- Title: VARIOUS: Sports yearender 2011 - Review of the year part 3
- Date: 10th December 2011
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (SEPTEMBER 16, 2011) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) YOHAN BLAKE SAYING: "My season was wonderful, everything I dreamed of, and I finished on a high note, 19.26 the second fastest in history against Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson, it's a tremendous feeling for me right now, I'm feeling on Pluto."
- Embargoed: 25th December 2011 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Spain, Belgium, Usa, Serbia, United Kingdom
- City:
- Country: Various
- Topics: Sports
- Reuters ID: LVA6UPOZGFD2PN8EBC9SNGV4EVAE
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Part three of the sports highlights of 2011 - July to September.
JULY In the Wimbledon men's final, an inspired Novak Djokovic outplayed Rafa Nadal to win the championships with an emphatic 6-4 6-1 1-6 6-3 victory.
The Serbian second seed saw off the top seed and defending champion to claim his first Wimbledon crown and confirm his status as the new world number one, a position he would hold for the rest of 2011.
Czech eighth seed Petra Kvitova kept her nerve to out-gun and out-play favourite Maria Sharapova of Russia and win the women's singles title for the first time with a convincing 6-3 6-4 victory.
The 21-year-old, who had not won a match on grass until last year, served consistently and maintained a barrage of powerful, attacking groundstrokes to become only the third left hander to win the women's title after Anne Jones and Martina Navratilova.
Sharapova, who won the title as a 17-year-old in 2004, had reached the final without dropping a set, but served raggedly and the Russian fifth seed had no answers to the uninhibited approach of her rival, the first Czech to triumph since Jana Novotna in 1998.
Vladimir Klitschko beat Britain's David Haye on a unanimous points decision on July 2 to add the WBA heavyweight title to his three other belts and complete his family's domination of the division.
The Ukrainian, whose lighter and smaller opponent took him the full 12 rounds despite fighting with a broken toe, was declared the winner 117-109, 118-108 and 116-110.
While denied the 50th career knockout he had hoped for, Klitschko could still celebrate with his brother and WBC champion Vitali.
Between them the pair now hold the WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF and IBO belts, achieving their dream of uniting the entire division in the family.
Pyeongchang of South Korea won the right to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, comprehensively winning a vote by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over rivals Munich of Germany and France's Annecy.
IOC President Jacques Rogge announced Pyeongchang's victory at the IOC's session in Durban.
Pyeongchang narrowly missed victory in each of the last two Winter Olympic votes, losing out to Vancouver of Canada for the 2010 Games and to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi for 2014.
Japan won the women's soccer World Cup for the first time in July, stunning the heavily favoured United States 3-1 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in extra time.
The game provided a thrilling finale to the three-week tournament played in packed stadiums around Germany.
Japan was in need of a good news story after the tsunami disaster which rocked the country in March and, despite falling behind in normal time and again in extra time, they hit back out of the blue on both occasions before prevailing in the shootout as the top-ranked U.S. team lost all their confidence, sending a series of poor efforts at goal.
The United States were chasing a third World Cup title and dominated for long periods but wasted their many chances, especially in the first half.
Saki Kumagai clinched victory with a well-placed shot high to the left over diving U.S. keeper Hope Solo, sparking wild celebrations with her team mates in front of the sell-out crowd of almost 49,000.
Darren Clarke's long wait for a first major title ended when he fought off a pack of Americans to claim a magnificent three-shot victory at a windswept British Open.
Playing in the championship for the 20th time, the burly 42-year-old Northern Irishman tamed the treacherous Royal St George's links to protect his overnight lead.
He could even afford two bogeys at the finish as he tapped in at the 18th for a masterful final round 70 to win from playing partner Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.
Former Ryder Cup hero Clarke had not made the top-10 at one of golf's four majors for 10 years and had arrived at Sandwich almost unnoticed.
Four vintage rounds later in some of the most testing condition seen at the Open, the cigar-loving Briton strolled off with the 900,000 pounds (1.45 million U.S. dollars) winner's cheque.
Yao Ming, who ignited China's interest in the NBA and became one of Asia's best-known athletes, announced his retirement from basketball on July 20.
Yao, China's most recognisable athlete, made history as the first international player to be made top pick in the NBA draft when the Houston Rockets called his name in 2002.
Despite knowing no English when he first arrived in the United States, seven-foot six-inch (2.3-metre) Yao proved a hit both at home in China and the NBA.
He made more than $90 million U.S. Dollars in salary, became a popular frontman for major firms and popularised the league in China, opening the door to lucrative NBA marketing ventures in the world's most populous nation.
But injuries cut short a promising career as broken bones in his left leg, surgery on his left big toe, a right knee injury, and ankle injuries sidelined him.
