The best sports pictures of the year for 2020

The photos taken throughout 2020 will stand as reminders of the challenging, often bizarre, circumstances in which, while the world stopped, sport played on.

For months on end in lockdown, we became accustomed to images taken not by high-spec cameras in state-of-the-art arenas, but on iPhones in back gardens.

The re-runs that filled the void on our screens saw high-definition replaced by grainy nostalgia, while new programmes were filmed not under studio lights, but through webcams on Zoom calls.

When sport-proper did resume, the scenes of euphoria and triumph at Augusta, Rolland Garros and Wembley did not look quite right, with their empty grandstand backdrops. Heroes were half-masked as they collected their trophies, bumping fists instead of shaking hands. 

And so many of those photos which did emerge as iconic did so not for their encapsulation of high-speed action, but for their stillness, as stars paused to take the knee in the fight against racial injustice.

Here, in our gallery, we take a look at some of the most memorable photos of this unique year.