National Sports highlights in 2024
In last week’s newspaper article on National News Highlights, the sports headlines for 2024 were inadvertently omitted.
The national sports scene brought about another exciting year in sports with professional and collegiate teams winning championships as well as the Summer Olympics taking place.
The 2024 sports year started off with the Michigan Wolverines defeating the Washington Huskies, 34-13, to win the National Championship Football Championship in a game played at NRG Stadium in Houston.
Super Bowl LVIII (58) was held in Las Vegas, Nevada with the Kansas City Chiefs winning their second world championship in a row with 25-22 overtime win over the San Francisco 49’ers.
The NCAA Men’s Final Four was played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona saw UConn defend its title with a 75-60 win over Purdue.
On the women’s side, South Carolina defeated the Caitlyn Clark, Iowa Hawkeyes, 87-75, to capture the NCAA Women’s Basketball championship. During the season, Clark broke NCAA Division I basketball career scoring record held by Pete Maravich.
The Tennessee Volunteers edged the Texas A&M Aggies, 6-5, in the game three final to win the College Baseball World Series played at Omaha, Nebraska.
In the women’s College Softball World Series, the Oklahoma Sooners won their second championship in a row by sweeping the Texas Longhorns in games played at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
The NBA finals had the Boston Celtics defeat the Dallas Mavericks four games to one to win their 18th National Basketball Association (NBA) championship. In the WNBA, the New York Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx in five games to win the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) title.
Lastly, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2024 MLB World Series title taking a four games to one series over the New York Yankess. It was the Dodgers 8th championship in franchise history.
The summer Olympics took place this year in Paris, France.
The United States athletes led all nations winning a total of 126 medals. Both the U.S. and China tied with 40 gold medals, but the Americans captured 44 silver and 42 bronze to the Chinese 27 and 24.
The U.S. track and field and swimming categories won the most medals with the track and field team contributing 34 total medals and swimming with 28 total medals.
Gymnasts Simone Biles and swimmers Gretchen Walsh, Katie Ledecky and Regan Smith all won four medals. The U.S. women’s basketball team won its eighth straight gold medal, while the men’s team captured its fifth consecutive gold medal.
The USA women’s 4x100-meter medley relay team set a new world record in winning a gold medal.
As 2024 comes to an end, it hasn’t taken long for major events to occur. The tragedy on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, where a reported 15 people were killed on New Year’s Eve by a terrorist driving his truck into the crowd as they celebrated the new year.
With that taking place, there is one thing for certain that we can expect more news making headlines with the passing of each month of 2025.