AN Olympic Games in Rio which began with a Russian drugs scandal — and an Olympic year which ended with London’s glorious summer of 2012 being tarnished by another glut of doping revelations.
A year in which Britain’s most decorated Olympian Sir Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky could not escape a torrent of allegations sparked by Russian hackers.
And a year in which the sporting world bade farewell to two of its most charismatic pioneers in Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer.
But 2016 was also a golden year in what — if we can somehow ignore football — is a true golden age for British sport.
Great Britain astonished the world by finishing second in the Rio Olympic medals table — ahead of mighty China — in their finest performance on foreign soil.
Britain’s Olympic rise has been an extraordinary story — from a solitary gold at Atlanta in 1996 to 27 of the coveted gongs two decades later. With a further 64 golds to follow from our Paralympians.
Rocket-fuelled by National Lottery funding, Britain’s Olympic triumph provoked sour-grape jibes about ‘financial doping’ from overseas, but pride and joy for this sports-mad nation.
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