The lack of an Olympics or a soccer World Cup deprives next year of a single global focus for sports fans, but a rich calendar of international events has more than enough world-class action to satiate even the most refined palate.
Tens of millions of cricket obsessives in South Asia will ensure plenty of eyeballs on the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, while rugby’s equivalent is among many contenders for the title of the world’s third-biggest tournament.
The Tour de France, with a worldwide TV audience of 3.5 billion people every year, will be a battle royale between defending champion Vincenzo nibali, Alberto Contador, Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana in July.
The burgeoning popularity of European club soccer shows no sign of abating, but men’s international soccer honors next year will be confined to regional championships in Asia and Africa, as well as South, Central and North America.
However, the finest female soccer players from all five continents will gather in Canada in June and July to contest the seventh women’s World Cup, with Germany and the US the early favorites.
The Olympic program is on furlough, but not so the athletes, who compete in world championships in track and field, swimming and a host of other sports as they embark on a trail they hope will climax with gold at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.
The July 24 to Aug. 9 swimming championships in the Russian city of Kazan will be without the biggest name in the sport after 18-times Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps was kicked off the US team in the wake of a drunk driving arrest.
However, Usain Bolt looks certain to be back where it all began for him at the athletics world championships at Beijing’s Birds Nest, the venue for his stunning 100m and 200m victories in world record times at the 2008 Olympics.
Seven years on and the Jamaican sprinter, who will turn 29 the day before the championships begin on Aug. 22, remains his sport’s trump card as one of the few athletes to enjoy a truly global profile.
There will be much interest in whether two other members of that elite club, golfer Tiger Woods and tennis maestro Roger Federer, can arrest signs of decline and maintain their place at the top table on grounds of form, rather than reputation.
Woods won the last of his 14 major titles two months before Bolt’s Beijing triumph and Rory McIlroy could go some way to replacing him as the face of golf if he can become the sixth player to win a career Grand Slam at the US Masters in April.
Federer has won just one major title, his 17th, in the past four seasons and starts his year as always in Australia, which dominates the first quarter of next year’s international sporting calendar.
As well as the Australian Open tennis, the country hosts soccer’s Asian Cup, the opening race in what looks to be an intriguing Formula One season and the cricket World Cup.
Australia have won four of the 10 cricket World Cups and will be confident of a fifth title on home soil from Feb. 14 to March 29, with reigning champions India and South Africa the most likely to stop them.
New Zealand have won just two of the seven rugby World Cups — both on home soil — but still go in as favorites to lift the Webb Ellis Trophy every four years and the Sept. 18 to Oct. 31 tournament in England is no exception.
Lin Yun-ju on Thursday handed Taiwan two key victories as they advanced to the semi-finals of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London. The Taiwan men’s table tennis team beat Sweden 3-2 in five singles matches. The 24-year-old Lin, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7 and nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” opened the tie by defeating world No. 2 Truls Moregard 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 13-11) before clinching the deciding fifth match with a 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-5) win over Anton Kallberg to hand his team the overall victory. Kuo Guan-hong put Taiwan up 2-0 with a 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 8-11,
Aryna Sabalenka on Thursday said that she hoped she would be able to play tennis under the Belarusian flag after the International Olympic Committee lifted its ban on the country’s athletes competing in the Olympics. World No. 1 Sabalenka has had to compete under a neutral banner as a consequence of her country’s support for Russia following its ally’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The IOC earlier on Thursday lifted its ban on Belarusian athletes competing in the Olympics, although restrictions on Russian athletes remain in place. Asked whether the women’s tour would drop the ban on her representing her country, Sabalenka said:
China’s Wu Yize on Monday won the World Snooker Championship for the first time with a dramatic 18-17 victory over Shaun Murphy in the final. Wu held his nerve to seal his thrilling triumph in a tense last frame shoot-out at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre. The 22-year-old is the second Chinese player to win the world title after Zhao Xintong beat Mark Williams to make history as the first Asian to lift the trophy last year. Wu is also the second-youngest player to be crowned world champion at the Crucible after Stephen Hendry, who was 21 when he won in 1990. “I have been trying
Real Madrid announced on Friday they had fined Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde 500,000 euros (US$588,000) each after a training ground clash that saw Valverde transported for medical care. The club did not impose any sporting sanctions on the two players, saying in a statement that the fine “thereby concludes the internal procedures” launched against them. Valverde is going to miss today’s Clasico against Barcelona as a result of the head injury he suffered during the altercation. The club said he would be out for up to two weeks. Tchouameni took part in training on Friday and could feature at Camp
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