Yao's retirement news conference was attended by more than 200 media personnel, his wife Ye Li and their daughter Amy, NBA China officials and the Rockets' general manager Daryl Morey. China's state broadcaster CCTV carried it live.
Cadel Evans became the first Australian to win the Tour de France on July 24.
The 34-year-old Evans, the oldest Tour winner since World War II, showed resilience throughout as he broke three-times champion Alberto Contador's unbeaten run in a grand tour since 2007.
Luxembourg's Andy Schleck was second overall for the third year in succession, 1:34 behind Evans, who claimed his maiden grand tour title.
Frank Schleck was third, 2:30 off the pace as the two brothers climbed onto the final Tour de France podium for the first time.
The Australian only took the overall leader's yellow jersey after the penultimate day's final time trial in which he humbled Andy Schleck by 2:31, easily overcoming a 57-second deficit.
After crashing four times in the first nine days of the Tour, Contador finished fifth, almost four minutes behind Evans.
Diego Forlan scored twice and Luis Suarez once as Uruguay beat Paraguay 3-0 to win the Copa America and be crowned South American champions for a record 15th time.
Suarez put Uruguay ahead in the eighth minute of the final in Buenos Aires when his low, left-footed shot from the right beat the diving Justo Villar and went in off the far post.
Forlan, the 2010 World Cup's best player, made it 2-0 three minutes before halftime when he blasted left-footed past Villar from the edge of the box.
In a last-minute counter-attack, Forlan made sure of the title with his second goal.
Uruguay now have one more title than hosts Argentina, whom they upset on penalties in the quarter-finals, at the end of a fine 12 months following their fourth place at the 2010 World Cup.
Outgoing champions Brazil, were also eliminated in the quarter-finals on penalties by Paraguay, who had gone on to reach the final after five draws.
Barcelona signed Udinese's forward Alexis Sanchez for 26 million euros ($36.9 million) plus a possible 11.5 million euros in variables as the Spanish and European champions made their first addition to their squad for next season.
Sanchez started out as a youth recruit at Chilean club Cobreloa, where his goal-scoring exploits earned him the nickname 'wonder kid'.
The 22-year-old's move to the Catalan capital triggered the departure of Spain Under-21 forward Bojan Krkic to Udinese's Serie A rivals, AS Roma.
AUGUST Former Germany World Cup winner and manager Juergen Klinsmann was formally introduced as the new United States national soccer coach on August 1.
Klinsmann, who took over one day after Bob Bradley was sacked, is the first foreign-born coach to lead the U.S. since Serb Bora Milutinovic, who was in charge from 1991 to 1995.
Klinsmann took over as head coach of the German national team in 2004 and guided them to the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup hosted by his home country. He stepped down after the World Cup with a record of 20 wins, eight draws and six losses.
In 2008, he accepted the job as head coach of Bayern Munich but did not last the season when he was replaced with five matches to play due to a difference of opinion with the club's board of directors.
Meanwhile, Diego Maradona turned up in the UAE as Al Wasl's new coach.
The 50-year-old, 1986 World Cup-winning captain said that he was delighted to be in Dubai and he promised to help Al Wasl to improve on their UAE Pro league position after they finished sixth in the 2010-11 season.
At the beginning of December Al Wasl, were second in the UAE Pro league, three points behind defending champions Al Jazira.
The Argentine is reported to be on an annual salary of 3.4 million euros with a private jet at his disposal.
Maradona's previous role as Argentina coach ended in July 2010 after the country's football association voted unanimously not to renew his contract following the team's 4-0 thrashing by Germany in the World Cup quarter-finals in South Africa.
August saw a glut of big soccer transfers as the European leagues got under way.
Big-spending Paris St Germain presented new Argentine acquisition Javier Pastore on August 8.
The 22-year-old Latin American playmaker signed a five-year contract in what was a French record 42 million euro (36.6 million pound) move from Palermo.
PSG was bought by Qatari investors at the end of last season and Pastore was part of a raft of new signings totalling more than 80 million euros.
PSG has under-achieved as a capital city side for much of its short history in Ligue 1, outshone by other European top clubs in terms of financial muscle.
In a deal that ended one of the most protracted transfer sagas of modern times, Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas signed a five-year contract with Barcelona.
Fabregas's boyhood club finally got their man after chasing him for three years.
After his medical the Spanish World Cup winner was presented to around 30,000 Barca fans in the Nou Camp as he returned to the club he left as a 16-year-old in 2003.
Samir Nasir also left Arsenal as he was snatched up by cash-rich Manchester City.
The Frenchman rejected suggestions a more lucrative contract was the reason behind his £24 million (USD$39 million) move to Manchester from North London.
Nasri was also linked with City's cross town rivals Manchester United as he entered the final year of his Arsenal contract.
