Pause, rewind, play

The moments that defined 2023, those that captured the anguish and the despair, the magic and mystery, the quirky and the bizarre

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A race or crime scene

Only one starter in the final of the men's 100m race.A steeplechaser who kept running after crossing the finish line. And the lone 100m starter failing the dope test a couple of months later. One of the craziest - and best in its own absurd way moments of the year came not at any of the glamorous sports events but at a chaotic Delhi State athletics meet, which descended into a total farce because of rampant doping.

The story had crime - with athletes procuring banned drugs -- drama, with anti-doping sleuths performing a surprise raid, and dollops of humour. The kind of stuff true crime or satire writers would dig. There will be winners and losers every year in sports.

There'll always be a performance, largely due to recency bias, that will be hyped as the best ever until the next one follows. But it is unlikely something like this will happen again. For the sake of clean sport, we hope it doesn't!

-Mihir Vasavda

Archer without arms stuns world