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Sebastian Vettel claimed the 2018 British Grand Prix after a dramatic race, in which Lewis Hamilton missed the chance to set a new record and had to settle for second.

Hamilton had won the previous four British Grand Prix, and had been particularly dominant in 2017 when he qualified in pole and cruised to victory despite having been inconvenienced by a restart. And the reigning World Champion was made the favourite for the 2018 race by BigBetBookmakers.com according to implied probability. But Hamilton was never in contention in the race itself, which meant that he remains on five British Grand Prix wins along with Jim Clark and Alain Prost.

Going into the 73rd running of this famous race, the battle for the Drivers’ Championship could hardly have been closer, with Vettel holding a slender one point lead over Hamilton after his third place finish in the preceding Austrian Grand Prix – a race in which Hamilton had been forced to retire.

But the weekend had promised much for Hamilton who secured pole position after a dramatic final qualifying session. Ferrari had dominated most of qualifying, thanks to improvements made to the outboard edges and diffuser and after the first Q3 practice runs, Sebastian Vettel had a narrow 0.057 second lead over Hamilton. But the British driver pulled out all the stops in his final run to secure a 76th career pole, and record sixth in this race, by 0.044 seconds.

Hamilton had a tougher time of it in the race itself. Although Vettel was suffering from a neck problem, he blasted away at the start, leaving Hamilton trailing and the British driver lost further momentum to teammate Valtteri Bottas in the other Mercedes before suffering a collision with Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn was penalised for the incident, but Hamilton, who had managed to keep his engine running, dropped to the back of the field and was forced to try to make up ground.

There was more drama to come, however, on lap 32, when Marcus Eriksson in the Sauber-Ferrari crashed, leading to the race being halted and restarted behind a safety car. Ferrari opted to bring Vettel into the pits, but Mercedes gambled, leaving their two drivers out, and Bottas led the field, as Hamilton worked his way through the pack. The strategy appeared to be working until five laps from the finish when a brilliant manoeuvre took Vettel into the lead. On the following lap, Hamilton moved into second, but the gap was too much to make up and the German held on.

Raikkonen eventually finished third, claiming his 27th podium finish without a win, while Bottas clung on for fourth, and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was fifth. The victory for Vettel, his fourth of the season, took him eight points clear of Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship, while Ferrari extended their lead over rivals Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship to 20 points.

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Danish eSports team Astralis came out on top in a high quality CS:GO E-League beating North American contenders Liquid in a one-sided final to claim the lion’s share of the $1,000,000 prize fund.

Astralis had been the pre-tournament favourites according to the implied probabilities displayed by Bigbetbookmakers.com and they didn’t disappoint over the course of the tournament, which was held in Atlanta in the US. And in defeating third-favourite Liquid in just under two hours, Astralis claimed their fourth title of the year, underlining their dominance of the CS:GO event.

Their dominance was so complete that they didn’t drop a single map throughout the entire tournament, and they were in complete control in all of their games. They have been favoured by the fact that so many rival teams have been making changes and going through rebuilds, but even allowing for that advantage, they are clearly the best CS:GO team in the world right now.

The big disappointment of the Premier were FaZe Clan. The winners in 2017, when they overcame Astralis in the final, they were second favourites going into this year’s competition, after finishing second in the Boston Major, winning the ESL One Belo Horizonte and managing third in Cologne. But there were mitigating circumstances as the team was re-integrating Olof ‘Olofmeister’ Kajbjer into the set-up after a long absence, and their 7-8th place finish was not a true reflection of their ability.

Team Liquid had the unenviable task of attempting to take down Astralis in the final. They had performed strongly throughout, and had to fight off considerable adversity, with one of their star players, Epitácio ‘TACO’ de Melo learning of his father’s death shortly before the semi-final with Natus Vincerre. He battled on, and was ably supported by superb efforts from his teammates. TACO was struggling at one point, missing a series of easy kills, but he closed out with a superb quad kill during a round on Overpass, pulling off a dramatic spray transfer to set up match point.

Their victory over Natus Vincerre showed considerable courage and determination, and the team looked as sharp as they had for a long time. Having won the second map in their semi-final with ease, Team Liquid must have been confident heading into the final, but that confidence wasn’t enough to see them through against the unstoppable Astralis. The second prize of $200,000 offered some compensation, however, and if they continue to improve at this rate, they are likely to pose a significant challenge to Astralis going forward.

Of the other teams, Cloud9 finished in a tie for 7th-8th place but were always likely to struggle to compete having lost both Jake ‘Stewie2k’ Yip and Tarik Celik, and they have some major rebuilding work to do, while MIBR showed some promise with their new line-up but probably found this tournament came too soon for them to perform at their best, and MouseSports also put in some good performances until they came up against Astralis in the semi-finals.

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The 2018 League Of Legends World Championships was packed with surprises and thrilling action and produced a genuine first with the triumph of Chinese team Invictus Gaming (IG).

