Rory, Duplantis and India’s women cricketers: In 2025, it was a wide world of sports

December 26, 2025 — 3.33pm

It’s a big world. Here are my best sporting moments of 2025 that did not involve Australians.

Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is the best thing in sport, and the 2025 version was the most dramatic. With Donald Trump appearing on the first tee at Bethpage Black in New York and an emcee leading a chant of “F--- you, Rory”, the contest was set up as Team Europe versus the worst hubris and arrogance America could throw at them.

On the first two days, Europe established an apparently unbeatable lead in the pairs matches, with McIlroy, Jon Rahm, and Tommy Fleetwood supremely defiant against the vile abuse showered upon them from close quarters. But the Sunday singles unfolded in slow-motion horror, America inching back to a point where they were favourites to pull off the greatest comeback in the event’s history – only for Shane Lowry to drain the putt that saved Europe. A day before, Lowry had played as McIlroy’s bodyguard. Only in the movies does sport deliver the simplicity of good versus evil; this was way better than any movie.

McIlroy finally prevails at Augusta

McIlroy, golf’s polarising figurehead, had been self-combusting for a decade searching for his fifth major. Some of his biggest humiliations had been at the Masters, where he wanted so desperately to become the sixth male golfer to complete a career grand slam that his failures had developed a Shark-like odour.

Year after year, his youthful sweetness was curdling. In the fourth round at Augusta National this year, McIlroy had the green blazer in his grip time after time, only to throw it away with a blunder … only, with a stroke of genius, to seize it back again.

After Justin Rose made his meticulous move, McIlroy choked, recovered, choked, but summoned a last flash of brilliance to win in a playoff. As Davis Love once said, in golf everyone throws up all over themselves; victory goes to the one who can clean it up.

JJ Spaun masters Oakmont torture test

Finally on golf: many of the American Ryder Cup team were embarrassed by the behaviour of their countryfolk. One of the nice guys, JJ Spaun, had emerged from obscurity in mid-year to play incredibly precise, ego-free golf at Oakmont Country Club, a torture test that demoralised and dismembered the rest of the field. On the final hole, Spaun needed two putts down a 21-metre slippery dip to win. He did it in one. A triumph for the school of never, ever giving up.

Amanda Anisimova rebounds superbly

One of tennis’s brightest prospects, Anisimova did give up in 2023 when the relentlessness overwhelmed her. Just getting back on the court was a win over paralysing self-doubt. She made the 2025 Wimbledon final, a marvellous return, but threw up all over herself – double-bagelled by Iga Swiatek before some of the VIPs had even got to their seats. Two months later in the US Open, Anisimova had the resilience to show her face again but faced Swiatek in the quarter-final. The American won in straight sets, then beat Naomi Osaka in the semi. She lost the final, but after such a public humiliation as Wimbledon, her resilience made her a true winner.

Leon Marchand lays down a challenge to Phelps

Australia had a wonderful world swimming championships in Singapore, there were several multiple gold medallists (Canada’s Summer McIntosh won four), but there’s only one Leon Marchand. The French superstar of the Paris Olympics won both individual medley events at the worlds, but in the semi-finals of the 200m IM, Marchand obliterated Ryan Lochte’s 14-year-old world record by 1.31 seconds. He then won the final, against a super field, in a stroll. Michael Phelps’s tally of Olympic golds might be safe but, just quietly, we could be seeing the best swimmer of all time.

Armand Duplantis, World Athletics Championships

So dominant was the Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergey Bubka in the 1980s and 1990s that he broke the world record 35 times and was virtually competing against himself. The highest Bubka vaulted outdoors was 6.14 metres, a mark that was thought the limit of possibility. This year, Sweden’s Armand Duplantis cleared 6.30 metres at the Tokyo World Championships. He has now increased the world record 14 times.

World Series magic

Books have already been written on the 2025 baseball World Series, which the Los Angeles Dodgers won in the 11th inning of the seventh game. It’s impossible to summarise all the freak occurrences and astonishing strokes of luck, strategy and skill that led there, except to say, in Australian language, that this series was the 2025 NRL grand final, 2024 Origin III, the 2019 Ashes and the 2005 AFL grand final packed into one. The Toronto Blue Jays gave up more chances to win than any World Series team since 1925, and the Dodgers became the first back-to-back champions in 25 years.

Alcaraz and Sinner turn on the magic

Tennis followers haven’t drawn breath from the sunset of the Big Three before they have an even bigger Big Two. Jannik Sinner joined Rod Laver, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic as the fourth male player to reach every grand slam final in a year, and in three of them he played Carlos Alcaraz. They split the titles 2-2 but their five-and-a-half-hour Roland Garros final, when Alcaraz won after saving three match points, was a summit that even they might never top. Who can say? They’re taking tennis to new reaches.

India win women’s cricket World Cup

It was a matter of time before India’s women broke through the grass ceiling. Their semi-final defeat of Australia in Mumbai, chasing 339 to win, was one of the peak moments in the history of Indian sport. India’s defeat of South Africa in the final is a fillip for equality in the world’s biggest nation, a social watershed. This summer’s multi-format series in Australia will be a ripper.

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South Africa claim men’s Test crown

Long a laughingstock for their chokes in big matches, South Africa mastered Australia in the World Test Championship final at Lord’s despite a 74-run first-innings deficit. Australia had their best possible team on the field but were defeated by Temba Bavuma’s cool head, a Kagiso Rabada-led fightback and Aiden Markram’s century. The WTC may still be a blip on Australia’s cricket radar, but South African cricket, which needs every success it can find, discovered joy at last. They rubber-stamped the achievement by tonking India in India. This spring, the first Australian tour of South Africa since the nadir in 2018 will be a true world championship.

Arsenal 3, Real Madrid 0

Finally, a private pleasure. Sitting in a Madrid bar, surrounded by tense fans in Mbappe and Modric shirts, to watch the Champions League quarter-final first leg was a preparation to be a good sport in defeat. Then Declan Rice stepped up for a free kick. Top corner, never seen a better one … until 12 minutes later, Rice again. In a bar in Madrid, an Australian did everything he could to wipe the smile off his face.

May 2026 bring such gifts.

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