When Carl Frampton arrived for his first fight in the US earlier this year, the Jackal was an unknown quantity on American soil. The dangerous Leo Santa Cruz was the reigning featherweight champion and red-hot favourite. Not many in the US – some of the boxing media are very parochial – gave Frampton a sniff.
What happened next was brilliant, unforgettable drama. I have been at the World Cup final, the Olympic Games and countless, rocking Premier League encounters, yet the atmosphere at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn that night was something else. The sport was special too.
Fairytale in New York: Carl Frampton.
The Irish fans filled the arena and proudly roared Frampton on as his masterly, all-action display sent Santa Cruz to a first-ever defeat. It also sealed a place in history as the Belfast boy became Northern Ireland’s first ever two-weight world champion.
It was the night Frampton brilliantly announced himself on the world stage and the rematch in Las Vegas in two weeks should be a cracker.
My personal favourite sporting moment was Egyptian weightlifter Sara Ahmed clinching the 69kg bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Sara is 18, and was the first female from Egypt to stand on an Olympic podium. She had tried to get help from the government to reschedule her high school final exams but when they didn’t cooperate, she skipped her exams altogether to focus on the Olympics.
Pride of Egypt: Sara Ahmed.
She opened Egypt’s account in Rio and was followed by just two more medallists from the North African nation. My favourite part of it all was that she was crying because she missed out on silver.
A priceless inspirational moment for all young Egyptians and Arabs.
Leicester’s title-winning season was the stuff of dreams but on February 6 at the Etihad Stadium, it took a very serious turn.
Leicester blew defending champions Manchester City away, with a splendid display of sharp counter-attacks while a compact defence frustrated the Premier League’s best attack.
So much of Leicester’s season was fantasy and a Robert Huth brace on the day continued to push the limits of reality. However, the overall performance accomplished something that was until then largely dismissed quite unceremoniously.
Silencing the Etihad: Robert Huth.
It established Claudio Ranieri’s side as serious contenders, if not favourites. A difficult run of fixtures was expected to derail their audacious ambitions but this result made it four wins in five for the league leaders.
A 3-1 win that made the footballing world believe.
Usain Bolt is not only the fastest man on earth right now: he is also the fastest man ever to have lived. And when you consider that billions upon billions of humans have set foot upon this planet, that’s quite something.
Bolt’s haul of three gold medals at the Rio Olympics – the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 x 100 metres relay – was simply spectacular.
Uncatchable: Usain Bolt.
There is always something especially thrilling about the sprints, perhaps because running a short distance as quickly as possible is as basic as sport can be. There are no balls, no obstacles, no interfering opposition, no intricate rules – just a start point, a straight line, and a finish point. A simple but immensely powerful test of one human being against another.
The fundamentally human nature of sprinting races always possesses an unmatched, magical appeal, and this year, once again, Usain Bolt proved himself to be beyond compare.
Seldom do team sports feel so centered on the burden of a single individual, but in winning the NBA Finals, LeBron James vanquished a city’s ghosts nearly single-handedly.
Consider the suffering Cleveland had for so long endured – specifically a 52-year title drought across their four major sports. No one, not a team nor a single player, carried the hopes of ending that futility more than LeBron since he entered the NBA in 2003. And yet, he couldn’t do it – at least not in his first stint with the Cavaliers.
But he didn’t have to come back, especially not to a city, while his hometown, was full of people who had turned on him for his decision to leave. Back to a team whose owner had cursed him openly in a letter. LeBron didn’t owe any of these people anymore. But that’s what made his journey so special.
Achievement fulfilled: LeBron James.
The prodigal son returning to make good on a promise that he would win one for Cleveland. Superhero clichés are thrown around too often in sport, but never has an athlete’s relationship to a city so closely resembled Bruce Wayne’s to Gotham. And if LeBron is this analogy is Batman, then the Golden State Warriors were the perfect villains.
Having set the NBA’s record for single-season wins with 73 and boasting an uber-talented squad led by two-time MVP Stephen Curry, the Warriors were supposed to be unbeatable.
LeBron beat them with superhero-esque performances and did it by overcoming a 3-1 series hole. When the final buzzer sounded in Game 7, you couldn’t help but share LeBron’s tears.
Ireland’s historic victory over New Zealand last month – their first in 111 years – was my standout sporting moment of the year. Watching from a small laptop screen in Dubai and seeing the joyous scenes around Soldier Field in Chicago at the final whistle underlined my pride and passion for Irish rugby.
Historic days are rare in Irish sport and this win over the All Blacks makes me appreciate where I’m from and how – as a small nation – we can compete with the best in the world. It was a unique win for Joe Schmidt’s men after falling short on so many occasions – most notably in 2013 when we led for 79 minutes only to concede a late try and lose by two points.
Historic achievement: Irish success.
The passion and determination of players like Jamie Heaslip and Rory Best – men who’ve put their bodies on the line for over a decade – makes me even more grateful for my beloved nation and really respect what these guys are willing to do to win at all costs.
There are improbable sporting moments and then there is Hal Robson-Kanu turning three Belgian defenders inside out with a Cruyff turn in the European Championships to fire Wales into the semi-finals.
A goal so perfect in technique but so unlikely because, with all due respect to Robson-Kanu, he wasn’t exactly identified as a striker to fear coming into the tournament.
Unlikely hero: Hal Robson-Kanu.
