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Plenty to forget about 2000 was just as full of low moments as memorable ones
"Tis the season to be jolly," so the song goes. But someone's got to counter all that merriment and goodwill. So why not me? The year 2000 may have been full of sporting highlights, but what about the lowlights? Why should they be ignored? So here's my attempt to accentuate the negative. One of the big minuses this year was in the column listing Anna Kournikova 's singles titles. Now the Russian tennis star may be the paparazzi's dream girl and her sponsors' cash cow, but let's face it, she's hardly a picture perfect singles player. A fifth year on the WTA tour without a singles title brings her tally of trophy-less tournaments to 86. Granted, she's beautiful. But what is she doing for the credibility of women's sport? Credibility was a quality John McEnroe had in spades at the beginning of the year. It's sad then that he should end 2000 by blowing it with his resignation from the captaincy of the United States Davis Cup tennis team following a 5-0 semifinal loss to the eventual winners, Spain. The fact that Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi cried off injured obviously made his job harder. But his decision to quit nearly two years before the end of his contract was disappointingly out of character for a renowned fighter. Sadly for English football fans, the form of the national team over the last 12 months was entirely in character -- as inept as the behavior of their hooligan followers was violent. The Euro 2000 Soccer Championship was the focus of England's misery. Though to be honest, the pain of an early exit at the hands of Romania was surpassed later in the year when coach, Kevin Keegan, twisted the knife by quitting in the midst of a scramble for World Cup qualification. Hopefully, for the true fans, the arrival of his successor, Sven Goran Eriksson, England's first foreign coach, will signal an upswing. FIFA, the governing body of world football, evaded a painful decision at the end of the year in a cowardly dereliction of duty. Surely, if you can't choose between two such fundamentally different players and characters as Pele and Maradona for the title "Player of the Century," you've no business being in the job. In my view FIFA's spineless diplomacy left a bad taste in mouth. Meanwhile, there was egg on the face of the United States' Indy Car circuit, when the marquee event of the season, the Indy 500, was won by Juan Montoya, a driver from Indy Racing's arch-rival, the CART series. Montoya has since moved to the Formula One team, Williams, which was among those left way in distance behind the top two outfits in the sport, Ferrari and Mclaren this year. In fact, in 17 races, no other team topped the podium. Jaguar was perhaps the most disappointing of the bunch, garnering just four points after a preseason boast that they'd be challenging for a place among the elite.
In boxing, Samoan-born New Zealander David Tua boasted that he'd be the first Kiwi to lift the World Heavyweight title. Sadly for the sport, the young challenger never looked like living up to his hair-raising hype against the mature professionalism of double titlist Lennox Lewis. Tua's defeat emphasized the paucity of talent currently in the heavyweight division, once you look beyond the sophisticated skills of the true world champion. As golfing heavyweights go, they don't come any bigger than Tiger Woods, who took three of the game's four majors. Conversely however, his success was golf's failure in my view, as true sporting drama is built on conflict and competition. That's not to detract from Tiger's brilliance you understand, but with the exception of Masters champion Vijay Singh, most of the other tour players failed to mount a credible challenge. And failure is apt description for the Rugby League World Cup, which was surely the year's most disappointing tournament. Defending champion Australia came, saw and conquered as usual, though for the majority of the time the event was staged in front of crowds barely worthy of the name. Attendance wasn't a problem at baseball's Subway World Series of course. You couldn't get a ticket. But the most hyped event of the year didn't score a hit with everyone. It may be a case of the emperor's new clothes to say so, but New York's private party between the Yankees and Mets was a lopsided bore. The Yankees won 4-1, but outside the Big Apple, who cared? And lastly, to end this piece on an appropriate down note, cricket provided the most negative spectacle of the year, with a corruption scandal to end all corruption scandals. Not one of the world's leading test playing nations was immune to the allegations of bribery, killing for all time the sport's former image as a paragon of virtue and fair play. So there you have it. A year full of misery to savor. The season of Goodwill? Bah humbug. Terry Baddoo is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International.
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