Nick Westby: Yorkshire heroes already have our hearts thumping with pride

Go on, pick a winner out of this lot.

As 2016 races towards its mid-point, the list of accolades achieved by the sportsmen and women of this county has already exceeded what we have witnessed in previous years.

This is also Olympic year, when another raft of the county’s finest will scale their personal mountain tops and create memories to last a lifetime.

Whatever is to come in Rio and beyond, those six have already enjoyed stellar moments that will ensure they remember 2016 for the rest of their days.

Vardy is the goalscoring sensation of Leicester City and England, who just five years ago was playing football in his home city of Sheffield – for non-league Stocksbridge Park Steels.

Bairstow smacked a century at Lord’s earlier this month after scoring his maiden Test century in Cape Town in January, a poignant moment as it came in the same week of the anniversary of his father’s passing.

Despite a negative press about one dropped chance last week, Bairstow has been playing a fearless brand of cricket.

Fellow Yorkshireman Root held the position of the world’s No 1 Test batsman earlier this year, and in the shorter format of the game, was the third highest run-scorer at the ICC World Twenty20 in the Caribbean in the early Spring.

Willett’s achievement arguably outranks them all. At Augusta in April, the Sheffield golfer – whose talent was honed at Rotherham Golf Club – etched his name into golfing lore when he won the Masters.

To emphasise the achievement, he became just the second Englishman to don the green jacket, and just the fourth from this country to have won one of golf’s major championships in half-a-century.

Adams was also rewriting history, completing the set of gold medals by finally winning the top accolade in amateur boxing’s world championship, having lost in the final on three previous occasions.

There was also cause for the record books to be reshaped when her fellow sporting star from Leeds, Nile Wilson, became the first Briton to win a European gymnastics title on the high bar.

Ripon diver Jack Laugher became a European champion this year and, like Adams and Wilson, he has bigger accomplishments in mind later this summer in Rio.

If the achievements of the above do not have your chest swelled with pride at the prodigious talent within the Broad Acres, then just look at the list below for a few names who might tip you over the edge into spontaneous applause.

In Rio in August, there is genuine cause for optimism that this county may once again produce one of the more uplifting subplots to the Olympic and Paralympic summer, just as it did at London 2012.

Twelve medals were won by competitors who call the White Rose county home four years ago, and I’d wager we will match or better that in Brazil.

Adams is hot favourite to win gold in the ring again to cement further her status as the standard-bearer for the growth of women’s boxing.

Wilson is a canny outside bet for a medal in any gymnastic discipline he is entered into, such is the 20-year-old’s versatility allied with the rapid development of the British squad.

Laugher is more at home in elite company on the 3m springboard than ever before, while his fellow City of Leeds divers Alicia Blagg, Rebecca Gallantree and Chris Mears have a wealth of big-championship experience under their belts.

Otley cyclist Lizzie Armitstead had her career zenith in America last year when she won the rainbow jersey. The Olympic road race title is the one she covets more than any, having gone so close to winning it on The Mall in 2012.

On the boards, Yorkshire’s Ed Clancy will bid for a third Olympic gold in the team pursuit, which would further underline his position as the county’s most decorated Olympian.

Andrew Triggs Hodge might have something to say about that, as the Hebden-raised oarsman seeks to complete an Olympic hat-trick of his own, this time in the men’s eight.

The Brownlee brothers proved in Leeds last weekend that they are reaching their peak at just the right time as they look to dominate the podium in the triathlon once more.

All this and I have not even mentioned Jessica Ennis-Hill, who once again possesses one of the more invigorating of back-stories given she looks to defend her Olympic heptathlon title two years after the birth of her son.

Nor have we alluded to Hannah Cockroft, the Hurricane from Halifax who goes for three Paralympic titles.

Willett might yet hole the winning putt at the Ryder Cup.

What a year it is shaping up to be for Yorkshire sport.

And another thing...

On the face of it, the World Series Triathlon event in Leeds last weekend was a roaring success.

A Brownlee one-two as Alistair led Jonny home in a dominant performance by the Yorkshire brothers was watched by an estimated crowd of 80,000 people who lined the route.

The women’s race also got a worthy winner in world’s-best Gwen Jorgensen.

But all the while those races were being contested, many of the amateurs who had competed in the open race earlier in the day had returned to Roundhay Park to discover their belongings had been mixed up with others or, even worse, lost. Some headed home without even looking, such was the confusion and lack of organisation.

From the elite end of the spectrum, Leeds produced a race to rival anything on the World Series rota. To win back the race in 2017, the organisers will need to learn from the mistakes and ensure the myriad amateur events that fill the weekend are produced and executed just as professionally.