Golden Ticket 2022: A journey around the sporting highlights of the 12 months ahead

But this year there was doubt in my mind as to whether it would still be within the realms of reality. First of all, would people still believe I had the keys to The Yorkshire Post helicopter for use whenever I wanted it?

Of course they would, they’d just have to accept that since we’re working from home these days I’d be flying from Doncaster Sheffield Airport not the big yellow H atop YP Towers. Secondly, would people still believe the expenses budget of a newspaper in a struggling industry could still stretch to sending the sports editor to one event per month across the globe?

Of course they would, just look at Stuart Rayner and Chris Waters’ expenses cheques.

No, the issue that stretched the realms of possibility was would anyone believe that someone would be willing to comply with all the Covid restrictions to be able to jet off to all these places?

No chance. For upon researching the destinations it quickly emerged it would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Red-list countries, quarantine hotels, double jabs required, booster jabs and Covid passports, isolation for 10 days upon return. The pitfalls were endless. Even the golden ticket adventure is not immune to Covid restrictions.

So, as you’ll see from the map above, 2022 will be spent largely in this country, and this county for that matter, such is the abundance of world-class sporting events headed to these shores.

But that’s for later in the year. For now, with Covid passport in hand and two weeks booked into a quarantine hotel on the Gold Coast, I am off to Melbourne for the first stop on my 2022 golden ticket adventure. Albert Park for the Australian Open is the destination, to see if there can be one last hurrah for the great Andy Murray, retired by his peers at this very scene three years ago, but still fighting to keep his career alive. Another career still at the start let us not forget is that of Emma Raducanu, the unlikely US Open champion on whom the spotlight will burn brightly.

Staying on the far side of the world in February, it’s north to Beijing for the Winter Olympics.

Think snow-capped mountains, halfpipes and icy bobsleigh runs and no-one in their right mind would think of Beijing, yet China could stump up the huge sums to host the Winter Games where so many traditional skiing venues could not. The story in Beijing from a Yorkshire perspective is will Brighouse’s Katie Ormerod finally be injury-free to challenge for snowboard gold?

I’m still east in March, the Middle East and Bahrain to be precise for the start of the Formula 1 World Championship; Max Verstappen versus Lewis Hamilton Part Two. Come on Lewis, don’t retire on that note, don’t bow out when so many think you were robbed of an eighth title. Come back and show them who’s boss in 2022.

April brings a familiar destination, Augusta for the Masters. Stood on the 12th tee watching the best in the world navigate the most picturesque strip of real estate in world golf as the sun beats down on your face is pure sporting heaven.

Talking of perfection, from Augusta we head to Sheffield and the start of a four-month stretch at home with the final of the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible. Can Rocket Ronnie O’Sullivan win a seventh world title or will one of the new guard prevail? A similar question is to be asked in June as the world’s best triathletes descend on Leeds for the latest round of the World Series. Does the great Jonny Brownlee still have the legs?

I’m so comfortable back home, so happy to be out of quarantine hotels that I stay in the Broad Acres in July to take in all eight games played at Rotherham’s New York Stadium and Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane at the UEFA Women’s European Championships.

Family-friendly, carnival atmospheres are expected at both grounds as we bear witness to the continued growth of women’s football.

Then it’s off down the M42 to Birmingham in August for the Commonwealth Games, a festival of sport and goodwill. Let’s hope for full stadiums and venues to cheer our heroes.

September brings a change of scenery, time to catch breath at cycling’s Vuelta Espana. A few years ago we had stories that Welcome to Yorkshire chiefs wanted to bring the start of the 2022 Vuelta to this county. How times change, but as we have learnt, cycling races are great spectacles.

In October we’re headed to New Zealand for the delayed women’s Rugby World Cup; can Pontefract’s world coach of the year Simon Middleton and Scarborough’s world player of the year Zoe Aldcroft guide England to glory?

Then it is back home for the Rugby League World Cup, one year later than billed but with nine venues playing host across Yorkshire, why would you need to be anywhere else to get your sporting fix?

The year ends in Qatar for a winter World Cup, to watch Gareth Southgate lead England to final glory on December 18, then it is home to isolate for Christmas.

The golden ticket and the Covid passport have frayed at the edges, worn down by over-use, but what sporting stories to be told in 2022, at home and abroad.