Yet with one touch to control Aaron Ramsey’s inside pass with his back to goal, another to feint inside Thomas Meunier and Marouane Fellaini – performed so effortlessly that Jordan Lukaku continued to run in completely the opposite direction – and a third to guide a composed finish past Thibaut Courtois.
Robson-Kanu was a player without a club yet left an undeniable mark on a major international tournament that will remain forever. That it was also down in the year of Johan Cruyff’s passing, carried extra, somewhat surreal, symbolism.
I doubt anyone thought the iconic Duel in the Sun when Tom Watson beat Jack Nicklaus by one shot in the 1977 Open at Turnberry after an enthralling battle would ever be outshone. And it is testimony to the magnificent struggle between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon that both Watson and Nicklaus agreed that the final round of the 2016 Open was even more spectacular.
This showdown will forever be remembered because, like Watson and Nicklaus, both men played sensational golf and it took a magnificent 51-foot putt from the Swede on the 15th hole to take a two-shot lead with three to play to finally give him a chance of victory, but even then Mickelson fought until the end of a titanic duel.
Tremendous duel: Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson.
Stenson finished on 20-under to set a new Open record and equal the lowest round ever scored in major history. Mickelson also had a superb round of 65 to finish on 17-under which normally would have been good enough to win a major tournament but Stenson was just too good.
It was an unbelievable display of elite golf from both players that I personally will never forget. A sensational piece of golfing history.
It’s been a frustrating year for the UAE cricket team with only eight victories in 29 games. But there’s one triumph that stands out – the five-run win over Ireland in a T20I in February.
On paper, the Irish were overwhelming favourites to clinch the two-game series having beaten their opponents two days earlier. But with the odds stacked against them, the UAE who had been struggling for consistency ever since the World Cup 2015, pulled off an historic victory at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, defending their 134-run target.
Big win: UAE down Ireland.
You only had to see what it meant to the UAE – they had never tasted victory against the likes of Kevin O’Brien in any format since 2001. It set the platform to build on the Asia Cup qualifiers, just days later.
With one spot available, the UAE defeated a powerful Afghanistan side, Oman and Hong Kong to join the continent’s elite. They lost all their games against the region’s heavyweights but won the hearts of neutrals for their battling efforts. It just shows how big of an impact that Ireland victory had on the whole team.
Mo Farah is Great Britain’s most successful ever Olympic track and field athlete but still doesn’t get the plaudits. The effort and determination that went into retaining his 5,000m and 10,000m gold medals in Rio was truly phenomenal – I loved watching a true pro leave it all out there on the track.
He was only the second man to achieve that feat and very few athletes seem to get the crowd going like him, or garner the same kind of support. His sheer presence seemed to edge him over the line in both Brazil races, despite fierce opposition from his rivals.
Double-Double: Mo Farah.
Farah is a truly remarkable talent and will be sorely missed when he retires in London next year.
With a soft spot for Chicago baseball since watching Eight Men Out and the sombre tale of the iconic White Sox side that took bribes to lose the 1919 World Series, it was fascinating to see their city rivals crowned Major League’s kings.
Historic, heartwarming, this story captured the imagination beyond those familiar with America’s favourite pastime.
After losing legends like ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson through the scandal, the White Sox went 88 years without a world championship until their 2005 success. But the neighbouring Cubs ended their own drought after 108 difficult years with a 4-3 series win over Cleveland Indians after being 3-1 down and edging Game 7 by a score of 8-7 in 10 gripping innings.
World Series win: Chicago Cubs.
What made it more poignant was they had broken a curse too. Pronounced in 1945 by a Chicago tavern owner after his goat, supposedly smelly, was evicted from Wrigley Field, it was all somewhat fantastical.
Yet so was the way the Cubs finally won their fight with fate.
Conor McGregor willed his dream into reality. Becoming the first ever concurrent two-weight UFC world champion was a feat only he deemed possible. In his mind the moment had been played out over and over again to the point that when the two belts were draped over each shoulder at UFC 205, it was really no surprise to him, just a confirmation of his inherent self-belief.
The Irishman has his detractors. There are those turned off by his brash and brazen style of mental warfare in the lead-up to battle, but all were united in their reverence after he delivered an otherworldly performance to stop lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. It was a masterful display, one made all the more special given it came on a night when the UFC celebrated its first appearance in New York after a decade-long fight to legalise MMA in the state.
Two-weight champion: Conor McGregor.
His victory in adding the lightweight strap to his featherweight crown is historic. His legacy as an all-time great was all-but secured on that night.
And when we look back at some of the biggest moments of 2016 in decades to come, one image which is sure to raise the hairs from skin will be of McGregor sat atop the cage with one belt on each shoulder, staring skywards amid a sea of faces etched with awe. Not bad for a former plumber.
A lot happened on the cricket field in 2016. However, my highlight was West Indies winning the World T20. Here was a team hardly anyone, including me, backed to succeed in India even though their line-up was full of T20 stars.
What ignited their campaign was not an incident on the field but a remark by commentator Mark Nicholas, who wrote “West Indies are short of brains but have IPL history in their ranks”.
Backs to the wall triumph: West Indies.
The Caribbean side took it as a personal insult and made their displeasure apparent. They crushed India in the semi-final and then in the title clash, stunned England with Carlos Brathwaite unleashing four sixes in the final over.
And with that triumph, the West Indies held three major titles at the same time – the men’s and women’s World T20 and the U19 World Cup. The Calypso was in full flow.
