Next Saturday (January 9) marks one year since the opening of the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne.

The race for our annual International Olympic Committee (IOC) top tweeter’s crown is getting more competitive.

Tokyo 2020 – actually numerically it will be Tokyo 2021, but who’s counting? Just as long as it happens, because these Games will be the most critical in the annals of the Olympics since London 1948.

I love sport. But.

"Who is the greatest Olympian?" is a topic that sports fans have debated for decades, and they will continue to do so for as long as the Games are contested.

I had planned to write this column reflecting on my first visit to Old Trafford in more than nine months.

Forty years ago this week, six of the leading sides in the world headed to the Uruguayan capital Montevideo for an international football tournament that has been all but forgotten everywhere but the host nation.

Last week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided a case between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). WADA was, supposedly, defending clean athletes - holding Russia accountable for the most recent effort to undermine clean sport. However, the global anti-doping regulator appears to be fighting with, rather than against, Russia. Based on statements and actions, WADA appears to be most interested in sweeping the entire Russian doping saga under the rug.

I was going to call this piece "the year of living dangerously".

The chief sports writer of the London Times, Matt Dickinson announces that he will no longer watch boxing as it is "too brutal." At least, that’s what his wife has told him. Now he agrees.

There comes a time in the life of every elite performer when they have to retire from the sport in which they have excelled, when they have to face the challenges of what can seem like a cold and daunting outside world.

Athletics has had a lousy 2020. Not that any sport has had a great 12 months, but the absence of a major championships after the postponement of Tokyo 2020, coupled with a severe lack of cash in the World Athletics coffers, has left the sport trailing those that have been able to keep their shows on the road in bubbles for sofa-bound audiences. Shoe wars and drug scandals have hardly helped either. Thankfully, redemption may be but eight months away, if only athletics’ leaders can seize their quadrennial moment when the world drops everything to watch its greatest runners, jumpers and throwers.

In the same week that the International Football Association Board (IFAB) approved trials for concussion substitutes, nine former rugby players announced they were preparing for legal action against Rugby Football Union (RFU), Wales Rugby Union (WRU) and World Rugby for alleged negligence after being diagnosed with brain injuries.

It is not difficult to see why the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) verdict in the protracted Russia versus the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) saga has been met with disappointment and uproar.