Keith Duggan looks at the verdicts of the Irish Times panel on who will be the big sporting winners in 2003. The arguments start right here ...

With the New Year comes a blank slate. All the world's sporting prizes are there to be won again. Although still in its infancy, The Irish Times Tipsters Inc has acquired global renown for its shrewd dissection of the season ahead, fearlessly and accurately predicting the names of those stars that will light up the months before us.

The nature of the panel is as original as it is celebrated. It is partly comprised of individuals who have all but made a career out of sport, people who will leave no stone unturned in their quest for further knowledge and their desire to portray the world of sport in a thoughtful and appealing manner.

It is also made up of a number of Irish Times sports staff members, whose collective predictions carry the pessimistic undertones and fatal indecision that regular readers have come to expect.

Together, this intrepid and dedicated team forsook the usual pleasures of the festive season to agonise over their predictions for 2003, mindful of the weight this poll carries. With their answers come many, many questions.

Can young Lleyton Hewitt, the defending Wimbledon champion, deal with the impending hype as well as the combined expectations of Weld, Hannigan, Quinn and Malone?

And that popping you hear, is that not the sound of the good people of Madrid celebrating the decision by John O'Mahony to back them to retain the Champions League title he suggested Real would win last year?

Is tipping England for the Six Nations not a treasonable offence?

And won't Venus succumb to a fit of pique at the obvious leaning towards her kid sister?

And are our young hopefuls for 2003 not quivering in their boots given that last year, most of the experts predicted that Javier Saviola would be the year's bright young thing at the World Cup? The Argentine didn't even travel to Japan and rumour has it he has been cursing this poll ever since.

A quick glance at last year's poll reminds us of how seldom the sure things of sport actually transpire. Or at least, it proves that in sport, things never turn out the way you expect them to. Roy Keane the star of the World Cup?

Well, after a fashion. As for the fate of the trophy? Of last year's panel, only Dermot Weld predicted that Brazil were the team to bet upon.

The footballers of Armagh also thrived despite failing to gain a single nomination from the 2002 jury while the hurlers of Kilkenny were backed only by he who commissions the poll, Sports Editor Malachy Logan. However, the rest of the panel since decreed that that was just a lucky guess.

The one tip that the 2002 panel was unanimous on was that Michael Schumacher would win the Formula One championship. This year, they decided to reject F1 altogether on the grounds that it was no fun any more.

Instead, they opted to include the highly combustible world of Republic of Ireland soccer management.

If this poll is to be regarded as the kiss of death, then our panel have managed to erase the entire favourites list in one fell swoop. Brian Clough, come on down.

While our panellists apply the most rigorous set of rules when delivering their verdicts, they are not afraid to run with the crowd, rarely see a fence that is not worth sitting on and are only to happy to be blinded by local bias.

They are fully aware that hindsight is 20/20 and will spend hours explaining why one should not look a gift horse in the mouth.

They are, collectively, a proud and honourable bunch but individually, warn against banking on any of their predictions.

Almost all will certainly get some right and possibly one or two will get all right.

However, it is equally certain that no one person will fully agree with any of the panellists and, ideally, almost everyone will disagree with almost everything that is predicted.

But anyhow, here it is. The story of 2003 as called by the stars who will actually make it happen and by those who get a free pass for the best seats.

To those of whom we expect great things, sorry . . . and good luck.