A 2024 Sports Roundup

Elections that promise to shape the future of our world politically and economically, the Paris Olympics - an opportunity for the world’s best competitors to compete for personal and national glory, conflicts like the Israel-Palestine war that threaten human lives across the Middle East. This past year will definitely be remembered well into the future. In today's article, I am going to recap some of the many major sporting events from this past year.

The Olympics is probably the pinnacle of the world's sports competitions. This year, the Paris Olympics produced so many incredible stories as it always does with athletes like France’s own swimmer Leon Marchand shining in the spotlight. However, in my opinion the 100 meters sprint race was a perfect example of human athletic capabilities. The race was won by Noah Lyles with a blistering time of 9.79 seconds, however, what makes this race special was the fact that second place Kishane Thomas also ran a 9.79 and third place ran a time of 9.81 seconds. Every person who ran the race finished within 0.12 seconds of first

A photo finish in Paris

place. To put that into perspective, it takes a human on average 0.05 seconds to blink! It was also the fastest race in history, with all the athletes finishing in under 10 seconds.

Over the past year, we have seen many athletes of sports that are less mainstream push themselves to their own limits. In my opinion, one of the most underappreciated achievements of this year was the effort put in by the young chess prodigy, Gukesh Dommaraju, to become the youngest ever chess world champion after defeating the previous title holder Ding Liren. The chess match took place over 14 games and came down to the very last game when Ding Liren made a fatal error on the 55th move! Chess is a game that takes a lot of patience and mental strength to play at a high level, and to have your entire championship crumble because of one mistake is a terrible feeling for a competitor.

This past year, we have also seen the European football championships and The Copa America. Football is the most popular sport worldwide, and both of these tournaments had the biggest nations in the world clash attempting to win national pride and glory. In the Euros, we saw young talents like Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams prosper in the Spanish

The European Football Championships (Euros)

side as they were able to defeat England in a crazy final that went down to the wire. In the Copa America, the heavy favourites Brazil were knocked out in the Quarter Finals while Lionel Messi led Argentina were able to win the final against Colombia after Lautaro Martinez scored a late winner in extra time.

All of these achievements are incredible in their own ways, and I think that 2024 has been a great year for professional sport across the board. However, these athletes spend years training to be at the highest level. When it comes to my personal amateur sporting achievements this past year, I think that I have done quite well too. I have represented my school in several football tournaments and won quite a few as well. I ran a 5K and finished with a time of 25 minutes and 26 seconds, placing second in my age category and I have also started playing Badminton. This proves that while playing professional sport may seem far away, even people like you or me can find ways to enjoy ourselves out on the sports field.

As a whole, the year 2024 has provided so many different opportunities for sportspeople to shine in their own fields. With so many incredible sporting stories and personal and national glory, this year was certainly one to remember. Let’s see what the future has in store for the sporting world, 2025 here we come!