TIGER’S TUMBLE IS SPORTS STORY OF THE YEAR

There were many intriguing sports headlines in 2010. There have been so many that I am sure to forget a few or fail to mention others that were significant.
From the very start of the year sports stories have captivated us. Take for example, Veronica Campbell Brown – my candidate for Jamaica’s Female Athlete of the Year – won her first World Indoor Title when she took the 60 metre dash in a personal best seven seconds flat.
She was not the favorite as Carmelita Jeter and Laverne Jones Ferrette had run faster in the lead up to the Indoor Championships in Doha last March.
It was only a few months before that VCB had been written off as having her best days behind her. She had finished fourth in the World Championships 100m sprint and second again in the 200m behind Alyson Felix. But in November 2009 she began training under Anthony Carpenter and came out in 2010 to take the Indoor title and run the fastest time in the 100-metres (10.78), a personal best and 21.98s over the 200m – a world’s best for the year.

Usain Bolt ran the fastest time ever on Jamaica soil over the 200 metres, 19.56, and the fastest non-altitude time ever over the 300 metres 30.97, but he lost for the first time in two years.
Lerone Clarke won the Commonwealth Games 100 metres, Trecia Smith won the triple jump.
In football Spain won their very first World Cup, Jamaica won the Caribbean Cup and Chelsea won the English Premier League.
The Lakers won back to back championships in the NBA and the New Orleans Saints won their very first Super Bowl.
All these were very exciting stories, but for me the top story for 2010 was the fall of Tiger Woods.
Woods burst onto the professional golf circuit just over a decade ago and proceeded to win everything in sight. To date Woods has won 97 professional golf events including 71 PGA titles (third all time), 14 Grand Slam events (second all time), about 38 European titles (third all time) and a countless number of awards.
He was also believed to be the first athlete to earn a billion dollars.
Off the course he was seen as a model citizen. Married to Elen Nordegren, who bore him two children, Woods was Mr Squeaky Clean. That is until in late 2009 when women began to come out saying that they had had relationships with the married Woods. In December 2009, Woods announced that he would be taking time off from golf to focus on fixing his marriage and focus on his marriage.
However, in 2010 more and more women kept coming out of the woodwork and Woods’ image was totally shattered.
Such was the impact of the scandal that Tiger was unable to get his game together for the entire year, ending the season without a tournament win for the first time since he began playing as a professional in 1996.
In the meantime, major sponsor after major sponsor ended their relationships with Woods. The latest was Gillette who decided that they would not be going forward with Woods as one of their spokespersons. The fall was now complete.
Woods will never be broke even after his US$110 million divorce settlement but there are serious doubts as to whether he will ever recover his squeaky clean reputation or be recognized as possibly the greatest golfer of the modern era.
What he is being remembered as now is the man with the 200-plus mistresses.
To see how far Woods has fallen after riding so high more than a a decade is what makes him and his story, my choice for sports story of the year for 2010.