By Matt Hardy
It’s been a monumental year for sport both on British shores and further afield. Take a look at some of the year’s biggest moments ahead of another year of exhilarating action.
January
Cricket: Ashes series concludes with 4-0 defeat for England. The result would extend England’s winless run in Australia to 15 matches and mark a key part in the downfall of the Joe Root-Chris Silverwood era of Test cricket.
Tennis: Novak Djokovic was deported from Australia ahead of the Australian Open Grand Slam due to his Covid-19 vaccination status. The Serbian was initially allowed into the country and then sent home, where his family were waiting with one Nigel Farage. Rafael Nadal would pick up the first of two majors in Melbourne while homegirl Ashleigh Barty would win her final Slam before retirement.
Skiing: Slalom skier Dave Ryding became the first Brit to win at the top level of Alpine skiing when he won at Kitzbuhel in Austria. The famous resort honoured the Brit by giving him his very own branded gondola.
February
Multi-sport: Great Britain finished a disappointing 19th in the Winter Olympics with two medals. Great Britain won gold in the women’s curling while the men took silver in the same sport. The team missed their target of 3-7 medals.
NFL: The LA Rams were crowned winners of the 56th Superbowl, beating the Cincinnati Bengals 20-23 at the SoFi Stadium in California – it was their second title.
Football: Chelsea win the Club World Cup to give the London club and its then owner Roman Abramovich the accolade of winning every major competition, at least once, that they have competed in.
March
Horse Racing: Superstar jockey Rachael Blackmore continued to break records as she became the first woman to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The Irishwoman rode to victory atop A Plus Tard in the showpiece event.
April
Cricket: Joe Root stepped down as England Test captain after his side fell to a run of one win in 17 matches. Root had led England to the most wins of any Test captain after he took over from Alastair Cook in 2017. Ben Stokes was appointed captain at the end of the month, beginning an era many hoped would see England win more matches.
Cricket: England lost in the final of women’s Cricket World Cup to a dominant Australia in Christchurch. Australia set a target of 356 but England could muster just 285 in response.
Horse Racing: Having announced it would be his final race before retirement, amateur jockey Sam Waley-Cohen won the Grand National on 50-1 outsider Noble Yeats.
Golf: Scottie Scheffler won the Masters after holding his nerve to fend off a Rory McIlroy surge on the Sunday. The 25-year-old American won the prestigious tournament at Augusta National by three strokes.
May
Football: After Russia’s illegal war with Ukraine, the UK government targeted a number of people associated with Vladimir Putin – Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich was one of them. In this month the sale of the club he’d owned since 2003 was completed to a Todd Boehly-fronted consortium – they’d become the latest, but not the last, American firm to buy into the Premier League.
Golf: Justin Thomas won the PGA Championship in Tulsa having trailed by seven strokes as he began his final round. The American and compatriot Will Zalatoris entered into a playoff to decide who’d take the $2.7m prize pot. Thomas took the three-hole playoff to win his second major.
Football: Real Madrid won the Champions League for the eighth time with a 1-0 victory over Liverpool but the match was marred by scenes of police violence against fans and poor organisation.
Football: Manchester City won the English title for the eighth time having led in the Premier League table by just one point going into the final day. In a brilliant climax, Manchester City scored three goals in six minutes to ensure they beat Liverpool to the trophy.
Rugby: Worcester Warriors won their first ever top flight trophy – the Premiership Rugby Cup – in what was hoped to be a new start for a club who had played towards the bottom end of the Premiership table for far too long.
June
Golf: A new player in golf, LIV, began at the Centurion Club amid noise and controversy. The Greg Norman-fronted series had a couple of big names including Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia and hoped bigger ones would join if the event proved to be a success – Charl Schwartzel won in St Albans.
Rugby: Freddie Burns kicked a drop goal in the final minute as Leicester Tigers beat Saracens in the Premiership rugby final. Some touted the match as the English game’s biggest salary cap rule-breakers versus the second biggest.
Golf: Matt Fitzpatrick won the US Open by one stroke ahead of Zalatoris and Scheffler. The Brit won his first Major at Brookline having been tied for the lead after three rounds.
Tennis: Nadal made it two from two in 2022 as he picked up the French Open title in Paris, Iga Swiatek won the women’s singles at Roland Garros.
Football: England were handed their biggest home defeat since 1928 as they lost 4-0 to Hungary in the Nations League. Gareth Southgate’s side would go on to be relegated from the competition, raising questions over England’s World Cup hopes.
July
Tennis: Djokovic won his first Grand Slam of the year at Wimbledon amid the absence of Daniil Medvedev because of a ban on Russians, although the women’s title was won by Moscow-born Kazakhstani player Elena Rybakina.