City had made a number of bids for Nasri before manager Roberto Mancini finally landed his man.
Atletico Madrid presented prolific striker Radamel Falcao on August 22.
The Spanish club signed the Colombia striker from Porto for a fee of 40 million euros ($57.26 million).
Falcao scored 73 goals in 84 games for Porto after joining the club in July 2009 from Argentina's River Plate for 5.5 million euros.
Valencia sold Spain winger Juan Mata to Chelsea for an undisclosed fee.
The 23-year-old international had been the mainstay of the Valencia side since 2008 with his speed and goals marking him out as one of Europe's most exciting widemen.
Chelsea also signed Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku and Spanish midfielder Oriol Romeu in the transfer window as new coach Andre Villas-Boas looked to shine in the Champions League and snatch back the Premier League title from Manchester United.
Valencia, third in La Liga last term, had demanded around 30 million euros for Mata, according to media reports.
In a surprise move, Samuel Eto'o left Inter Milan to join Russian league club Anzhi Makhachkala who are based in Dagestan.
In February, Anzhi had also acquired Brazilian former World Cup winner Roberto Carlos.
Anzhi did not disclose the transfer fee but reports said it was around 30 million euros, adding the four-times African Footballer of the Year could become the richest player in the world on an annual salary of 20 million euros.
Eto'o, 30, made his name in Spain with Real Madrid and Real Mallorca before winning the 2006 and 2009 Champions League with Barcelona. He joined Inter in 2009 and won a Serie A, Italian Cup and Champions League treble in his first season.
PGA Tour rookie Keegan Bradley maintained ice-cool composure to win his first major title in a two-way playoff with fellow American Jason Dufner for the 93rd PGA Championship.
Bradley, who had trailed Dufner by five strokes with three holes to play in regulation, clinched the prized Wanamaker Trophy over three extra holes at Atlanta Athletic Club.
His victory, in his debut major, ended an unprecedented run of six majors without a U.S. champion, and was his second title on the U.S. circuit in his first season.
Bradley sealed victory in the year's final major with a two-putt par at the treacherous 18th after both players found the front portion of the green with their approach shots.
After tapping in from less than a metre, the 25-year-old acknowledged the roars from the crowd crammed around the green before shaking hands with Dufner, who had birdied the hole from long range.
World number one Novak Djokovic donned a blonde wig to impersonate Russia's Maria Sharapova at a light hearted press conference on August 24.
The Serb, seeded number one for the upcoming U.S. Open, was met by roars of laughter when he walked out impersonating Sharapova at a promotional event for Head tennis rackets in New York City.
After answering questions posing as Sharapova, Djokovic was confronted by the woman herself and the pair exchanged some playful banter in front of a delighted audience.
There were tears and glory, a solitary world record and athletics firsts. There was even a Daegu curse. But for most, the story of the 13th world athletics championships will be disqualifications.
Central to it all, good or bad, was the king showman of the sport -- the world's fastest man Usain Bolt.
Athletics' controversial no-second-chances rule on false starts deprived South Korean fans at the stadium, and millions watching worldwide, the chance to watch the Jamaican compete in the blue riband 100 metres final.
Anxiety caused him to burst from the blocks a split second early and that was it.
The sport's biggest draw card left the track and his compatriot and training partner Yohan Blake took his title in an anti-climactic race.
Bolt redeemed himself by retaining the 200 metres title -- and then anchoring the 4x100m team to a world record 37.04 seconds in that final.
World record-holding 110 metres hurdler Dayron Robles was also disqualified. His crime was bumping Chinese rival Liu Xiang along the blue Daegu track.
There was another big shock when pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva could only clear 4.65 metres to finish sixth.
Memorable, too, was the "cover curse" which lurked around the athletes' village until it was broken by Sally Pearson.
Pearson had been the cover star on Saturday's programme after the featured athlete has failed to win their event in seven out of the eight days of the championships.
But the Australian emphatically put the curse to rest as she took the world 100m hurdles title in 12.28 seconds, the fastest time in 19 years.
Female athlete of the year Pearson went on to enjoy a phenomenal season, winning 15 of 16 races.
Bolt's face filled the front page of Sunday's programme. With a world record performance in the men's 4x100 metres relay, he once again had the final say.
SEPTEMBER Former Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou won their appeals against suspended jail sentences for perjury.
A unanimous verdict of not guilty was announced by the Greek Court of Appeal for the Sydney 2000 Olympic medallists, who had in May been sentenced to 31 months in jail for staging a motorcycle crash to avoid a doping test before the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Libyans in Martyrs Square in Tripoli celebrated their national soccer team's 1-0 victory against Mozambique in an Africa Cup Of Nations qualifying match on September 3.
