The sporting year of 2006, packed with high-profile events dotted around the globe, will reignite fresh debates over best teams, greatest players.
Brazil, England or Argentina for the World Cup? Bode Miller or Hermann Maier to snatch the Winter Olympics limelight?
Can Australia salvage their battered teams’ pride by dominating the Commonwealth Games on home soil?
Will Rafael Nadal halt the Roger Federer express?
What about a 30-year-old Tiger Woods and his pursuit of more Majors?
By the time the Asian Games brings the curtain down on the year in December, we will have some of the answers.
Top billing will be Germany from June 9 to July 9 where Brazil will start as overwhelming favourites to lift a sixth World Cup.
Inspired by World and European Footballer of the Year Ronaldinho and with the likes of Ronaldo, Kaka and Robinho leading a roll-call of dizzying talent, the other 31 teams may be playing for second place.
”Brazil are the favourites for me,” said Germany’s World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer.
”I watched them at the Confederations Cup and they were brilliant.”
Twice-winners Argentina are second favourites but have a tough opening group where The Netherlands are lurking.
But coach Jose Pekerman remains confident.
”When the going gets tough we always produce the goods,” said Pekerman.
However, many observers insist 2006 will be England’s year, 40 years after their first and only success, their optimism based on the talents of deadly striker Wayne Rooney.
By the time the World Cup gets under way, the Winter Olympics in Turin in February will be a distant memory.
As with most modern Olympics, summer and winter, the build-up has been dogged by legal and financial problems.
The most public is the Italian government’s refusal to suspend their tough anti-doping laws.
Under Italian law, athletes caught doping face criminal charges.
To the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) such athletes are not criminals and should be punished with suspension by their sports federations.
Attention will be on the duel on the slopes between Austrian great Hermann Maier and American rival Bode Miller.
Maier missed the last Olympics in Salt Lake City after he was involved in a serious motorcycle crash in 2001 but he picked up two gold medals in the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
The 28-year-old Miller is never far from the headlines.
The American found himself embroiled in a doping row after he said that he was suprised that erythropoietin (EPO) was an illegal substance even though he did not use it himself.
He also gave out mixed signals about his motivation although he has recently confirmed that he will take part in the Olympics.
”I’m still not really that motivated,” he said. ”I hoped that it would be better. The racing itself still gives me the area I need to explore my limits which is one reason I’m continuing.”
The sun may have set on the British Empire, but the Commonwealth Games is still alive and well.
Melbourne hosts the latest version from March 15-26 but, in a sign of the times, will be locked in a security blanket for the duration.
Australian jet fighters and combat helicopters will guard the Games from a possible September 11-style attack by enforcing an air ”exclusion zone” within a 75km radius of the main venues.
The year will see the relentless march of two of sport’s supremely gifted individuals bidding for the title of ”Best Ever”.
Roger Federer already has six Grand Slam titles to his name and is expected to comfortably pass Pete Sampras’s record of 14.
His 11 tour titles in 2005 was matched only by Rafael Nadal and the muscular Spaniard is seen as the most likely member of a dwindling band to pose serious problems to the Swiss.
Only the elusive French Open stands in Federer’s path to true greatness.
Like Federer, Tiger Woods anticipates another golden year after picking up the Masters and the British Open in 2005. They took his Majors total to 10 and only eight short of Jack Nicklaus’ haul of 18.
Woods will have a pivotal role at the K Club in the Irish Republic in September when America tries to take back the Ryder Cup but the world number one has already hinted he prefers playing in the Presidents Cup because there is more sportsmanship.
With Lance Armstrong now retired after monopolising the Tour de France for seven years, it’s expected that Jan Ullrich, the 1997 winner, and Ivan Basso, the Italian who has been third and second in the last two years, will challenge for the yellow jersey.
The 2006 Tour takes places from July 1-23 over a gruelling 3 600km.
Doha will welcome the Asian Games in December where millions of dollars of the country’s oil and gas income has been lavished on infrastructure including the world’s biggest covered sports dome which measures a staggering 290 000 square metres.
There is plenty more to whet the appetite in 2006.
Pakistan and India resume their cricket rivalry in February while Hurricane Run attempts racing immortality by trying to become only the second horse since Alleged in 1977/1978 to win successive Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
On the track, Michael Schumacher hopes to take back his Formula One world title from Fernando Alonso while, on two wheels, Valentino Rossi sights an incredible eighth world title. – Sapa-AFP