IG dominated throughout the tournament and finally toppled the South Koreans to officially plant the Chinese flag at the summit of the League Of Legends world. That development has been long forecast and many eSports experts had predicted that 2018 would be the year of the Chinese. Those predictions were supported by the success of Royal Never Give Up (RNG) at the Mid-Season Invitational and ultimately IG claiming the big prize at the World Championship.

But while the theme of Chinese dominance was consistent, most eSports fans expected that it would be RNG rather than IG to reach the final, where it was expected they would meet Korean opposition, with the two leading Korean teams, KT Rolster and Gen.G the most likely finalists. But a tournament that had sprung some early surprises had a surprise finalist in European team Fnatic.

One of the biggest surprises came in qualifying. According to BigBetBookmakers.com, implied probability indicated that Kingzone Dragon X would be the likeliest winners of the World Championships, but they were knocked out by Gen.G in the Regional Finals.

Gen.G had been strongly tipped to do well in the tournament, but they endured a nightmare in the Group Stages losing five out of six matches to finish bottom of the section and crash out of the tournament. The other big Korean hope, K T Rolster, were knocked out by IG at the last eight stage, while China’s strongest team, RNG were downed 3-2 in the quarter-finals, by the second-ranked European team G2 Esports in what is one of the biggest shocks in the tournament’s history.

G2 Esports were unable to repeat their giant-killing performance in the semi-finals, where they were soundly beaten by IG, but top-rated European team Fnatic produced a convincing 3-0 victory over US team Cloud9 to reach the final. Having already beaten IG twice during the Group stage, Fnatic were live contenders to win the title, but in the event, IG stepped up their play when it mattered.

The dominant pairing of Mads ‘Broxah’ Brock-Pedersen and Gabriel ‘Bwipo’ Rau had enjoyed a successful tournament, but they were no match for IG, and Gao ‘Ning’ Zhen-Ning and Kang ‘TheShy’ Seung-lok established a clear edge over them. So dominant were the Chinese that Bwipo died eight times in the second game of the series and was replaced by Paul ‘sOAZ’ Boyer for Game Three.

But although IG were worthy winners, the other main headline from the tournament was the success of the European teams. In 2017, no European team made it past the quarter-finals, but this time, there were two European competitors in the semi-finals and another, Vitality almost made it out of an extremely tough group. As well as announcing the ascendancy of the Chinese, the 2018 World Championship also confirmed that the gap between East and West may be closing.

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2019 has dawned with the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) finely poised. With around two thirds of fixtures played, Frolunda are leading the way, but only four points separates the top six and even Skelleftea AIK in eleventh place are not out of play-off contention.

Frolunda’s strong campaign is not a complete surprise, as they won the title only three years ago, but they were not ranked as favourites for the 2018-19 season. In fact, based on the implied probabilities generated on Bigbetbookmakers.com, the team from Gothenburg were regarded as fourth favourites, behind last year’s winners Vaxjo Lakers, Djurgardens Stockholm and Skelleftea AIK.

But led by captain Joel Lundqvist and American Ryan Lasch, Frolunda have proven to be difficult to pass. Lasch has missed a few games after picking up an injury in the Champions Hockey League quarter-final, but Max Friberg stepped up with 9 points in 8 games during December, illustrating the strength in depth that Frolunda can call on, though they will need to call on all their resources for the rest of the season as they attempt to sustain a domestic and a European challenge.

Lulea’s strong performance so far has been even more of a surprise. The club has only won the SHL once and finished seventh in the regular season last year, but they made a fast start and despite struggling in December, they remain the closest challengers to Frolunda. Experienced assistant captain Niklas Olausson has been in reliable form in recent weeks, contributing 9 points and showing the sort of consistency that the team will need to find if they are to sustain their challenge.

Currently in third place, Farjestad have made a lot of friends this season with their attacking style of play. Joakim Nygard, Jesper Olofsson and Johan Ryno – drafted by the Detroit Red Wings – have all been among the goals, while Jesse Virtanen is the SHL’s joint assists-leader with 19. They can be streaky, but their high rate of goalscoring makes them danger to any of the league’s teams.

The other team in the top four, Lingkopings, have had a rollercoaster season so far. Having made a flawless start, they hit a rough patch but five wins out of seven in December provided a timely boost and leaves them in contention for honours. Former NHL player Derek Roy is the leading scorer for this prolific team, and he has also been helped by the return to form of Andrew Gordon, who was on target with a game winner during Sudden Death in a game against Malmo.

Finally, it has been a surprise to see both of last season’s finalists are struggling. Reigning champions Vaxjo Lakers are currently in sixth, while Skelleftea, who have reached the final in seven of the last eight seasons are having a nightmare of a season. They are currently in eleventh position, and in danger of missing out on the Round of 16, which would be a humiliation for a team with such a strong record. But with around 20 games to go for both teams, they still have a chance to turn things round.

