FOR all those people in previous years who asked where the British sporting icons were, your answer lies in 2008.

Arguably one of the most successful years for British sport in a long time, it has seen the emergence of such stars as Andy Murray and Lewis Hamilton. The spectacular performance by Team GB in the Beijing Summer Olympics has also been a defining moment of 2008.

Wherever you went this summer, one of the main talking points was the Beijing Olympics. With an extremely impressive opening ceremony everyone’s expectations was for it to be one of the best Olympics ever, not only did it match these expectations, the Beijing Olympics exceeded them by far! The effort put in by Team GB was incredible, and the athletes were rewarded with a total of 47 medals - 19 of which were gold, placing them fourth on the medal tables.

As it is one of my favourite sports, I follow tennis quite closely, and this year Andy Murray has proved that he is more than worthy of taking over from the likes of Tim Henman. Admittedly, Nadal has pretty much taken over in 2008 but Murray is posing a real threat - now ranked fourth in the world.

The most recent British champion is obviously Lewis Hamilton who has become the youngest ever F1 champion. Of course I cannot forget to highly praise Chris Hoy and Rebecca Adlington who were two of the stars of this summer Olympics.

Among all the highly notable athletes of this year, I cannot forget to mention the participants of the House Sports Day for years 11-13 at John Masefield! Congratulations to Midsummer who won the football and Jubilee who won the netball. We also hope to make some stars out of the many sports team in the sixth form ranging from hockey players to football players.

I’m sure you will agree that it has been a very impressive year. So it’s about time to stand up and be patriotic, “the British are coming” For all those who saw the Olympic rowing final with the very excited commentator I hope this makes you giggle.

Zoe Taylor.