Sport's enduring appeal lit up 2021 but pandemic still tough opponent

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Sport's enduring appeal lit up 2021 but pandemic still tough opponent

The sporting world staggered into 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic raged and while it would be a stretch to say it is finishing the year with a sprint, a sense of normality has returned despite the lingering threat of the virus.

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Regardless of what the doom-mongers and the thousands of people in Japan bitterly opposed to staging the delayed 2020 Olympics said, the Games went ahead, even if they looked and felt very different to any previous edition.

Soccer stadiums that had fallen silent around the world were once again brimming with cheering fans, Wimbledon's Centre Court sprang back to life as the world's most iconic tennis event returned after a year's absence and crowds walked the fairways as hostilities were resumed in golf's Ryder Cup.

The action came thick and fast as the narrative switched from COVID-19 decimation of events to athletic achievement and, unfortunately, the more unedifying underbelly of sport - greed, politics, discrimination and doping.

When, in March last year, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics became the first Games to be cancelled for reasons other than war, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) predicted its staging a year late would become a "beacon of hope" for the human race after so much of normal life was brought to a standstill.

Yet by the time tennis player Naomi Osaka lit the flame on July 23, Tokyo was still under emergency COVID measures and 70per cent of the Japanese public were opposed to the Games.

Spectators were barred from Tokyo venues and athletes had to abide by draconian rules in a 33-page 'playbook' - making normal Olympic Village life impossible.