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There was no question over the stand out team in the 2018 MLS season. That crown went to champions Atlanta United, winning the tournament in only their second year in the league, thanks mainly to the phenomenal goal-scoring of Josef Martinez.

Martinez, who finished the campaign as the MLS MVP, scored 31 goals in the regular season and another 3 in the play-offs to surpass Roy Lassiter’s 1996 record, is not likely to return next season, but with coach Tata Martino pulling the strings, Arthur Bank providing the funds, and the raucous Atlanta crowd creating an intimidating arena, the building blocks of an MLS dynasty are in place.

Atlanta were highly rated by sports betting experts ahead of the season, following their run to the play-offs in 2017 and implied probabilities on the Bigbetbookmakers.com site made them the favourites to claim the MLS Cup and they didn’t let their backers down.

They weren’t the top team at the end of the regular season: that honour went to the New York Red Bulls, who scored a season record points haul of 71 points to pick up their third Supporters Shield in six seasons. Yet once again, the Red Bulls went missing in the play-offs, losing to Atlanta 3-1 on aggregate having knocked out the consistent Columbus Crew in the Conference Semi-Finals.

The big disappointments of the MLS season were Toronto. After their dominant performance in 2017, there was talk of a Toronto dynasty but they struggled early on as they tried to compete in both MLS and the Champions League and were never able to make up the ground. New York City FC also disappointed, losing their manager Patrick Vieira part way through the season and finishing a long way behind the Red Bulls, though it was Atlanta who eventually ended their campaign.

The big surprises of the season came on the east and west coasts. Nobody was predicting a strong performance from DC United, yet the opening of a new stadium and the arrival of Wayne Rooney seemed to spur DC to greater things. There were astute moves from the front office as well, as
defenders Frederic Brillant and Joseph Mora strengthened the defence, and their eventual fourth-placed finish in the Eastern Conference capped a remarkable season of over-achievement.

In the west, LAFC continued the good record of newcomers to MLS, producing some genuinely great performances, ending up third in the Western Conference – nine points ahead of LA Galaxy – and reaching the semi-finals of the US Open Cup. And two of the western stalwarts in MLS produced one of great tussles in the tournament’s history in an epic Conference Semi-Final that saw Portland win the first leg, then hold off a Seattle charge to edge out their bitter rivals on penalties.

Like last year’s MLS Cup Final, in which Toronto saw off Seattle, the 2018 version was relatively one sided as Atlanta had little difficulty in overcoming Portland 2-0. But can they defend their title in 2019 without Martinez? It promises to be another absorbing MLS season.

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The Tour de France is always the highlight of the cycling year and 2019’s contest promises to be as gripping as ever. The world’s top cyclists will battle it out over a gruelling 3,462 kilometers along a course that extends the length of the country.

The announcement of the Tour de France course is often a source of controversy, and so it has proven this year, but while some cycling fans have complained that the Tour’s 2019 route only covers around a third of the country, focusing almost solely on the eastern half, it will visit four first-time host cities and includes a variety of tough climbs including Galibier, Lauteret, Izoard, Iseran, Ballon d’Alsace, Planche des Belle Filles and Peyresourde, as well as the usual challenges in the Jura, the Pyrenees and the Alps, while the longest stage will be a demanding 230 kilometers.

The early favourite for this year’s Tour, according to the implied odds available on the Bigbetbookmakers.com site is four-time winner Chris Froome. Froome won the Tour in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 but played only a supporting role as Team Sky teammate Geraint Thomas won it last year. But this time round, Froome has made it clear that he will be going all out to win in France, opting to miss the Giro d’Italia, which he won last year.

If Froome does win a fifth title, he will enter the pantheon of all-time greats who recorded five wins: Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, and at the age of 34, he would still have the power to add a record-breaking sixth title.

His path to a fifth title may have eased slightly with the news that Thomas is considering tackling the Giro d’Italia this year. Thomas skipped the Italian event last year, and that gave him a freshness advantage over Froome, so with the situation reversed in 2019, Froome could have the edge. A further twist is provided by the fact that this time round, both Team Sky riders will begin the race on an equal footing, which could provide some headaches for team boss Dave Brailsford.

But there are other contenders who will be determined to break the UK lock on this event. Tom Dumoulin and Vincenzo Nibali are also set to line up for the Giro d’Italia, but if they are fit, are likely to offer a stiff challenge to Froome and Thomas.

Nairo Quintana could also find that this year’s route plays to his strengths. The Colombian has twice finished as runner up and was also third in 2016 so has the experience to make a strong push for the title. He is also arguably the best in the world when it comes to climbing at altitude and the 2019 Tour includes seven mountain passes that are above 2000 metres.

There will also be strong challenges from young contender Fernando Gaviria, who last year became the first Colombian to win four stages of the Giro d’italia, Australian Richie Porte who won the Tour de Suisse last season, and climbing specialist Mikel Landa who made the top five on only his second Tour de France in 2017 and finished seventh last year.

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