1. Grand National Glory for AP, JP, and Jonjo
Aintree Grand National (10 April 2010)
Few sporting events capture the public imagination quite like The Grand National.
In the days and weeks preceding the race, practically everybody has picked “their” horse and, come 4:15 on Grand National Saturday, little else matters apart from roaring him on to victory.
On a rare occasion, however, victory belongs to a horse which is so popular as to satisfy every punter, even the ones who didn’t have him backed. The 2010 winner Don’t Push It was one of those winners.
As he passed the finishing posts five lengths ahead of the tireless Black Apalachi, the 10/1 joint-favourite finally realised the elusive dream of three Irishmen who have been at the heart of the sport for many, many years – jockey AP McCoy, trainer Jonjo O’Neill, and owner JP McManus.
Between them, McCoy, O’Neill and McManus had the unenviable honour of having never won the National with 62 combined attempts. Though a highly-successful jockey, O’Neill had never managed to guide his mount past the eighth fence, The Canal Turn, while 15-time Champion Jockey McCoy was left to contemplate an equally-incredible amount of defeats in the race.
Following the heartbreak of 2005, when Clan Royal had been carried out by a loose horse at Becher’s Brook when six lengths clear, all three men must have felt that it was their destiny to forever remain the bridesmaids at jump racing’s finest altar.
To their credit, they never stopped chasing the prize, with McManus entering four horses for the 2010 renewal. There is no such thing as strength in numbers at Aintree, however, and it didn’t take long for a gloomy sense of predictability to set in as King John’s Castle refused to start the race while Can’t Buy Time went at the Canal Turn.
By the time Arbor Supreme had fallen foul of The Chair, McCoy and Don’t Push It were left to fly the flag alone in a rapidly-dwindling field.
As he led out a group of four main contenders to strike for home, McCoy could sense victory, and this time, there would be no stray horse, no fence that would deprive himself, Jonjo and JP of a famous win.
This was their year.
2. G-Mac’s Triumph At Pebble Beach
US Open (17-20 June 2010)
Standing on the first tee at Pebble Beach at the beginning of the final day’s play of the 2010 US Open, Graeme McDowell had reason to pause.
Forty years had passed since the last European golfer had lifted the famous trophy, four full decades since Tony Jacklin’s famous victory at Hazeltine.
As part of the final pairing, G-Mac found himself in a position that few Europeans have been in since Jacklin’s triumph in 1970. He had reached this point by playing solidly, if not spectacularly, carding two level par rounds either side of a Friday’s one-under score.
Three shots behind his playing partner, Dustin Johnson, he would most likely need a couple more birdies on the final day to leave himself in contention.
Or maybe not.
The intensely psychological side of golf makes it more unpredictable than most other sports. One bad shot or one lapse in concentration can spiral.
So it was for Dustin Johnson who failed to regain his composure after a disastrous triple-bogey on the second. Still tied for the lead with McDowell, the American went on to drop two more shots on the next hole before bogeying the fourth as well.
Within four holes, the complexion of the tournament had changed utterly.
As the final round tallies would suggest, Pebble Beach played tough that Sunday, tougher than usual. It was a day on which accuracy off the tee rather than distance would prove to be McDowell’s saving grace.
Yet, as he turned to play the back nine, it seemed as though nerves rather than any other quality might be the most important factor in seeing him over the line. With Tiger, Mickelson and Els, as well as eventual runner-up Gregory Havret, all mooching within a handful of shots of the lead, there was little margin for error.
In the end, McDowell would drop four shots over these final nine holes, his three-over round of 74 proving to be the highest final round score from a winner in 25 years.
No matter. McDowell had outlasted them all to secure a famous and unforgettable victory. And that was merely the beginning …
3. O’Rourke Wins Silver in Barcelona
European Championships, Women’s 100m Hurdles Final (31 July 2010)
As Derval O’Rourke set herself ahead of the 100m Hurdles European Championship final, the dominant emotion among the Irish public was hardly that of quiet expectation or unwavering faith.