Golf: Cameron Smith won the 150th Open at St Andrews in July before finishing the season as a winner on the LIV Golf circuit. Smith won at the historic course by one shot – Cameron Young finished second with McIlroy a further shot back after a poor final 18 holes.
Football: England won their first major trophy since the men’s 1966 World Cup when the Lionesses beat Germany 2-1 at Wembley to bring football home. The result was seen as a major breakthrough for women’s sport with WSL season ticket sales skyrocketing in the aftermath.
Athletics: Jake Wightman became the first British man to win a 1,500m world title since Steve Cram in 1983 when he beat Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen in Oregon.
August
Multi-sport: The Commonwealth Games captured a nation as the best of British competed against each other and the world at the friendly games. Australia, England and Canada completed the top three in the medal table with Scotland sixth, Wales eighth and Northern Ireland 11th.
Athletics: Britain finished second to host country Germany in the European Championships in the medal tables – though Britain had more overall medals. Zharnel Hughes and Matthew Hudson-Smith were standout performers while the relays shone too.
Golf: McIlroy became the first golfer to win the FedEx Cup three times and became just the third man – after Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh – to average below 69 per round for an entire season.
Boxing: Billed as the ‘Rage on the Red Sea’ Oleksandr Usyk beat Brit Anthony Joshua for a second time – this bout through a unanimous decision.
Tennis: The tennis world was rocked by the long-expected news of Serena Williams’ retirement. Roger Federer would follow a few weeks later with the sport losing two of its major stars within a month of each other.
September
Other: The death of Queen Elizabeth II caused a number of stoppages to sporting events – Football was criticised for stopping for too long where other sports played again the following day. The Oval became the first international sporting fixture to play God Save The King.
Tennis: Teen sensation Carlos Alcaraz won the US Open – he’d go on to become the youngest ever men’s world No1. Iga Swiatek picked up her second slam of the year at Flushing Meadows.
Football: A Champions League defeat to Dinamo Zagreb would be the final game for Chelsea under the stewardship of Thomas Tuchel. The German was sacked 100 days into the new ownership of the club and later replaced with Brighton’s Graham Potter.
Rugby: Worcester would become the first of two Premiership clubs to fall into administration amid a series of poor financial decisions made by its former owners. The club remains unsold and could be demoted by more than the standard one league.
October
Rugby: Wasps joined Worcester in administration with the chief executive citing over £95m of debt. Former Newcastle owner Mike Ashley now owns their former stadium and the club will compete in the Championship next year.
Formula 1: Max Verstappen won his second Formula 1 title after confusion at the Japanese Grand Prix – the race saw the dutchman achieve back-to-back titles amid anger from drivers over wet weather safety concerns.
Golf: Dustin Johnson’s 4 Aces golf team won the inaugural LIV Golf team finale in Miami – Johnson’s winnings topped $28m for the season.
Football: Manchester City’s newest sensation Erling Haaland made a record breaking start to life at the Premier League champions when he became the first player in the league to score three hat-tricks in three consecutive home games.
November
Cricket: England became the first men’s team to hold the one-day and T20 World Cups at the same time when they beat Pakistan in the final earlier this year – England won by five wickets with one over remaining.
Rugby: Argentina handed England their first defeat against the Pumas at Twickenham since 2006 in a Autumn Nations Series which would see the national side finish the season with just five wins in 12 Tests – the future of coach Eddie Jones would be deliberated in a review.
Rugby: New Zealand won the women’s Rugby World Cup when they beat 14-player England in Auckland. A player down for 60 minutes, England battled hard and had a chance to win it at the end but were turned over and lost.
Football: Liverpool and Man Utd’s American owners formally put the clubs up for sale. The Glazers and Fenway Group have been big players in recent years in the Premier League but the pair of owners are officially having conversations about the future of their clubs.
December
Rugby: Eddie Jones was sacked by the RFU as England head coach and replaced with Leicester Tigers head honcho Steve Borthwick. Jones continues to look for a new venture.
Football: Bournemouth were bought by an American consortium which included actor Michael B. Jordan.
Rugby: World Rugby vice-chairman Bernard Laporte was charged with corruption leading to questions over whether he can remain in his role with the governing body – the Frenchman self-suspended himself.
Football: Lionel Messi finally got his hands on the World Cup trophy as his Argentina side beat France on penalties in one of the greatest finals of all time to claim the win for South America. The bus parade was cancelled for security reasons. England went out to France in the last eight after Harry Kane misses a penalty.
Cricket: England capped an amazing Bazball turnaround with a historic Test series win in Pakistan. Ben Stokes’s revolution continued on the sub continent when his Test side became the first to win three matches in Pakistan on a single tour. England would finish 2022 with nine wins in Stokes and Brendon McCullum’s first 10 matches.
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