Overflight, overflight, underflight...

Sports scandals and disappointments became the norm in 2009. They didn’t make it to the FIFA World Cup, biathletes Yuriev, Akhatova, Yaroshenko were not acquitted, Isinbayeva missed at the main start of the season, Valuev did not fight back... Unfortunately, sensations with a minus sign overshadow the victorious moments, which, of course, were.

Defeat of the year

The Russian national football team missed the World Cup. This is what still hurts and stings. Alas, Germany went to South Africa from the first place in our group, and the Slovenians were more persistent in the play-offs. Guus Hiddink, who created magic at Euro 2008, was unable to drag our team to the 2010 World Cup and received a failure! Now football experts are trying to get into his pocket and figure out why Hiddink was paid 7 million euros a year.

Scandal of the year

Before the play-off match with Slovenia, a group of students from St. Petersburg broke the regime - they sat in a restaurant until the morning, smoking a hookah. The facts that journalists gossiped about in smoking rooms were announced throughout the country and tried to be proven by Alexey Pimanov in the “Man and the Law” program. This turned out to be a bomb! Its fragments still fly on television and radio programs, and the participants in the scandal themselves were saved only by the ensuing vacation and physical absence from the country. Among those who distinguished themselves are Arshavin, Denisov, Anyukov... I wonder if the above-mentioned comrades and the national team will be compatible in the next qualifying round?

Misfire of the year

Elena Isinbaeva failed at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin. In the final competition, she did not even take the initial height, using all three attempts (one at 4.75 m and two at 4.80 m). Before the start, our pole vaulter did not hide the fact that she came for a world record, but in the end she didn’t even get on the podium. Isinbayeva will remember this shock for the rest of her life. “I had to go through this to become a better person,” Elena will conclude. And just 11 days later, at the Golden League stage, the Russian woman will soar to 5.06 m, setting the 27th world record in her career.

Dope of the year

Russian biathletes Ekaterina Yuryeva, Albina Akhatova and Dmitry Yaroshenko were disqualified for 2 years for doping. The athletes' medals were taken away and they were forced to return the prize money. Despite the verdict and almost a year of excommunication from sports, Yuryeva denies the use of prohibited drugs and continues to train. Unfortunately, in the second half of the year, an Olympic ski doping duo was added to this biathlon doping trinity - Yulia Chepalova and Evgeny Dementyev. Athletes were caught using the same modified erythropoietin (rEPO).

Victory of the Year

For the second time in a row, the Russian national hockey team won the World Championship. In Switzerland, in the final, our guys again beat the Canadians - 2:1. Alexander Radulov scored the decisive goal. Does anyone need to explain how eager Canadians, for whom hockey is their national religion, are eager to take revenge on us at the Olympic Games, which will be held in Vancouver?

Comeback of the year

After a 3-year break, Olympic figure skating champion Evgeni Plushenko returned to the sport. In the very first international competitions, he took gold, and his opponents could only wonder: what were they doing all this time? There is panic among Russian skaters, and confusion among foreign ones. And Plushenko just smiles and cracks his quadruple jumps like nuts. He showed who’s boss and gave us hope for an Olympic medal. Maybe not a gold one, but a reward. After all, in his absence, none of our young guys made it to the podium.

Farewell of the year

Back in December 2008, Marat Safin announced that next year would be the last in his tennis career. Throughout the season, the tennis player traveled around the world and said goodbye to the audience at each tournament. The farewell ceremony set so many teeth on edge by the end of this year that at his native Kremlin Cup, Marat asked the organizers not to give him farewells. “If I had known that all year they would only ask about retiring from my career, I would not have announced it in advance,” Safin concluded. Now the famous athlete will continue his career in the Assistance Council of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), although he initially planned to run for vice-president of this organization.