Year End Special

For once, the golfing year was not all about Tiger Woods. The game's fallen superstar was by and large left in the shadows as he sought to find calmer waters after the physical and mental turmoil that brought his world crashing down about him.

Usain Bolt, one of global sport's most marketable personalities, rebounded from his false start in the showpiece 100m final at this year's world championships to immediately eye four golds at the London Olympics.

Saina Nehwal's struggle for form summed up a disappointing year for Indian badminton, the rare high point of which was Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa's World Championships bronze medal.

Asian sporting fortunes reached new heights in 2011 as its growing riches drew a rising number of top events and China's Li Na made history as the region's first tennis Grand Slam winner.

Cricketers broke a 28-year-old jinx to lift the coveted World Cup and the glamorous world of Formula One raised a toast to its newest pit-stop as India rose meteorically in the international sports arena in an eventful 2011.

Cricket is indeed a game of 'Glorious Uncertainties' and no one knows it better than India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

After a rewarding 2010, athletics slumped to a low this year, turning out to be the country's dirtiest sport with seven top athletes, including three Commonwealth and Asian Games gold medallists, getting involved in one of India's biggest doping scandals.

Another year passed but the sorry state of Indian hockey refused to change as the prolonged struggle for power between two warring federations once again took centre-stage over the performance of the national team in 2011.

Indian sports had some adrenalin-rush moments in 2011. The second cricket World Cup crown, Formula One coming to New Delhi and Virender Sehwag's record double ton in ODIs are some of the main sporting highlights of the year.

Argentine wunderkind Lionel Messi's visit was undoubtedly the watershed moment for Indian football in a year during which its torchbearer Bhaichung Bhutia walked into the sunset after an illustrious career spanning a decade and a half.