Year-ender | New crowns, new royals and tearful farewells: Here's 2024 in sports

From the highs of the T20 World Cup, to the heartbreak of Vinesh's medal snub, take a look at the top sports stories from this year.

Another year has gone by, and the world of sports, saw new highs and lows in the last 365 days from every corner of the planet.

Let's take a look at some of the stories that took sports arenas by storm:

A World Cup finally came home

Team India lift the ICC T20 World Cup trophy after beating South Africa in the final in the West Indies. 

2023’s heartbreak was overcome by the jubilation of 2024. Team India finally won a World Cup after 12 years. It was the perfect farewell for Rohit, Kohli and Jadeja, who retired from the shortest format.

Gauti Da brings back the Trophy to Kolkata

Gautam Gambhir with KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan. 

10 years since he captained them to the IPL trophy, Gautam Gambhir returned to KKR as coach, and once again brought the golden cup back to Bengal. With Rahul Dravid stepping down, this season was the perfect audition for him to take over as the national coach.

The Professor calls it a day

R Ashwin receiving a guard of honour from Team India.

Retiring mid-series is not something many people do. But Ravi Ashwin is no ordinary cricketer of course. Calculating the perfect time to do so, the spin wizard called it a day after India’s 3rd Test against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar series. He retired from all formats, with a record haul of 765 wickets and 19,743 runs in 287 matches.

A black spot on the land of the blue

India's captain Rohit Sharma reacts after losing the third Test cricket match against New Zealand.

New Zealand handed India their first home Test series defeat since 2012, whitewashing the Men in Blue by 0-3. This was the first whitewash suffered by Team India at home in a three-match Test series.

Olympics: Some hit the target of joy, others grappled with heartbreak

(From left) Neeraj Chopra, Vinesh Phogat and Manu Bhaker. 

Paris Games 2024 saw India win 6 medals, 1 less than the previous edition. Neeraj Chopra could only get a silver this time, while Manu Bhaker bagged two bronze medals and the men's hockey team retained the bronze, among others. In many events, India came very close to a medal but fell short of it.

A medal lost and a seat won

Vinesh Phogat celebrates with supporters after her victory from the Julana constituency in the Haryana Assembly elections.

Vinesh Phogat’s Olympics was the talk of the town. Competing in the women's 50kg wrestling, she reached the finals but was then disqualified for exceeding the weight by 100 grams. She promptly retired from the sport, joined politics, and then won elections on a Congress ticket to become an MLA in Haryana.

All hail King Gukesh

D Gukesh celebrates after clinching FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore.

D Gukesh, on December 12, beat Ding Liren of China and was crowned the FIDE world chess champion, incidentally becoming the youngest-ever to do so and the second Indian to accomplish it after V Anand. It capped off a brilliant year for Indian Chess, which also won six gold medals at the Chess Olympiad.

He who walked among greats ends his journey

Sunil Chhetri.

Sunil Chhetri, an Indian football great, who at one point had more active international goals than Lionel Messi, with only Cristiano Ronaldo having more than him, retired from international circuit on June 6, 2024.

He retired with 94 goals in 151 official international appearances, and is currently 4th on the all time top-scorer lists.

El Matador hangs up his racquet

Spain's Rafael Nadal acknowledges the fans in his farewell appearance. 

Having announced that this year’s Davis Cup will be his last professional tournament, Spain’s defeat to the Netherlands on November 19, 2024 turned out to be Rafael Nadal’s farewell appearance on the tennis court. He retired with 22 Grand Slam titles.

Spain conquers Europe to mark a new era

The Spanish football team players celebrate after winning the Euros 2024.

Led by the young prodigy Lamine Yamal, Spain won the 2024 Euros, beating an English side that had made back-to-back Euro finals. What was more interesting was them winning with more direct football, deviating from the usual possession-based football.