With 2004’s multinational motley done, dusted and delivered, other activities can bloom. The jingo-jangle palaver and babel of the Olympics, European soccer, and the Ryder Cup are now consigned to musty files, and a happy new year is herald to less hyperbole and ballyhoo. The world athletics gala at Helsinki in August will work up a passing tizz as to who’s on drugs or not, and whether Kelly Holmes will be fit or bothered enough to make the starting line or, indeed, if Paula Radcliffe is ditto enough to make the Finnish finishing line. The new year’s three most delectable asterisks for your diary warm the midsummer: rugby’s British Lions Tests in New Zealand (25 June–9 July); golf’s Open at its ancestral St Andrews home (14–17 July); and cricket’s lustily awaited Ashes challenge between England and Australia (21 July–12 September).
For stay-at-homes, the rugby will be televised exclusively on Sky; the Open on BBC; and the cricket live only on Channel 4.
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