While struggling to avoid the expression "a year like no other", it would be easy to suggest that 2020 was devoid of sporting highlights.
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But not so.
Despite challenges which fully justify the year's most over-used word "unprecedented", Tasmanian sports fans were rarely starved of headline material.
From delay to disappointment and torment to tragedy, the state took a few body blows from its virulent opponent before landing some knockout punches of its own.
So many in fact, that there were too many to squeeze into one column.
Controversially arranged into an order, here is the first half of the top 10 Tasmanian sporting stories of 2020.
Next week will be the top five with the week after spent apologising for those I've overlooked.
10. Making a splash
- WHAT: Jacob Templeton breaks three world records
- WHERE: Chandler Aquatic Centre, Brisbane, Queensland
- WHEN: November 28
With so much international competition cancelled, world champion Ariarne Titmus was restricted to just claiming another national title which left the door open for Jacob Templeton to assume the title of Queensland-based Tasmanian swimming sensation.
While Titmus was clocking the sixth fastest time ever in the 400-metre freestyle at the Australian Virtual Short-Course Championships, the visually-impaired Devonport 25-year-old was breaking global benchmarks in the S13 freestyles over 100, 200 and 400m.
Having represented Australia at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, Templeton is now targeting the rescheduled 2021 showpiece in Tokyo.
9. More Tiger stripes
- WHAT: Jack Riewoldt and Toby Nankervis help Richmond win the AFL premiership
- WHERE: Gabba, Brisbane, Queensland
- WHEN: October 24
The "WHAT" line has been copied and pasted from 2019.
For the second year running, two Tasmanians played pivotal roles in the AFL's showpiece, albeit a month later and couple of states higher than normal.
Now a triple premiership player, Coleman Medallist and All-Australian, Riewoldt led Richmond's forward line as Nankervis edged the ruck duel in a 31-point defeat of Geelong.
In an eventful year for Tasmanians in the AFL, David Noble joined the senior coaching ranks, Tom Bellchambers and Kade Kolodjashnij retired in contrasting circumstances, Ben Brown was surprisingly traded by his beloved North Melbourne and Jackson Callow's draft snub was partly softened by rookies Isaac Chugg and Patrick Walker.
8. Cure finds remedy
- WHAT: Amy Cure retires
- WHERE: Jess Trengove's house, Adelaide, South Australia
- WHEN: June 19
Given her global triumphs as an individual as well as a team member, a strong case could be made that Amy Cure is Tasmania's most successful sportswoman.
The postponement of the 2020 Olympics made Tokyo a Games too far for the 27-year-old who had already qualified alongside fellow Tasmanian world champion Georgia Baker.
It would have been a third Olympics for the only track rider to medal in every world championship endurance event whose career took her from West Pine to every continent except Africa and Antarctica.
Cure's haul of 13 world championship medals included three golds while the silver and bronze medals won at the Commonwealth Games in 2014 were upgraded to double gold four years later in Queensland.
"I've reached a point where I am satisfied and proud of my achievements but don't want to keep making sacrifices in relationships that mean so much to me," she said.
7 Cancel that
- WHAT: The sporting world stops spinning
- WHERE: Everywhere
- WHEN: March to December
Nobody could have foreseen the impact that chomping down on a few Wuhanese bats would have on Tasmanian sport.
But as the global implications of the coronavirus spread, there was a period during mid-winter when our sporting events were falling over with the frequency of Neymar in a penalty area.
Annual staples like Targa Tasmania, the Supercars, AFL fixtures and the Launceston Cycling Classic will forever have 2020 missing from their honour rolls.
6. Leading the way
- WHAT: Stewart McSweyn claims Australia's 1500m record
- WHERE: Suhaim bin Hamad Stadium, Doha, Qatar
- WHEN: September 25
Ryan Gregson's Wikipedia page summary reads: "An Australian middle-distance runner. He held the Australian record for the men's 1500 metres, but now Stewart McSweyn does."
Those somewhat blunt last five words were added after the King Islander broke his second Australian record in eight days, finally claiming the elusive 1500m mark at the Diamond League meet in Doha.
The 25-year-old shaved nearly a second off his personal best to clock 3:30.51 and claim the decade-old 3:31.06 record of his Melbourne Track Club training partner.
McSweyn had claimed the national 3000m record (7:28.02) in Rome a week earlier and would finish the year with the pleasant headache of having to decide which of the 1500, 5000 and 10,000m events he will run at the Tokyo Olympics.