Football
Any game featuring Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez is enough to make you quicken your pace on the way to the stadium. Barcelona’s front three helped take the sport to its highest levels during the Champions League final, the culmination of the Catalan club’s treble, but Juventus took great dignity in defeat. No team could have lived with Barcelona that night. Yet the most poignant memory came afterwards when Xavi Hernández and Andrea Pirlo, two of the sport’s authentic greats, embraced on the pitch, knowing it would be their last occasion for two clubs they have distinguished with their presence. Daniel Taylor
Cricket
Edgbaston, 31 July 2015. If only as a reminder of the delicious, cruel fragility of being a professional sportsman, let’s recall the end of the Edgbaston Test against Australia. England prevail by eight wickets in front of a raucous capacity crowd – they don’t chant “Stand up if you’re 2-1 up” at Lord’s – and Ian Bell is cheered all the way back to the pavilion. On his home ground he hit a skittish 53 in the first innings followed by an unbeaten 65 in the second. Now in the brief hours of daylight he is pondering whether he will ever play Test cricket again, no doubt hoping that England perform well in South Africa without him, but not that well. Vic Marks
Rugby union
An easy choice, for once. The Rugby World Cup exceeded all (non-English) expectations, particularly for those of us lucky enough to be in Brighton on the tournament’s opening Saturday. To watch Japan beat South Africa – fair and square, no trace of a fluke – was to witness one of the more extraordinary upsets in the history of team sport. Technically, the Brave Blossoms were outstanding and, when it really mattered, they possessed the nerve and composure to finish off the flustered Boks. It was a result to encourage supposed underdogs everywhere – and earn Eddie Jones a highly lucrative contract as England’s new head coach. Robert Kitson
Athletics
This year’s world athletics championships in Beijing had so many adrenaline-charged set pieces it could have been scripted by John Woo. There was Usain Bolt’s epic 100m duel with Justin Gatlin. Jessica Ennis-Hill’s remarkable comeback from childbirth to take heptathlon gold after Katarina Johnson-Thompson fouled three times in the long jump. The US women’s 4x400m team blowing a huge lead on the final lap to lose to Jamaica. Yet for pure excitement nothing matched the women’s 200m final, which looked certain to go to the Jamaican Elaine Thompson until the flying Dutchwoman Dafne Schippers stormed down the home straight to pip her on dip in 21.63sec, the third fastest time in history. Shortly afterwards Schippers was so dizzy she had to see a doctor. The rest of us knew how she felt, having watched the greatest women’s 200m in history. Sean Ingle
Tennis
It’s hard to beat Andy Murray’s lob over David Goffin to seal Great Britain’s first Davis Cup in 79 years. It was a sublime shot at the end of a high-quality rally against a determined and talented opponent playing in front of his home crowd. But what topped it was Murray’s reaction after celebrating victory with his team-mates: he first commiserated with his opponents and, for fully 45 minutes after that, stayed on court in the unlovely shed on the edge of Ghent that was the final’s venue to sign autographs and put his face in a hundred selfies for the many hundreds of fans who had ignored the obvious personal risk to their safety at a time of unprecedented high security in Belgium after the terrorist slaughter only a week earlier in Paris. Beyond sport. Kevin Mitchell
Golf
Golf isn’t exempt from the cynicism which so categorises sport at the top level. For that reason, a year marked by the brilliance of Jordan Spieth offered a Solheim Cup moment not to be forgotten. The 20-year-old debutant Alison Lee, involved in the controversial moment in the meeting of Europe and the United States, had earlier been a peripheral figure after being hit by food poisoning. During the post-event media conference, Lee broke down in tears of joy in front of her American team-mates. “I have been really quiet and just watching from the sidelines,” Lee said. “I’m still starstruck being on this team. A year ago I was watching them on TV. I was watching them from outside the ropes and now I’m here. I still can’t believe it.” Only those of a cast-iron heart wouldn’t have felt a flutter of emotion. Ewan Murray
Cycling
The rainbow jersey of world champion is as hard to win in its own way as the maillot jaune of Tour de France winner; both this year’s elite titles in Richmond, Virginia, for Lizzie Armitstead and Peter Sagan, marked the end of lengthy quests for the arc-en-ciel. Against that backdrop, Armitstead created the moment of the year for her sangfroid in dealing with the nine-rider lead group in the final, suspenseful metres. The Yorkshirewoman looked poised for an agonising defeat as she opted to lead out the sprint, until she surged clear and it was suddenly obvious that she was on the front only because she had the total confidence that comes to an athlete on the very best of days. William Fotheringham
Boxing
This time a year ago Anthony Crolla was in hospital with a broken ankle and fractured skull after attempting to apprehend burglars at his neighbour’s house in New Moston in Manchester. They bashed him with a concrete slab, left him unconscious and have never been caught. Crolla, remarkably, has forgiven the anonymous cowards. “He could have been killed,” his trainer Joe Gallagher said. Against all odds, Crolla recovered to win the WBA lightweight title in November, stopping the previously unstoppable Colombian, Darleys Pérez, in a stirring rematch. It was a triumph of the spirit that just pipped the year’s most unlikely victory, Tyson Fury’s over (some of) his critics – “If I offended anyone, I’m sorry” – after dethroning the 11-year heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko … then re-interpreting key tracts of Leviticus. Kevin Mitchell
Rugby league
So many to pick from in a quite remarkable year for rugby league, but the night where the League Leaders’ Shield was settled back in September was a true highlight for me. With the trophy on board a helicopter hovering over the M62 and three teams still capable of finishing top, it was Ryan Hall’s last-minute try which ultimately secured leg two of a historic treble for Leeds Rhinos. First place looked to be heading to both Huddersfield and Wigan at different stages throughout the night before Hall pounced on Danny McGuire’s kick to ensure Leeds claimed top spot: a moment which epitomised the RFL’s motto of every minute mattering in 2015. Aaron Bower
Horse racing
This has been the year of the long goodbye in horse racing, AP McCoy setting the template with his two-month farewell tour in the spring, followed into retirement by Richard Hughes in high summer and Hayley Turner as the leaves fell. All three gave plenty of notice, allowing us an enjoyably prolonged wallow in nostalgia, but racing’s instinctive preference is to look forward and nothing is more exciting than the emergence of The Next Big Thing. That’s why Vautour was so thrilling in victory at the Cheltenham Festival in March. Sure, it was only a novice chase and not an especially hot one at that, but he bounded over those fences and bolted clear. He hasn’t quite made good on the promise of that day so far this winter but there is always hope of a similarly impressive performance when he returns to the home of jump racing in three months’ time. Chris Cook
Formula One
In a generally unexciting season the few gems sparkled in the gloom. There was the sight of that great team, Williams, running one-two at Silverstone, and there was the wonderful atmosphere in Mexico, as F1 returned to the city for the first time in 23 years. Best of all, though, there was the US Grand Prix in Austin, the week before Mexico. It was where Lewis Hamilton won his third world title. This most unpredictable of races, featuring two safety cars, crashes and multiple overtakes, was great fun for everyone watching. The legacy of the rain which had so disrupted the weekend was a wet track, and that added to the thrill. There was even a late plot twist, when Nico Rosberg’s surprising mistake handed the race to Hamilton. Paul Weaver
