In 2015 did it often feel as if modern professional sport was broken? Not the actual exhibiting of sporting skill itself — in so many places, at so many moments, that felt like it was reaching heights previously unseen: Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, AB de Villiers, always, always Lionel Messi and Barcelona.
It is those tasked with the governing of sport that felt in most urgent need of repair, even if that is not necessarily a feeling confined to 2015. It could conceivably be said for almost all the years that professional sport has existed.
Still, the confluence of the IAAF’s doping scandals, the arrests at Fifa that led to the downfall of Sepp Blatter (which otherwise might have required military intervention) and the problematic presence of a tainted head of cricket, felt as if a massive breakdown of the central nervous system of our sporting body was underway.
Meanwhile, there was no relenting from the smaller, more regular diseases chipping away every day. In May this year, for instance, it was revealed that managerial sackings in English football had reached a 13-year high. Nobody points out anymore that sacking a serial winner four months after he has delivered a title is, at a fundamental level, indicative of a fractured, near-psychotic culture.
Or, how about the experiences of Adam Goodes, the Aussie Rules football star? There was no better reminder of the ugliness intrinsic to following sport today. The boorish tribalism of fans gets a bit much most days, but for it to be used as a mask for outright racism? That was low.
The National's 2015 year of sport review: Writers and editors select their athlete, team, and moment of the year
Not necessarily as an act of rebellion against mainstream sports, but more fatigue from its 24-hour, hamster-wheel cycle, a personal retreat was to sports furthest away from mass scrutiny and popularity.
The Volvo Ocean Race, for example, was not even a sport anyone could watch. And it is, for its size, fairly big money, with heavy corporate involvement. Yet, it introduced an element of equality in its competition that appealed to basic sporting principle.
As well as the fact that ocean sailing goes beyond sport into a broader human pursuit, following it exclusively through an excellent app tapped into an older world, where the imagination of the fan was once again compelled to flourish.
One of the most vivid memories of the year was accidentally tuning into squash’s British Open final, once an event that warranted attention and, in those countries where it had following, always easy to find a broadcast for.
Here it was hidden away and though the overriding emotion was sadness at its slide from public view, that seemed to simultaneously elevate its appeal. Its failure to become part of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 was apposite for many reasons.
Squash is not fashionable or, ultimately, lucrative enough to be part of an event — and do not miss the irony here — that is still supposed to stand for bigger motives than that. In the recommendations of skateboarding and surfing instead, lay proof of some modern Olympian — indeed, sporting — spirit.
UAE football 2015 review: Omar Abdulrahman, Al Ahli and a year of Asian excellence
For all that athletic excellence evolves year upon year, it was when it was overturned that the heart found its warmest escapes. The UAE’s performances at the Asian Cup were not, for keen observers, upsets in the strictest sense.
But, the uncovering of Omar Abdulrahman’s genius on a global platform had its own, unbeatable charm. And a heartening message: no nation or club has exclusive rights to sporting excellence. Exceptional talent is everywhere and it serves sport to strive to uncover it.
It is a message cricket is willfully ignoring, and it will be to its eventual peril. At the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in February-March, indisputably the finest moments were linked to performances of cricket’s smaller sides.
It could learn from the other great British export, rugby. At that World Cup, Japan caused one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time, beating South Africa. That was widely seen as the fruits of a sport actively trying to expand itself.
What do we want from sport in 2016? A Grand Slam for Novak Djokovic or Serena Williams would be historic. Not talking about the corruption of acronyms would be good as would an untainted Rio Olympics.
How about a safer sporting world? The Paris attacks, which took in the France-Germany international, are not the only time terrorists have targeted sports. But it was a perverse reminder both of how meaningless sport can be and also of the exalted place it has assumed in our lives, enough for it to be attacked.
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