Category Archives: Motor Racing

Who will win the presidency in the United States? What will become of North Korea? The euro? The Arctic ice pack?

Can’t help there, but I am still willing to hazard my annual guesses about the champions to come, and hazard still seems the right choice of verb.

Who foresaw in 2011 that Novak Djokovic was going to become a Grand Slam title hoarder with the endurance and big-match confidence of a certain Spanish left-hander from Majorca?

Not me.

Who knew that Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks , not LeBron James and the Miami Heat , were going to win the N.B.A. title, or that the aging Cadel Evans , not the rising Andy Schleck , was going to win the Tour de France?

Pas moi .

But there were a few more shots on target than usual. I correctly, if not too boldly, picked Barcelona to win the Champions League, India and the All Blacks to win World Cups at home, the German women to lose the soccer World Cup at home, Sebastian Vettel to repeat as Formula One champion, Ryan Lochte to be the swimmer of the year ahead of Michael Phelps and Pyeongchang, South Korea, to become host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics ahead of Munich and Annecy, France.

Onward and hopefully not too far downward. Obama vs. Romney? Out of my league. But maybe, just maybe, I can be of service when it comes to Bolt vs. Blake.

JANUARY Sports globalizes a little more when Yu Darvish, the biggest baseball star in Japan, agrees to terms to pitch for the Texas Rangers. Darvish doesn’t get Albert Pujols money, but then not even Pujols should have gotten $250 million. Meanwhile, France fetes sailor Loïck Peyron, who has broken the round-the-world sailing speed record with his crew in their 40-meter trimaran Banque Populaire V. The exploit gives Peyron the Jules Verne Trophy first won by his brother Bruno in 1993, when it was unclear that a sailboat could make it round the world in less than 80 days.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/sports/07iht-arena07.html?_r=1

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