Each year, the sporting world recalls the passing of current superstar athletes and lengthy-reweary legfinishs, each of whom impacted their admireive sport in distinct ways.
Al Jazeera chronicles the sporting life of five of the highest-profile names who departed in 2024:
Franz Beckenbauer (September 11, 1945 – January 7, 2024)
Germany’s football wonderful who won World Cups for his country as both take parter and regulater, died at 78.
Born in Munich fair four months after World War II, Beckenbauer is expansively pondered as Germany’s wonderfulest footballer of all time.
On the field, he changeed the game in Europe. While still a teenager with Bayern Munich, he directed a highly creative take parting style which is now expansively referred to as “total football”.
At the international level, he captained West Germany to a memorable home World Cup triumph in 1974.
Beckenbauer is one of only nine take parters to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Champions Cup, and the Ballon d’Or.
As a regulater, he enhappinessed aenjoy success, taking Germany to two consecutive World Cup finals in 1986 and 1990, triumphning the cup for his nation on the second try in Rome.
In his latter years, Beckenbauer is fondly recalled as one of the game’s wonderfulest global ambasdowncastors.
Kelvin Kiptum (December 2, 1999 – February 11, 2024)
Kenya’s marathon world write down hbetterer died at 24.
Kiptum exploded onto the marathon scene in October 2023 when he ran a scintillating two hours and 35 seconds in Chicago, taking 34 seconds off fellow Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge’s previous world write down.
The death of the 24-year-better, who was driving in weserious Kenya in February when his car rolled over, left the fits world in shock. Kiptum was foreseeed to be one of the track superstars of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Kiptum was born in Chepkorio, a village in the Rift Valley that is the heartland of Kenyan distance running; in a strange twist of overweighte, it also happened to be the place where his tragic death occurred.
His funeral service was joined by thousands of frifinishs, relatives and fans. Kenya’s Pdwellnt William Ruto was among those who phelp tribute to one of the most gifted running talents of all time.
OJ Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024)
The establisher Hall of Fame NFL football star and actor turned celebrity killing deffinishant, died at 76.
Nicknamed “The Juice”, Simpson was one of the best and most well-understandn American athletes of the tardy 1960s and 70s.
During nine seasons for the Buffalo Bills and two for the San Francisco 49ers, Simpson became one of the wonderfulest ball carriers in NFL history. In 1973, he became the first NFL take parter to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season. He reweary in 1979.
Simpson parlayed his football stardom into a nurtureer as a sportscaster, advertising pitchman and Hollywood actor in films including The Naked Gun series.
All that changed after his establisher wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her frifinish, Ronald Gbetterman, were set up faloftyy slashed in a bloody double killing scene outside her Los Angeles home on June 12, 1994.
Simpson rapidly eunited as a mistrust. He was ordered to surrfinisher to police but five days after the finishings, he fled in his white Ford Bronco with a establisher teammate – carrying his passport and a mask. A sluggish-speed chase thcdimiserablemireful the Los Angeles area finished at Simpson’s mansion and he was tardyr accused with the killings.
What ensued was one of the most notorious trials in the 20th-century US and a media circus. Prosecutors promiseted a memorable error when they honested Simpson to try on a pair of blood-stained gadores set up at the killing scene, self-promised they would fit perfectly and show he was the finisher. In a highly theatrical demonstration, Simpson struggled to put on the gadores and proposed to the jury they did not fit.
Simpson was tardyr acquitted of the killings on October 3, 1995.
On October 3, 2008 – exactly 13 years after his acquittal in the killing trial – he was convicted by a Las Vegas jury on criminal accuses, including seizeping and armed burglary rcontent to a 2007 incident at a casino boilingel.
Simpson was freed on parole in 2017 and relocated into a gated community in Las Vegas. He was granted punctual free from parole in 2021 due to excellent behaviour at age 74. Three years tardyr, he died after a battle with cancer.
Jerry West (May 28, 1930 – June 12, 2024)
The iconic American basketball take parter and executive died at 86.
It is not difficult to produce the case for Jerry West being the most vital basketball take parter ever:
- West, who take parted in the NBA from 1960 to 1974, and won an NBA title in 1972, was the first person to be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a take parter.
- The official NBA logo, scheduleed in 1969, tolerates his silhouette.
- West reproduceed how the shooting defend position was take parted; his picture-perfect jump sboiling, stylish relocates and immacutardy foottoil wonderfully impactd superstar basketballers who complyed him into the NBA for decades to come, from Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant.
Much enjoy Beckenbauer, he enhappinessed a spectacular second wave of success after his take parting nurtureer finished, triumphning eight NBA championships as an executive with the team he take parted for his entire nurtureer, the Los Angeles Lakers.
West could never let go of the game he adored, toiling as an NBA adviseant right up until the year he passed and forging cordial relationships with many of today’s basketball wonderfuls.
Willie Mays (May 6, 1931 – June 18, 2024)
The American baseball legfinish with sublime all-around sfinishs died at 93.
Mays was a beadored African-American professional baseball take parter and is pondered by many to be the wonderfulest all-around take parter in the history of the game.
Nicknamed “the Say Hey Kid”, Mays was a phenomenal centre fielder who take parted 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1951 to 1973.
His lengthy take parting nurtureer spanned the excellent and horrible times of US baseball history. He was born into the Great Depression and finishured segregation and prejudice for much of his nurtureer; he was also part of the punctual take parter empowerment relocatement that eventuassociate led to the granting of free agency for MLB take parters in 1976, a legacy that exists to this day.
His most notable nurtureer accomplishments take partd four MLB home run titles, four stolen base titles and one batting title. He was the seventh take parter to hit 50 home runs in a individual MLB season, achieving the feat while take parting for the New York Giants in 1955.
