‘Front-row seats to something amazing’: The sports world had unforgettable moments in 2024

MIAMI, Florida (AP):

Patrick Mahomes threw a walk-off pass to win the Super Bowl. Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam to win a World Series game. Stephen Curry said “nuit, nuit” to win an Olympic basketball title in Paris, Noah Lyles won 100-metre gold by about the smallest margin possible, and Sabrina Ionescu won a WNBA Finals game with a 30-foot heave.

Depending on who you rooted for, some made you cheer, some left you crushed. Some were the sort that have never been seen before, in a good way: Shohei Ohtani, on the night he started baseball’s 50-50 club, drove in 10 runs in a performance for the ages. Some were the sort that have never been seen before, in a jarring way: Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer, got arrested before the second round of the PGA Championship and taken away in handcuffs to jail – where he had a sandwich and started warming up for the tee time he ended up making.

And maybe the best way to describe what we had, when all these things happened, are the words Washington Commanders right guard Sam Cosmi used after his team beat the Chicago Bears with a Hail Mary pass:

“Front-row seats,” Cosmi said, “to something amazing.”

“Nuit nuit”

Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors’ superstar sharpshooter, made his Olympic debut one to remember and saved his best for last. He hit four 3-pointers in the final minutes, each shot more dramatic than the last, to seal the US win over hosts France for gold.

Curry’s signature celebration is the “night night,” where he puts his hands together at the side of his face, as if it’s time to go to sleep. In Paris, he brought shirts that made it perfectly clear to the French what that meant – yes, the message written on the shirts was “nuit nuit.”

A Super walk-off ...

Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes did something no one has ever done: He threw a Super Bowl-winning touchdown pass on the final play of the title game.

San Francisco kicked a field goal to open overtime of Super Bowl 58, and Mahomes had 75 yards to go to try and answer. He scrambled for eight yards on fourth-and-1 to keep the drive alive – a huge play that probably very few remember. He went 8 for 8 on passes in overtime, engineering a perfect drive.

The finale: a 3-yard toss to Mecole Hardman with 3 seconds left in overtime, and the Chiefs were back-to-back champions.

... and an Olympic walk-off

OK, technically, the US women’s rugby sevens team won the Olympic bronze medal with a kick (a conversion, they call it).

But the real moment was Alex Sedrick, running the length of the field and into history.

Sedrick got the ball with about eight seconds left, ran through three Australia defenders and took it all the way down the field for a try that tied the game at 12-12 with no time left. Her kick won bronze for the Americans, a result that made star Ilona Maher – the undisputed face of the sport in the US – an even bigger name and breathed new life into the sport in a country where it still has tons of room to grow.

The women’s Final Four

In this case, let’s make three games – Iowa vs UConn, South Carolina vs N.C. State, then South Carolina vs Iowa for the title – one moment.

Maybe a movement is the better word.

Caitlin Clark’s record-setting year, South Carolina’s undefeated run to the national title, UConn’s return to the Final Four, they were all part of a scintillating year for women’s basketball. The WNBA saw enormous growth – Clark, its rookie of the year, helped fuel that in a big way – and more eyeballs were on the game than ever before.

On the track

Everything at an Olympics is a moment for someone; a lifetime of work typically coming down to a few seconds.

But in Paris, a few stood out more than others.

Start with Sifan Hassan, trading elbows in the stretch of the marathon to win her third distance medal – this one gold. Or Cole Hocker, looking like Forrest Gump in coming from nowhere to beat the two favourites in the men’s 1,500-metre run.

The highlight, of course, was Noah Lyles’ .005-second victory in the 100-metre dash over Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson. He ran the fastest time of his life and didn’t take the lead until the absolute last instant, a finish that even had commentators guessing wrong about who actually prevailed.

The big swings

Of the 346,000 swings taken by batters in Major League Baseball this year, three probably jumped out more than the rest.

There was Freddie Freeman, hitting the first game-ending grand slam in World Series history to move the Los Angeles Dodgers a step closer to beating the New York Yankees and winning the title.

There was Pete Alonso, saving the season for the New York Mets with a home run to lift them past the Milwaukee Brewers in the deciding game of an NL wild-card series.

And then there was Shohei Ohtani, a night like none other in a season like none other. On the night in Miami when he joined — created, really — baseball’s 50-homer, 50-steal club, he hit three home runs, stole two bases and drove in 10 runs on a 6-for-6 night.

From way downtown

Cleveland’s Max Strus lived every kid’s hoop-in-the-driveway fantasy ... down by one, time running out, let-it-fly ... a 59-footer to give the Cavaliers a 121-119 win over Dallas.

But the buzzer-beater of the year: Take a bow, Sabrina Ionescu. From just inside of the logo, her 3-pointer with one second left gave the New York Liberty a win over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals – and the Liberty would win the title in five games.

Scheffler’s year

World No 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler had a year of moments – most of them great (nine wins worldwide), one of them bizarre (the arrest at the PGA Championship).

But the signature moment of 2024 for Scheffler might have been weeping as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played in honour of his Olympic golf gold medal in Paris. He rallied from six shots back with a final-round 62 to win the gold.