|
 Tens of millions of cricket obsessives in South Asia will ensure
plenty of eyeballs on the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand,
while rugby's equivalent is among many contenders for the title of
the world's third biggest tournament.
The Tour de France, with a worldwide TV audience of 3.5 billion
people every year, will be a battle royale between defending
champion Vincenzo nibali, Alberto Contador, Chris Froome and Nairo
Quintana in July.
The burgeoning popularity of European club soccer shows no sign of
abating but men's international football honours in 2015 will be
confined to regional championships in Asia, Africa as well as South,
Central and North America.
The finest female footballers from all five continents will gather
in Canada in June and July to contest the seventh women's World Cup,
however, with Germany and the United States the early favourites.
The Olympic programme is on furlough but not so the athletes, who
compete in world championships in track and field, swimming and a
host of other sports as they embark on a trail they hope will climax
with gold at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.
The July 24-Aug 9 swimming championships in the Russian city of
Kazan will be without the biggest name in the sport after 18-times
Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps was kicked off the U.S. team
in the wake of a drink driving arrest.
Usain Bolt, however, looks certain to be back where it all began for
him at the athletics world championships at Beijing's Birds Nest,
the venue for his stunning 100 and 200m victories in world record
times at the 2008 Olympics.
Seven years on and the Jamaican sprinter, who will turn 29 the day
before the championships begin on Aug. 22, remains his sport's trump
card as one of the few sportsmen or women to enjoy a truly global
profile.
There will be much interest in whether two other members of that
elite club, golfer Tiger Woods and tennis maestro Roger Federer, can
arrest signs of decline and maintain their place at the top table on
grounds of form rather than reputation.
Woods won the last of his 14 major titles two months before Bolt's
Beijing triumph and Rory McIlroy could go some way to replacing him
as the face of golf if he can become the sixth player to win a
career grand slam at the U.S. Masters in April.
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Federer has won just one major title, his 17th, in the last four
seasons and starts his year as always in Australia, which dominates
the first quarter of the 2015 international sporting calendar.
As well as the Australian Open tennis, the country hosts soccer's
Asian Cup, the opening race in what looks likes being an intriguing
Formula One season, and the cricket World Cup.
Australia have won four of the 10 cricket World Cups and will be
confident of a fifth title on home soil from Feb 14 to March 29,
with reigning champions India and South Africa the most likely to
stop them.
India, whose 2011 triumph helped bolster the 50-over game against
the threat of obsolescence in the face of the growth of the Twenty20
game, might struggle on the quick Australian tracks but conditions
should suit a settled South Africa team.
New Zealand have won just two of the seven rugby World Cups -- both
on home soil -- but still go in as favourites to lift the Webb Ellis
Trophy every four years and the Sept 18-Oct 31 tournament in England
is no exception.
 South Africa and the hosts, the teams responsible for the only two
defeats the world champions have suffered in 42 tests since they won
the 2011 title, look most likely to benefit if the All Blacks once
again falter in the northern hemisphere.
(Editing by Julien Pretot)
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