Editorial: Sporting heroes come and go

Colin Meads: The legend will live on.

NEW Zealanders looked forward to two big sporting treats in 2017. One fell a bit flat, the other exceeded expectations.

In the end, it was all about winning or not.

We dared hope for revenge for San Francisco when the America's Cup was to be contested again in Bermuda, and we were confident of a clean sweep in the three-test rugby tour by the British and Irish Lions. Bermuda delivered, with controversy, drama and the right result, but the Lions tour ended in the most stale of stalemates, a tied series and a drawn third test that left many wishing rugby would allow extra time.

No such problem with knife-edge catamaran sailing. Team New Zealand stormed, strolled and cycled to victory in Bermuda where holders Oracle Team USA and Jimmy Spithill were no match for helmsman Peter Burling and skipper Glenn Ashby.

The real stars may have been the designers, engineers and builders. There was a lot of attention on the TNZ cyclors — the word itself is a new coinage — who provided the power that normally stems from hand grinders, but there was so much more to pedal-power on those boats. Even a dramatic pitch-pole against Britain's Ben Ainslie, when Aotearoa nose-dived, flinging sailors into the water, could not halt their progress.

It was a year for women's rugby, women's sport, with the Black Ferns winning the World Cup and try-scoring wing Portia Woodman verging on household-name status. But it was prop Toka Natua who scored an unlikely hat-trick in the final win over England in Belfast.

At this time of year, the failures don't seem so important. The West Indies cricket tour, the Warriors, the Phoenix ... More memorable were Tonga's march to the semifinal of the Rugby League World Cup and the disappointment of that semifinal, followed by days of street protests against the referee's decision denying the team a last-minute try.

One real loss marked 2017. New Zealand lost an icon with the death of Colin Meads in August at age 81. Long after most players have been largely forgotten, Meads was still an in-demand product salesman on TV, such was his status.

He was a man of honest, straightforward views and played the same way. His legend will live on. NZME