Once bitten and twice shy, Irish hopes had been dashed the previous evening as the country’s other genuine medal contender, David Gillick, could only struggle to a disappointing fifth place finish in the Men’s 400m final.
Mulling over the increasingly real prospect that the Irish team might be leaving Barcelona with no additional luggage, we dared to hope.
“Hope”, it seems, is not a word in Derval O’Rourke’s vocabulary. Unsurprisingly for an athlete who cites Roy Keane as her sporting idol, the word is “belief”.
That empowering certainty was particularly evident as she turned in an almost faultless performance in the final, particularly over the last 40 metres.
For much of the race, O’Rourke was left to play catch-up. A powerful start by race favourite Nevin Yanit had seen the young Turkish athlete establish a small bit of daylight between herself and the rest of the chasing pack.
Whether it was a case that Yanit then began to tire or that O’Rourke and co simply shifted into another gear matters not. With the Corkwoman leading the charge, Yanit’s advantage began to rapidly shrink over the final 30, 20, 10 metres.
Until she was finally saved by the line, 0.02 seconds ahead of O’Rourke. Imperceptibly close.
Another stride and O’Rourke’s medal would surely have been gold. To win silver, setting a new Irish record in the process, would prove to be more than adequate consolation.
4. Murphy Claims European Silver
European Swimming Championships, Women’s 1500m Freestyle (14 August 2010)
Before her success at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest, Gráinne Murphy was far from a household name.
It is worth bearing in mind that this is the same Gráinne Murphy who came home from last year’s European Junior Championships with gold in the 200m and 400m medleys, as well as a gold in the 800m free and a bronze in the 1500m.
The same Gráinne Murphy who managed to break the national junior and senior 200m breaststroke record not once but twice in the same day at a meet in February.
What exactly constitutes a “household name” these days anyway?
Wherever the tipping point lies, Murphy hit it in Budapest earlier this year, putting in excellent performances to reach the finals of the 400m medley and the 800m free.
However, it was in the 1,500m free that the 17-year-old from Wexford really grabbed the nation’s attention. In winning her heat to qualify for the final, Murphy set a new Irish record, before going on to slice another eight seconds of that record in the final as she powered to silver in a time of 16:02.29.
Breaking her own records is a habit, it seems, which Murphy might have to get used to. Not that anybody else’s records are much safer as Michelle de Bruin found out after the European Short Course Swimming Championships in November, Murphy knocking over a half-second off de Bruin’s 200m medley record which had been untouched since 1995.
While she was at it, Murphy added another two third-placed finishes to her yearly tally, rounding off a truly remarkable year for the young swimmer.
5. Taylor Makes It Three-In-A-Row
AIBA World Championships, Women’s 60kg Final (18 September 2010)
On a September evening in a Barbadian arena dedicated to one legend, Garfield Sobers, another athlete cemented her reputation in the sporting pantheon.
Few Irish athletes have been quite so dominant in their chosen sport as boxer Katie Taylor. An 18-5 victory over China’s Cheng Dong at the AIBA World Championships secured a third successive world title for the young Bray woman, a remarkable achievement which will sit nicely alongside the trio of European crowns which she completed in Hungary last year.
In the final, Taylor dominated throughout, quelling any fears about how she might handle a strong start from her opponent by racing into a 10-2 lead by the end of the second round. Ahead by 14 points to three as she entered the final three minutes, barring a knockout, the rest was a formality.
Not that the margin of Taylor’s victory should diminish in any way the severity of the task which she faced. Dong is a boxer at the height of her profession, making her second successive appearance in the World Championships gold medal bout as she sought revenge for a 13-2 defeat at Taylor’s hands in front of a home crowd in Ningbo in 2008.
If Taylor’s win in the final was comfortable, her route to that point had been anything but, particularly in the closing stages of her semi-final bout against Queen Underwood of America.