The match, which was played in the Egyptian capital behind closed doors due to security concerns, was won 1-0 by Libya thanks to a goal from Rabe Allafi.
The Libyan team took to the pitch wearing a new all-white kit emblazoned with the red, black and green flag of pre-Gaddafi Libya, adopted by revolutionary forces, rather than the green kit favoured by the Gaddafi regime, and stood to attention to Libya's pre-1969 national anthem.
Ecstatic fans, watching the game on big screens in Tripoli, said the team had taken inspiration from the fight against Gaddafi.
The final whistle was greeted by cheering fans and celebratory gunshots into the night sky. There were more celebrations in October when Libya clinched their place in the 2012 finals being held in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
The crash of a plane in Russia on September 7 with 44 dead, including almost the entire squad of Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) team Lokomotiv, plunged the world of ice hockey into grief.
The plane was carrying players, coaches and officials of Lokomotiv, which is based in Yaroslavl, to a match in Minsk.
Three Czech world champions, Jan Marek, Karel Rachunek and Josef Vasicek, Slovakia captain Pavol Demitra and Swedish goaltender Stefan Liv were amongst the dead together with several former NHL players.
Sam Stosur became the first Australian woman in 38 years to win the U.S. Open tennis when she upset Serena Williams 6-2 6-3 in an ill-tempered final.
Stosur played the match of her life to defeat the most formidable player of her generation and capture her first grand slam title, spoiling American hopes of a home-bred champion on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
In the men's singles final, Novak Djokovic outplayed Rafael Nadal to win 6-2 6-4 6-7 6-1 and show why he really was the hottest player in the game in 2011.
The Serb world number one produced a masterful display of tactics and precision then regained his composure after failing to serve out the match in the third set to seal victory after four hours and 10 minutes.
The win provided Djokovic with his first U.S. Open title after he had twice been beaten in the final and his third grand slam of the year.
Jamaican Yohan Blake blazed to the second fastest 200 metres of all time at the Brussels Diamond League meeting on September 16, upstaging compatriot and training partner Usain Bolt who clocked the quickest 100m of the season.
Blake stunned the capacity crowd by clocking 19.26, just seven-hundreds of a second behind Bolt's world record set in Berlin in 2009.
Spain won their second successive European basketball championship after beating France 98-85 in a spectacular final in front of 15,000 fans in the Zhalgiris Arena in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Spain's starting five scored a whopping 86 points, more than the entire 12-man French roster, as the champions demonstrated their class and finished the gruelling 24-team tournament with an impressive 10-1 record.
Spain, who were led by inspirational point guard Juan Carlos Navarro with 27 points, also became the first team to win back-to-back titles since the former Yugoslavia did it in the 1995 and 1997 tournaments.
Jose Luis Calderon and Los Angeles Lakers centre Pau Gasol added 17 points each for Spain, the latter also collecting 10 rebounds.
Following the sacking of Gian Piero Gasperini, Claudio Ranieri became Inter Milan's fourth coach since Jose Mourinho led them to the Champions League title in 2010.
Ranieri, 59, had coached in Spain (Valencia and Atletico Madrid) and in England (Chelsea), as well as working with a host of Italian clubs including Napoli, Fiorentina and most recently Juventus and Roma, where he resigned in February following a poor run of results, a season after taking the Giallorossi to the brink of the title.
More than 40,000 women and children attended Fenerbahce's home match against Manisaspor on September 20 after the soccer authorities banned men from attending because of hooliganism at a previous game.
The women and children wore the team's navy and yellow shirts and took part in well-organised chants to provide a bright atmosphere that went down well with players of both teams.
They were searched before the game by an all-women police squad, although Turkish media reported that at least one man, disguised under a headscarf and women's clothing, made it in to the stadium.
The club faced trouble after a July friendly against Shakhtar Donetsk descended into chaos following a pitch invasion. The authorities initially ordered the club to play two home games behind closed doors, but later said it would allow the club to issue free tickets as long as they were only offered to women and children under the age of 12.
Kenyan Patrick Makau shattered the world men's marathon record by 21 seconds in Berlin when he clocked two hours three minutes 38 seconds.
Makau ran alone for the final 12 kms to break the previous mark of 2:03:59 set by Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie on the same course three years ago. It was the fifth time the men's world record has fallen on the 42.195-km race through the heart of the German capital.
Terry Francona's eight-year run as manager of the Boston Red Sox came to a close at the end of September when he announced he was not returning next season, just two days after the team suffered one of the greatest collapses in Major League Baseball (MLB).
Francona led the Red Sox to the World Series title in 2004 -- ending a championship drought dating back to 1918 - and again in 2007, but speculation about his future intensified after the team missed the 2011 season's playoffs following a dramatic late season collapse.
The 52-year-old met with leading club officials in Boston and told them he thought it was time he left the club. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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