Zidane toast for the French before Tour trauma

He headed two goals as pre-match favourites Brazil capitulated with barely a hint of their customary lavish skills, giving the hosts the World Cup for the first time since the trophy was introduced to the world by a Frenchman, Jules Rimet in 1930.

Spain falter, Croatia flourish

An early surprise came with the failure of the fancied Spanish team to advance from the first round, despite a 6-1 win over Bulgaria in the final group match.

Croatia flourished where Spain had floundered. They crushed an ageing German side 3-0 before losing 2-1 to France in the semifinals.

Some consolation for war-scarred Croatia came in the third place play-offwith a 2-1 win over the 1974 finalists Netherlands while Davor Suker finished with the tournament’s top tally of six goals.

Brazilian Ronaldo, widely tipped to become the player of the tournament, had shown intermittent glimpses of his power and majesty in the early rounds.

To the consternation of Brazilian supporters, his name was missing from the original team sheet for the final and the mystery deepened when he was included on a revised list and the team did not then appear for the warm-up.

When the match got under way, Ronaldo was anonymous and the Brazilians played without passion or spirit. Ronaldo said later that he had had a fit on the morning of the final and had defied doctors’ advice to miss the game.

Tour de France tarnished

World Cup euphoria was replaced in less than a month by shock and bewilderment as the Tour de France, France’s greatest sporting festival, ended in scandal and suspicion.

Three days before the Tour opened in Ireland, Festina masseur Willy Voet was caughttransporting 400 containers of banned drugs. Six days into the Tour, Festina team director Bruno Roussel and the team doctor were formally placed under investigation.

Roussel admitted he had provided drugs to the team, Festina were banned and team leader Richard Virenque, king of the mountains four years in a row, quit in tears.

The riders retaliated by dismounting and tearing off their official numbers in protest at the successive police raids on their hotels. Italian Marco Pantani eventually won the race on the same Champs-Elysees where an estimated 800,000 revellers had celebrated the World Cup triumph.

Police and judicial confirmation that the tour was riddled with drugs still reverberates. Largely as a result, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to convene a special drugs conference at its Lausanne headquarters next February.

Olympics survives

The Nagano Winter Olympics survived rain, wind, lightning, fog, excessive snow, a minor earthquake and an economic crisis in Japan.Five of the first eight days were lost to the weather and the men’s Super-G was postponed six times.

Austrian Hermann Maier, the seemingly indestructible “Herminator”, cartwheeled three times in the downhill but still won the Super-G and then the giant slalom.

Czech goaltender Dominik Hasek saw his team through to the ice hockey title, Norwegian cross country skier Bjorn Daehlie became the most successful Winter Olympian with eight gold medals. And at 15 years and eight months, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest winter Olympic champion.

Hakkinen triumphs

Mika Hakkinen, fortunate to survive a high-speed crash before the Australian Grand Prix exactly 1,000 days previously clinched the world drivers’ championship title on the figure-of-eight Suzuka Circuit.

Hakkinen, Finland’s first Formula One champion since his manager Keke Rosberg won the title in 1982, had been close to death after his McLaren hurtled into a barrier in Adelaide.

He said the crash instilled bothmaturity and judgment, qualities which were both to the fore during the 1998 season.

German Michael Schumacher, his closest rival, stalled on the starting grid, then suffered a right rear tyre blowout on his Ferrari after 32 of the 51 laps.

Tired Sampras still rules

Pete Sampras purveyed unruffled excellence and athleticism on a variety of tennis surfaces throughout the world only to find his achievements barely registered on the US consciousness.

During the year, Sampras won a fifth Wimbledon crown to move within one of Roy Emerson’s record of 12 Grand Slam singles titles and finished world number one for a sixth straight year.

A streamlined Lindsay Davenport won the US Open and took over from Martina Hingis as the women’s world number one.

O’Meara savours success

At 41, Mark O’Meara enjoyed unprecedented success with wins in the Masters and British Open golf tournaments before beating Tiger Woods for the World Matchplay Championship.

“When you play for 17 years you are goingto have your ups and downs,” the gregarious American concluded.

El Guerrouj dominates

Moroccan Hicham el Guerrouj continued domination of the 1,500 metres when he reduced Noureddine Morceli’s world record by 1.37 seconds while another African, Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, reclaimed the 5,000 and 10,000 metres records.

Marion Jones moved effortlessly into the gap left by the retirement of Carl Lewis, losing only once all year in the 100 200 and long jump. She now plans to go one better than Lewis by attempting five gold medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Boxing awaits unification

Oscar de la Hoya, a marketing man’s dream, equally at home at Madison Square Garden or on Madison Avenue, stopped Julio Cesar Chavez in the eighth round to retain his World Boxing Council welterweight title.

At 38, the Mexican brawler was well past his peak and de la Hoya will need to take on some of the genuine contenders in his weight division to justify his billing as best pound-for-pound fighter inthe world.

Some order should be restored to the fractured boxing world in the new year when Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis meet in a world heavyweight unification fight.