Swede Armand Duplantis (AP photo) A world record in athletics broken almost at will by a generational athlete.A tennis star returning from a doping ban to take his place in the duopoly has more than reassured fans who have been wondering what the sport might look like in a post-Big 3 world.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SIGN UP NOW!The golf championship finally added the only missing piece to his Grand Slam career in dramatic circumstances.A three-way battle for the Formula 1 drivers’ title that went down to the wire and a new champion was crowned. It can be said that the year 2025 did not leave sports fans disappointed.
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How could he, looking at the protagonists in the game! Mondo Duplantis, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Rory McIlroy, Lando Norris have all flourished on the big stage, making what they do a riveting watch for the millions who tuned in.If 2024 saw the passing of the torch in men’s tennis, with Sinner and Alcaraz sharing four Grand Slams equally, 2025 showed us that the “New Two” (Jim Courier came up with it) is here to stay.This year, the Italian and the Spaniard shared the Majors again, but they met in the title round out of the three, and their meeting at Roland Garros turned into an all-time classic.
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Context is always important when appreciating the magnitude of defining sports moments. Sinner only returned to competitive action a few weeks before the French Open after serving a three-month doping ban that many fellow pros on the ATP and WTA circuits dismissed as too convenient a suspension. Remarkably, none of this had any detrimental effect on his game.When Roland Garros bid an emotional farewell to its most decorated champion, Rafael Nadal, on Court Philippe Chatrier, with Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray in attendance, it was always going to take something epic to match.Sinner and Alcaraz created their own tribute to the retired King of Clay. The five-hour and 29-minute blockbuster – the longest French Open men’s final in the Open Era – eventually saw the Spaniard claim three Sinner championship points at 5-3, 0-40 in the fourth set.What makes the ‘SinCaraz’ rivalry so fascinating is not just their extraordinary tennis skills, but also the warm camaraderie they share, similar to what was seen with Federer and Nadal.It was a big year for athletics, a world championship season, the kind of environment that seemed to launch Duplantis into his own galaxy. The undisputed king of the men’s pole vault broke his own world record – not once, not twice, but four times, the most recent of which came at the worlds in Tokyo, where he also became the first Olympic champion in 2021. Only, unlike four years ago, an electrifying crowd of 53,000 was present to celebrate his genius. At the World Athletics Awards in Monaco last month, the Swede told this newspaper that he would like to race in India, maybe even attempt to break the world record on these shores. Let’s cross our fingers.McLaughlin-Levrone needed a different kind of challenge. Having done everything in the 400m hurdles, 2025 was about “stepping out of her comfort zone” and testing her 400m mettle. Tokyo left no room for any doubt as the American ran the second-fastest 400m ever and became the first ever athlete to win both the 400m and 400m world titles. m obstacles.In golf, McIlroy’s dramatic Masters triumph at Augusta National was another shining example of everything that makes watching the sport such a compelling experience. When he cleared a three-foot putt to outplay Justin Rose in the sudden-death playoffs, you could see what it meant to a man who had just ended a 14-year pursuit of that famous Green Jacket.Raw emotion was also on full display as Norris held his nerve at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to cross the finish line in third. It was enough for the Briton to seal his first Formula 1 drivers’ championship, a championship that for much of the season looked to be going the way of Norris’ McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.Then you had Max Verstappen, the four-time reigning champion. How can anyone exclude him! The Red Bull driver has played his part, reviving his challenge for a fifth consecutive title by winning six of the last nine races, including the last three. Too little? No way, but certainly too late as Norris’ overall consistency proved decisive, by just two points!Margins in elite sport are fine. Ask Sinner or McIlroy. Ask Norris or Verstappen. Luck tends to talk too. Just ask Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers star guard whose brave attempt to play through a strained calf in a thrilling NBA Finals matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder took its toll early in Game 7. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder made sure to capitalize.The drama and debates born from such moments are therefore often not only something we remember at the end of the year, but for years to come.Bring on 2026!THEY GONERemembering the sports stars we lost in 2025Amidst the impressive action, the sporting world also mourned the loss of several iconic figures in 2025. The ageless Indian-born marathoner Fauja Singh was tragically killed in an accident in Punjab in July. Born in Beas Pind near Jallandhar, British India around 1911, when births were not routinely registered, at the time of his death various sources gave his age as 114.• Liverpool and Portugal footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva tragically died in a car crash in July, while Suleiman al-Obeid, affectionately known as “Palestinian Pele”, was killed in an Israeli attack while reportedly waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza.• Boxing suffered a double blow, losing two-time heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist George Foreman in March and former world champion Ricky Hatton, who was found dead at his home in Manchester in September. • Chess mourned the death of its 10th world champion, Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky, aged 88, while cricket suffered the loss of one of its most popular umpires in England’s Dickie Bird.
