WINNERS
INEOS TEAM UK
It wasn't long ago that the seemingly hapless Brits were pride of place at the top of the "Losers" column and that the gilded Sir Ben Ainslie was being talked about as a yesterday's man of the seas.
The Clubrooms: Dylan Cleaver - Ineos Team UK soar but the Prada Cup is sinking... fast
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Ineos Team UK win their match against Luna Rossa. Photo / Photosport
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Such is the rapid pace of R&D with the AC75s that Ineos now looks to have gone from laughing stock to the presumptive challenger to Team New Zealand.
Despite all the hype, decent races have been thin on the water but we had one on Saturday and Ainslie out sailed Jimmy Spithill on Luna Rossa, who held comfortable leads at various points.
Given that there is clearly so much more we don't know than we do about this type of sailing, it is with some caution we elevate Team UK as the weekend's biggest winner.
COLIN MUNRO
An often polarising figure, Munro now has more friends in Perth Scorchers management circles than he ever managed to win at New Zealand Cricket.
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After a slow December start to the Big Bash League, the second highest-profile T20 franchise tournament behind the Indian Premier League, Munro has this year peeled off scores of 52, 50, 50, 34, 82, 5 and on Saturday 46 not out to drag his side from the foot of the table to top with one more round-robin match to play.
In the process the 33-year-old Munro has markedly increased his value as a T20 troubadour, has quelled any doubts as to whether he made the right decision to forego his Auckland contract to play in the BBL, and has put almighty pressure on the New Zealand selectors ahead of this year's World T20.
The Durban-born Munro is not everybody's cup of tea but he remains one of the premier T20 batsmen in the world.
SHANE VAN GISBERGEN
It's been a hell of a past four months for the ultimate petrol head.
SvG got the Bathurst monkey off his back with a brilliant drive to win the 2020 edition in a condemned Holden. He came home and won the Battle of Jacks Ridge rally in a Mitsubishi and over the weekend squeezed into a Toyota FT-60 and won the New Zealand Grand Prix at Hampton Downs.
That only tells a fraction of the story. A fire extinguisher issue saw him start from pit lane and last place and yet he was in the lead of the 16-car field with 10 laps to go and turned the rest of the race into a procession.
Covid-19 restrictions meant it wasn't the strongest field, but it was more evidence for those who believe that van Gisbergen might just be the most naturally gifted driver of fast four-wheeled vehicles this country has produced.
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LOSERS
INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
It is difficult to generate any sympathy for the odoriferous pile of fish that is the IOC but they really are between a rock and a hard place at the moment.
Rock: Common sense screams that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics really should be postponed further and even cancelled and likely everybody with a clear head in either the IOC or Tokyo organising committee recognises that.
Hard place: The majority of the constituent sports at the Olympics have the most tenuous of toeholds into the public consciousness that they really cannot afford for the Games to miss a cycle.
There would be an uncomfortable acknowledgement that for all the things people most missed in 2020 (continuing into this year), the Olympics have not been at the top of many people's lists.
That's not the case for the athletes who had worked so hard to qualify, obviously, but for most people I suspect the Olympic Games has become a pleasant diversion for a couple of weeks every four years and don't register at any other stage.
The IOC has denied a widely syndicated report from the Times of London that suggested the Games would be cancelled, as has the Japanese Government itself (and the report did seem thinly sourced).
Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Manabu Sakai said there was "absolutely no truth" in the claim the Government had concluded Tokyo 2020 would be cancelled.
It's possible a bodgied-up version of the Olympics will take place – though that could be even more disastrous for the image of the Games than another delay.
Despite the denials you can guarantee all options, including cancellation, are very much on the table.
There is no win for the IOC here.
PRADA CUP
What should have been the key set-up weekend of the Prada Cup instead saw one race. It was a good one, but to steal the title of Bob Geldof's autobiography: Is That It?
Obviously there are a lot of things outside the organiser's control, particularly the big macro that rarely fails to earn a mention in any sports story these days: the pandemic.
