Spain: Annus mirabilis in sports

I couldn't help but notice that Spain won many of this year's top honors in sports.

#1
Rafael Nadal won the French Open, Wimbledon, the Olympic gold medal in Beijing and ending Roger Federer's 237 consecutive weeks as world number one.

#2
The Spanish football team won Euro 2008, after so many years of disappointment and frustration. In July 2008, Spain rose to the #1 spot in the FIFA World Ranking for the first time in their history, becoming only the sixth nation (and the first who had never won the World Cup) to top these rankings.

#3
For cycling, Alberto Contador won the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España, while Carlos Sastre captured the Tour de France. Alberto Contador became the fifth racer in history, and the first Spaniard, to win all three Grand Tours of road cycling, and took his rightful place among legends such as Jacques Anquetil (1963), Felice Gimondi (1968), Eddy Merckx (1973) and Bernard Hinault in (1980). Even Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France 7 times consecutively do not have this achievement. And the best thing is, Alberto Contador is only 25 years old. By the way, his birthday is coming up - this Saturday, Dec 6.

#4
Pau Gasol became the first Spaniard to participate in an NBA basketball final, with the LA Lakers. Spain's basketball team won the silver medal in the Beijing Olympics, losing out only to the U.S. team.

#5
Sergio García moved up to second in the world golf rankings. He is currently the world's best, since Tiger Woods is sidelined with left knee injury. Guess what? He's only one year younger than me :) well, officially 362 days... heheh...

#6
Spain's tennis team won the Davis Cup, beating hosts Argentina 3-1 in the final. As pointed out by every Spanish newspaper, Spain's triumph - their third in the David Cup within eight years - was made even more meritorious by the injury-related absence of the world number one Nadal.

#7
El Mo won the annual cookie eating competition, edging out last year's champion, Cookie.

Congrats again to Spain for such an amazing achievement in the sporting world this year!