2005 Moments To Remember

HOW MANY TIMES DOES it happen in the course of a year? Hundreds? Thousands? How many games, matches, rounds and races distill to a seminal moment when an athlete's entire season is defined by what happens there, in that narrow slice of time? How frequently does a team's ultimate success or failure, a year's worth of work, come down to that one decisive interval? How many times do players find themselves changed by a single brief episode that unfolds far from the playing field? Sports in 2005 offered a rich compendium of these defining moments, too many to count. Here are six that epitomize the best of them.

TRUE GRIT
P.94

FIRST LADY
P.96

SWISS PEAK
P.98

SWEET SURPRISE
P.100

BROTHERS IN ARMS
P.102

GIVING BACK
P.106

SIX PHOTOS

AARON M. SPRECHER/ICON SMI; STEVE SWOPE PHOTOGRAPHY; DAVE SAFFRAN/WIREIMAGE.COM; BILL FRAKES; OTTO GREULE/GETTY IMAGES; MICHAEL C. HEBERT