But there were plenty of things they could control; most notably a class of boat that would attract syndicates and be appropriate for the compelling inshore racing that everybody expects.
As of yet, nobody can tell me that the combination of Auckland's harbour and associated fickle wind, combined with a new class of boat, has been an unqualified success.
The capsizing of American Magic was paradoxically both the most exciting thing to happen to the Prada Cup and the biggest disaster. Three minus one equals bugger all. What has followed has been, with the exception of a single race, pointless.
Never has a dramatic finals series been so desperately needed.
NOVAK DJOKOVIC
There's been a pile-on for demands the brilliant Serb made about quarantine conditions ahead of the Australian Open, and anybody that is called a "tool" by enfant terrible Nick Kyrgios has to find himself in this column.
The Clubrooms feels he's been a bit harshly judged here and would get a small kick out of seeing him in the "winners" category here in a few weeks.
What percentage chance do you give for the Tokyo Olympics and the Lions tour of South Africa going ahead and whether not having them will force major changes for the events? Mike, Narrow Neck
Part of this question has been addressed above thanks Mike, but as for a chance of the Olympics taking place, my personal belief is it should be 0 per cent in Tokyo in 2021, with all options on the table and thoroughly investigated for postponement – whether that's slotting it in after the Winter Olympics in 2022, giving Tokyo the next Olympic cycle in 2024 and bumping Paris and Los Angeles back one, or handing Tokyo the next "free" spot in 2032.
There is a fence-sitting 50 per cent chance they fudge up some sort of Olympiad this year. The one idea I keep hearing is the international sporting organisations holding their Olympic events in individual cities to spread the load and make bio-bubbles more feasible, but the broadcasting logistics would surely be too onerous to make it work.
As for the Lions tour, it's difficult to see how it can go ahead, particularly in the wake of the embarrassment of England's aborted cricket tour this summer. However, Australia, desperate for points to try to tip New Zealand out of the world test championship final, will tour South Africa in March under bio-safe conditions.
This might provide a pointer but it raises the question about whether a Lions tour is a tour at all without fans. Probably not. Let's put the chances for this tour happening at a skinny 15 per cent.
As for forcing long-term changes, there still appears to be a sentiment where you treat this as an once-in-a-lifetime event, you ride it out, survive and then try to get on with sport as if nothing ever happened.
Consider me blown away that a 43-year-old quarterback in his first season untethered from Bill Belichick, a man considered the greatest NFL coach to have walked the planet, has taken his new team, the usually risible Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to a Super Bowl.
Brady is uber famous and still kind of unknowable, as this fascinating yet strangely empty New York Times Magazine's profile from way, way back in the good old days of 2015 illustrates.
HANK AARON
It's been a shocking 12 months for baseball legends, and they don't come much bigger than Hammerin' Hank Aaron.
The long-time Atlanta Brave was most famous for passing Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs. There are many who believe his 755 is still the legitimate record (steroid user Barry Bonds has 762).
But he meant more to baseball than dingers. As he chased down Ruth's record, he turned a mirror to race relations in America. What was in the glass was not pretty. This piece from Slate should give you a better idea.
LEE SMITH
Smith was buried last week after a long battle with cancer.
While his name might not be instantly recognisable to many, in rugby circles he was considered one of the most insightful x's and o's thinkers on the game and a coach who was never given due credit.
A proud Otagoite and committed educationalist, he was born into Southern colours, coached University and Otago (he was succeeded by Laurie Mains) before taking up coaching director roles with the NZ Rugby Union and subsequently the Dublin-based IRB.
Smith worked as the Oceania development officer for the first decade of this century.
At University College, Dublin, the annual Lee Smith Award is given to the rugby club's outstanding captain.
As mentioned above, the round robins have been super-underwhelming, but that could, maybe even should, change on Friday for the first day of the Prada Cup semifinals. Can American Magic resurrect their soggy campaign? TVNZ from 2pm.