Having seen her earlier eight-point advantage slip away, Taylor displayed the courage and resilience of a champion-in-waiting, picking herself up off the canvas and digging deep to pull out a hard-earned two-point victory.
If Barbados 2010 was the moment at which the wider Irish public finally awoke to the brilliance of Katie Taylor, London 2012 may well be the moment at which we run out of superlatives.
6. Quarter-Final Heartache For The Irish U17s
FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup (September 2010)
2010 was a year in which a number of Irish representative teams stood out, not least the U23 men’s cross-country athletics team who took gold earlier this month at the European Championships in Albufeira and the men’s senior boxing team who brought home a five-medal haul from their own European Championships in June.
However, the performance of the Irish Women’s football team at the U17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago marked them out as a cut above the rest in 2010.
The trip to the Caribbean in September was a hard-earned prize in itself, with the Irish girls qualifying as a result of their runner-up finish in the European Championships which had been held in Switzerland in April and June.
Trinidad would be no holiday, however, as was evident from the moment the girls were placed alongside Brazil, Canada and Ghana in a group from which qualification seemed to be improbable if not impossible.
A 2-1 defeat to Brazil in the group’s opening game threatened to set the tone for the rest of the tournament as the girls fought bravely and acquitted themselves well en route to a somewhat unfortunate defeat.
A late strike by Siobhan Killeen was enough to secure a 1-0 victory against North American champions, Canada, leaving the girls needing a win in their final group game to qualify for the quarter-finals. Ruthless and efficient, the Ghanaians were subsequently dispatched 3-0.
When the dream finally came to an end in the quarter-final tie against Japan, it was a mixture of poor refereeing and sublime skill which combined to send Ireland home.
Having been awarded a controversial first-half penalty, Japan never looked back and, despite Denise O’Sullivan squaring the match early in the second half, a sublime piece of skill by one of the players of the tournament, Kumi Yokoyama, stamped the Irish plane tickets home.
7. Ciaran Kelly’s Penalty Heroics
Shamrock Rovers vs. Sligo Rovers, FAI Cup Final (14 November 2010)
Considering the relatively low profile of the Airtricity League, the 2010 FAI Cup Final between Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers proved to be something of a coup for the Merrion Square supremos.
The attraction of this being the first cup final to be held in the new Aviva Stadium, complemented by a clever ticket pricing scheme, meant that over 36,000 fans helped boost the association’s lean coffers. All the FAI needed was a contest to match the occasion.
While the game itself was largely uninspiring, its climax was anything but as Sligo keeper Ciaran Kelly saved an unprecedented four penalties in the shootout, sealing victory for his side and leaving commentators and pundits scrambling for the record books.
Even more remarkable was the fact that the 30-year-old Kelly only got the nod to play when it became clear that the Bit O’Red’s first-choice keeper, Richard Brush, would not recover from injury in time to line out.
Such fortuitous timing presented the opportunity for sweet, sweet redemption for the Mayo-born goalkeeper. In the 2009 final, a penalty had been Kelly’s undoing, his challenge on Eamon Zayed allowing Sporting Fingal to level matters from the spot before going on to grab an injury-time winner.
This time around, it all seemed to fall into place for Kelly, and not by chance either. Recalling that Chris Turner had slammed a penalty straight down the middle during a prior encounter, Kelly stood tall to make the most remarkable of his four saves, tipping the midfielder’s drive over the bar.
Such was the aura of invincibility surrounding the Sligo net that by the time Paddy Kavanagh struck his team’s fourth penalty, it surprised nobody to see his tame effort strike Kelly’s flailing leg and career away to safety.
Kelly’s record would only be the second most significant accomplishment that day, however, overshadowed by RTE commentator George Hamilton who somehow managed to say the word “brilliant” ten times in the space of nine seconds at the end of the shootout while still making sense.
