New Delhi, Dec. 27 -- Click. Click. Click.

Armand Duplantis levitating at six metres. Cyclists, all Cassius lean, cutting through a tight crowd. Artistic swimmers upside down like liquid angels. The cold concentration of a wushu exponent.

These are the athletes you saw all year but not quite like this. This is sport in another light and from another vantage point. This is split-second stories composed on catwalks, helicopters or lying down in the mud. This is the big picture of a lonely car amid the dunes of the Dakar Rally and the small picture of a boxer's fist mashing a mouth.

This is my December delight, flicking through the year's best sports pictures. Getty Images, Reuters, AP. Genius frozen, action caught, history framed.

How t...