Sporting highlights of 2012
Apart from Indian cricket, most of the other sports made the nation proud
* London Olympics, a thumping success: The biggest and grandest sporting event of the year has to be the London Olympics. Both the opening and closing ceremonies drew eyeballs with even Queen Elizabeth II making an appearance with the new 007 Daniel Craig in an event directed by Danny Boyle. The United States led the medals tally while China came in second, failing to repeat its performance at the Beijing Games. The hosts Britain came in third. The event saw greats like Michael Phelps bow out but not before winning four gold medals. Another great, Usain Bolt blitzed to a gold medal treble.
* India Shining at Olympics: India had its best-ever performance in Olympics, with a six-medal haul in London. Gagan Narang opened the tally for the country with a bronze in the 10-meter air rifle event. Vijay Kumar gave India its second medal and the first silver, in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event. While Mary Kom boxed her way to a bronze, wrestlers Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt brought home a silver and bronze respectively, and Saina Nehwal took the bronze in badminton. India, however, drew a blank in tennis after all the fuss surrounding the team selections.
* IOC bans Indian Olympic Association: The positives achieved by the Indian contingent at the Olympics were washed out by the International Olympics Committee banning Indian Olympic Association for various breaches of the charter.
* Farewells galore: The year ended on a gloomy note with The God of Cricket Sachin Tendulkar announcing his retirement from one-day internationals after spending 23 years at the zenith of cricketing brilliance. Other notable retirements came from Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid and V V S Laxman. Australia’s arguably most successful cricketer Ricky Ponting too threw in the towel.
* Indian cricket comes a cropper: Indian cricket touched its deepest nadir this year. The much-touted ‘Revenge’ series loss to England saw India lose its decade-long record of not losing a Test series at home. The home series loss came after the 4-0 whitewash in Australia that was completed earlier in the year. India though managed to win the NZ test series 2-0. Other formats didn’t bring much cheer either with India failing to make the semi finals of Asia Cup, T20 World Cup, the Australia-Sri Lanka-India tri series; the only series came against Sri Lanka.
* KKR wins IPL, SRK wins Bengal: It was ‘Korba, Lorba, Jeetbo’ at the IPL this year with Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders winning the tournament. M S Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings continued their good run by coming in second. Only nine teams played in this year's IPL with the ouster of Kochi Tuskers. The event was also mired by some spot fixing allegations. Meanwhile, the ICC World T-20 Championships also held this year saw surprise winners in West Indies.
* Deccan Chargers’ ouster: Deccan Chargers became the second team to be booted out of the IPL after failing to furnish a 100-crore-rupee bank guarantee to BCCI. The end played out like the last over of a cricket match as the team was terminated hours after it got a buyer in Kamla Landmarc. The Courts, playing umpire, ruled in favour of BCCI, which then handed over the team franchise to SUN TV after bids.
* Lance Armstrong scandal: Cycling great Lance Armstrong was banned from cycling and stripped of all his seven Tour de France titles by the International Cycling Union, which upheld US Anti-Doping Agency's ban on him using performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong, who denied allegations for years and refused to go for arbitration, has lost all his sponsors, and has stepped down from his cancer foundation as a result of the ban.
* FedEx starts delivering, again: The 2012 Tennis season saw Roger Federer return as Wimbeldon champ after beating hometown favourite Andy Murray. The win also saw him reclaim the number one ranking for a while. The four grand slams saw different winners with Djokovic winning the Australian Open, Nadal the French, and Murray the US open.
* Spaniards achieve a rare hat-trick: Spain emerged as Euro 2012 winners, outclassing Italy to claim successive European titles to add to their 2010 World Cup win. Germany looked formidable till it slipped in the semi-final but Netherland’s failure to advance from the group stage came as a big surprise to many. Italian keeper Gigi Buffon and Spain's Jordi Alba showed some stellar performances.