Top 20 world sports performers of 2020: LeBron James to Naomi Osaka and Bryson Dechambeau
It might have been a sporting year like no other but there was still much to celebrate. Here are sport’s 20 best performances of 2020.
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It was a sporting year like no other, but it didn’t stop the elite from enhancing their reputations.
Bubbles, hubs, no fans ... it took something special from these 20 stars to keep sport in a positive light.
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1. LEBRON JAMES (basketball)
“GOAT” could precede James’ name quite easily. It is a debate that will rage for eternity, whether the 35-year-old is better than Michael Jordan or not. What we do know is daylight is third. The four-time NBA champion and finals most valuable player — with Miami (2012-13), Cleveland (2016) and Los Angeles (2020) — is a 16-time All-Star and four-time league MVP. James averaged 25.3 points, 10.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds per game in 2020, taking his career totals to 34, 241 (third most), 9346 (eighth) and 9405.
2. LEWIS HAMILTON (motor racing)
Is he the greatest Formula One driver in history? He’s at least very much in the conversation after this year clinching a record-equalling seventh F1 title. Hamilton now stands alongside Formula One great Michael Schumacher on seven world crowns and has an eighth title very much in his sights in 2021.
3. LIVERPOOL (football)
It took 30 years of heartbreak and a long, drawn out COVID-19 shutdown to get there, but Liverpool finally lifted the English Premier League title trophy in June. Manager Jurgen Klopp captured the heart of the northern-English city and the world with his cheeky nature and the team will be etched in Anfield history forever.
4. DUSTIN JOHNSON (golf)
The American, who broke through to win the US Masters this year, has been the world No.1 for 106 weeks and counting. Johnson is the reigning USPGA Tour Player of the Year and FedEx Cup champion. The 36-year-old has 27 professional wins including the 2016 US Open.
5. NAOMI OSAKA (tennis)
One of tennis’ shining lights with racquet in hand and without. The socially-conscious Japanese star claimed a second US Open title in September with a thrilling 1-6 6-3 6-3 triumph over Victoria Azarenka. Along the way Osaka became the highest-earning female athlete in a single year, surpassing her idol Serena Williams.
6. NOVAK DJOKOVIC (tennis)
Despite his unforced errors off the court — and on it at Flushing Meadows — there’s no denying Djokovic only continued to stake his claim as the biggest threat to the records of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in 2020. The world No.1 added an eighth Australian Open title — his 17th grand slam singles crown — and there will be more to come. He is just three behind both Federer and Nadal.
7. FRANKIE DETTORI (horse racing)
It’s a shame we only get to see Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori in Melbourne once a year on Cup Day because the Italian is without peer in global riding ranks. Dettori has ridden some of the best horses to grace our planet in the biggest races for the best part of three decades and to this day remains at the top of his game. The 49-year-old, who ended the 2020 Royal Ascot carnival with six winners to equal the record (73) for the Royal Meeting, has banked more than $43 million for racehorse owners the past five years alone.
8. LIONEL MESSI (football)
The world’s best and only the second in football history to pocket $1 billion in career earnings after Cristiano Ronaldo. Forbes rated Messi the highest paid footballer in the world in 2020, earning $126 million including $34 million in endorsements alone. With blistering skills and a nose for finding the back of the net, the Argentine superstar has a legion of fans the world over.
9. ROBERT LEWANDOWSKI (football)
The Polish star, who plays for Bayern Munich, was instrumental in Bayern’s eighth straight Bundesliga crown. He was responsible for more than a third of his team’s 100-goal tally in the league. The striker also led his side to the Champions League title and became just the second player to win the European treble, while also being the top scorer in all three competitions.
10. RAFAEL NADAL (tennis)
His year started with a quarter-final exit at the Australian Open, but Nadal then went on to claim his 13th French Open crown with a straight sets win over Novak Djokovic in the final. His ridiculous record at Roland-Garros will never be topped, at least not in our lifetime.
11. TYSON FURY (boxing)
The “Gypsy King” is now in the conversation about the best heavyweight champions in history. Fury ended the near-decade reign of Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 and then avenged the only blemish of his career, a draw against Deontay Wilder, this year when he stopped the previously unbeaten American.
12. TADEJ POGACAR (cycling)
Pogacar celebrated his 22nd birthday by riding into Paris to claim the Tour de France crown in 2020. In doing so, the Slovenian became the youngest Tour champion of the post-WWII era. It continued cycling’s generational shift, which had already been evolving over the past few years.
13. VIRAT KOHLI (cricket)
The Indian captain this year surpassed countrymen and fellow great Sachin Tendulkar as the fastest man ever to reach 12,000 one-day international runs. Tendulkar took 300 innings to achieve the feat, but in his 242nd innings the man they call “King Kohli” overtook him. A very minor glitch was that he failed to maintain his 11-year streak of scoring ODI centuries in every calendar year since 2009.
14. JOSHUA CHEPTEGEI (athletics)
Set a new bar for distance running by smashing the 5000m and 10,000m world records inside two months. The Ugandan dipped under Kenenisa Bekele’s 16-year-old world 5000m record at the Monaco Diamond League meet, clocking 12min 35.36sec. Then in October, the 24-year-old again took another record off Bekele, this time by more than six seconds when he ran 26min 11sec for the 10,000m.
15. BRYSON DECHAMBEAU (golf)
The big-hitting American overhauled his physique in 2020 and, in many eyes, changed the game of golf. For the better? Well, that’s up for debate, but there’s no denying that he’s put his rivals on notice and forced them to rethink their approach, making distance king. How long will it reign?
16. MIKE TROUT (baseball)
The Los Angeles Angels superstar is the best player in baseball bar none and remains firmly on a path to being the greatest ever. Yes, better than Babe Ruth. Trout, 29, boasts a 10-year career .304 batting average for 798 runs batted in, 302 home runs, 260 doubles and 48 triples. Trout is an eight-time All-Star, eight-time Silver Slugger (best offensive), a three-time American League most valuable player (runner-up four times) and two-time AL Hank Aaron (best hitter).
17. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (American football)
A 50-year drought was broken in style by the Chiefs who, after being shut out in the third quarter, scored 21 unanswered points to claim Super Bowl LIV over the San Francisco 49ers in February. Patrick Mahomes, at the age of 24, became the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl MVP.
18. BEN STOKES (cricket)
Confirmed his standing as the best all-rounder in the world. Was the difference in England’s series victory over South Africa in January with a man-of-the-match performance in the second Test then followed up with an important century in the Third Test. Stokes also captained England for the first time against West Indies in July.
19. SERENA WILLIAMS (tennis)
By her remarkable standards, this year was a season of diminishing returns for Serena. She made the semi-finals of the US Open and looked to have rival Victoria Azarenka on toast before mid-match form reversal saw her fall 1-6 6-3 6-3 to the Belarusian. Had she made it through that match she would have faced off against Naomi Osaka and the chance to win her 24th grand slam singles title, drawing level with Australian great Margaret Court. At 39, time is running perilously short for the American great to reach that goal.
20. ROGER FEDERER (tennis)
Showed the magic was still there at the age of 38 by making the semi-finals of the Australian Open. However, the search for his 21st Grand Slam title ended at the hands of world No.1 Novak Djokovic. A knee injury in February wiped off the rest of the year with Federer requiring two bouts of surgery which saw him miss the French Open and US Open.
Originally published as Top 20 world sports performers of 2020: LeBron James to Naomi Osaka and Bryson Dechambeau
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