a sensational
season, with Mercedes threatening to
have lawyers rather than drivers
decide the outcome. Or the ECB
pulling England’s cricketers out of a
tour to Pakistan with little warning
and no adequate explanation. Or the
escalating argument over refereeing
on the Lions tour to South Africa,
which led to the 62-minute video
nasty recorded by Rassie Erasmus,
the Springboks’ director of rugby.
Or the meek acceptance by the
International Olympic Committee
that all is well with Peng Shuai, the
Chinese tennis player who claimed
she was the victim of sexual assault.
Even England’s Ashes disaster has
become a debate about leadership,
and how the ECB could ever expect to
win a series of red-ball cricket when it
has its team playing so predominantly
with the white. This year proved again
that our leaders could be better.EMMA RADUCANU’S ACE
You see, all the above was what sport
became about in the year of 2021. It
became about Covid and about
mental health and about racism and
about failures in politics and
leadership. In other words, the back24 1GS Saturday January 1 2022 | the times
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