aquestionofsport’s 2009 quick review
Sandwiched between a Summer Olympic year and a Football World Cup year, 2009 could have turned out to be rather flat for English sport.
There was never going to be a repeat of Chris Hoy’s gold trilogy, of Michael Phelps inhuman swimming and there was no chance of John Terry et al in lifting the Jules Rimet trophy.
But thanks to some incredible individual and team achievements we have once again had a fantastic year of emotional and exciting entertainment.
In no particular order these are my top five sporting moments of 2009.
- Jenson Button becomes the second Briton in a row (following Lewis Hamilton) in winning the F1 World Drivers Champion after winning six of the first seven races.
- Jessica Ennis claims the world heptathlon title in Berlin having missed out on the 2008 Beijing games because of a potentially career-threatening ankle injury.
- The England Cricket team win back the Ashes from Australia despite having only Andrew Strauss capable of scoring runs.
- Lee Westwood finds the form of old to win the Race to Dubai and finish the season as European number one for the second time.
- And finally, even though he is not English, Roger Federer’s career Grand Slam heroics as he finally won the French Open by defeating Robin Soderling in the final. Fed has to be included as he then went on to break Pete Sampras’ Grand Slam record by winning his 15th title (Wimbledon) a month later.
While these were my favourite moments of the year other athletes deserve a mention too for brightening up the sporting world. These are: Mark Cavendish, Tom Daley, David Haye, Phillips Idowu, Beth Tweddle and Heather Watson.
