Hail the unlikely heroes

Saif Saeed Shaheen

The prize exhibit in athletics' unsavoury new cattle market. One minute, he was Stephen Cherono, Kenya's latest steeplechasing phenomenon; the next, he was happily being unveiled as Shaheen, winning a world championship gold medal for a place he'd only ever visited once, declaring cheekily: "My heart feels Qatari." The oil-rich Gulf state had effectively bought their first world champ by offering the 20-year-old Kenyan a passport and, apparently, $1,000 a month. IAAF chiefs are not impressed, wondering whether Qatar should appear in the medal table under the name Chelsea. He will continue to make Kenya weep.

Rupeni Caucaunibuca

Even if Wilko dominated the World Cup, he still didn't illuminate it with quite the dazzling brilliance of this man. The intake of breath whenever the Fijian winger collected the ball reminded you of the effect Jonah Lomu had at the 1995 event. His tries were wondrous and his right hook wasn't bad either.

Ivo Karlovic

The teller of the tallest tale Wimbledon has heard for many a year. A 6ft 10in Croat qualifier, ranked No203 in the world with a big serve and bad stammer, is presented to champion Lleyton Hewitt as his first-round sacrifice. But the impossible occurs: booming down his monstrous serve, Karlovic recovers from losing the first set and blitzes the Aussie with 18 aces, thus bestowing on Hewitt the desperate tag of being the first defending men's champion in the Open era to lose his title in the opening game. It was only Karlovic's 11th match at full tour level, but he's made big strides ever since, breaking into the top 100.

Freddy Adu

This Ghanaian-born kid signed a $1million contract with Nike at the age of 14 this year and next spring is expected to become the youngest professional sportsman in more than a century of American team sports by making his debut for DC United in Major League Soccer. He's such an astonishing footballing talent that nobody laughs when he says he believes he can help win the World Cup in Germany in 2006. Yet he even fancies that before then he could be on the US Olympic team for Athens next year at just 15.

And those we won't be seeing again, thank you...

Dr Ekkart Arbeit

Denise Lewis finally dumped her former East German coach after her comeback season. Considering that it was a spectacularly ill-advised association with a bloke who was once at the very heart of the GDR's state doping machine, the only mystery was that it took the Olympic heptathlon champion so long to ditch him. Now she's back with her old mentor Charles van Commenee but in the era of the brilliant Swede Carolina Kluft, it's long odds on mum Lewis retaining her crown in Athens.

Saadi Gadaffi

The son of Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi signed a one-year deal with Italian Serie A side Perugia in one of chairman Luciano Gaucci's classic publicity stunts. "He's good and he's definitely going to play," said Gaucci. Er, he wasn't and he didn't. He did, however, go out in a blaze of notoriety by failing a drugs test. Gaucci's next trick, of course, is to bring in a woman player. She doubtless won't play either.

Geo Cronje

The bearded Afrikaner lock who refused to share a room with his black Springboks teammate Quinton Davids. Cronje, expelled from the World Cup squad, was sent home from the training camp in Pretoria, thus escaping the humiliations of being stripped and harangued at Rudi Straeuli's barbaric Camp Steel Wire. Welcome back to the dark ages...