Eight years ago, Beijing came within two votes of being awarded the Olympics. This year, despite continuing concerns over human rights, China landed its big prize.
The selection of Beijing as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics was voted the top international sports story of this year in a worldwide poll by Associated Press.
Beijing handily defeated four other cities -- Toronto; Paris; Istanbul, Turkey; and Osaka, Japan -- in the International Olympic Committee vote in Moscow on July 13.
``The IOC gave political and historical significance to what's best for the games instead of what's best for the sports industry,'' Olympic historian John MacAloon said. ``Beijing got the games not in spite of, but because of, the human rights issue.''
Second place in the poll -- with 266 points and nine-first place votes -- went to the record-setting season of Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher.
The German won his fourth Formula One title and overtook Alain Prost to become the winningest driver in F1 history with 53 Grand Prix victories and the all-time F1 points scorer.
There was a tie for third place with 228 points between two American regulars in the annual poll -- Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. Jordan came out retirement again to make his latest NBA comeback with the Washington Wizards, while Woods became the first golfer to hold all four majors at the same time when he won the Masters in April.
Qualifying for next year's World Cup soccer tournament was fifth in the voting with 184 points and six first-place votes.
Three-time champions Brazil and Germany just scraped through, while the Dutch missed out and China, Slovenia, Senegal and Ecuador qualified for the first time.
Goran Ivanisevic's amazing Wimbledon triumph was sixth in the poll with 181 points. Ivanisevic, a three-time Wimbledon runner-up, came into the tournament as a wildcard with a ranking of 125.
Yet he went on to beat Pat Rafter in a five-set Monday final, crying with emotion and double-faulting while trying to close out the epic match.
The seventh-place story, with 149 points, was American cyclist Lance Armstrong's third straight victory in the Tour de France, coming just five years after he was diagnosed with cancer.
French soccer star Zinedine Zidane's world record US$65 million transfer from Juventus to Real Madrid was eighth with 136 points.
Baseball may not have a wide following outside North America and parts of Asia and Latin America, but Barry Bonds' home run record made the top 10, finishing ninth with 111 points.
The election of Belgian surgeon Jacques Rogge as the new IOC president, succeeding Juan Antonio Samaranch, was 10th with 100 points. Rogge finished just two points ahead of Australia's Lleyton Hewitt, who won the US Open and finished last year as the youngest ever No. 1 in men's tennis.
Other top vote-getters included: Zhanna Pintusevich-Block's victory over Olympic champion Marion Jones. Olga Yegorova won the 5,000m at the World Championships, despite accusations of taking EPO.
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