1) Mark McMorris

In March 2017 Mark McMorris attempted a routine jump on a training run in Whistler. This one, though, he slightly misjudged, launching himself straight into some trees. He broke his jaw, left arm, pelvis and several ribs – 17 fractures in all. He ruptured his spleen and collapsed a lung. He was airlifted to hospital, had two operations and was placed in a medically induced coma. Eleven months later the Canadian was on a podium in Pyeongchang, celebrating bronze in the men’s slopestyle. While McMorris appears not to have grasped one key lesson of his accident – flinging yourself into the air at high speed on an uncertain trajectory near woodland is not wise – the bravery that propelled his comeback was humbling. “I was so close to not being able to snowboard again,” he said. “I wish it hadn’t happened, but now it’s so cool that so many people have reached out and said, ‘You’ve helped me through this part of my life.’ Being able to inspire others is better than any medal.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mark McMorris practices for the men’s snowboard slopestyle finals during Winter X Games in 2012. Photograph: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

2) Safaa al-Jumaili

In the race for gold in the hotly contested field of courageous comebacks from unnecessary self-inflicted near-career-ending injury, it is hard to look past Safaa al-Jumaili, the Iraqi weightlifter whose shirt-ripping celebration upon winning his country’s only gold medal of this year’s Asian Games made him an internet sensation for 10 minutes in August. “I’ve trained so hard for so many years, not just to stand on this podium but also to send a message to my countrymen: we are still strong. We could make life better,” he said, after pipping South Korea’s Jang Yeon-hak – who passed out after hyperventilating during his final lift – in a tense and terrific competition, by the (comparatively) wafer-thin margin of 1kg. “Maybe one day a child watching on TV will tell himself: ‘I want to be like him. I want to stay away from the guns on the street, stay away from the bombs and be an athlete.’” And the cause of that 2015 injury, a horrific fracture which nearly ended his sporting ambitions? “It was my own fault. I kicked a barbell and broke my leg.”

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3) Peace Proscovia

This has been another remarkable year for Peace Proscovia. The Ugandan netball player established a reputation as perhaps the world’s most deadly goal shooter, led her team to sixth in the Commonwealth Games, graduated from Loughborough University with a master’s in marketing, was signed by Australia’s Sunshine Coast Lightning and enrolled on a PhD in Australia. Now 29, Proscovia was born in rural Uganda, the oldest of seven children. “Where I come from, when you grow up you are expected to be married,” she said. “The same thing was meant to happen to me, but I had to stand my ground and tell my family that I can do this. I was rejected, but I disobeyed my parents and left home to go to the city.” She has since become a celebrity in her homeland. “Girls are now encouraged to go into sports, rather than live at home and get married,” she said. Proscovia was the first African to play professional netball in England, but evidence that others are following in her footsteps came this week, when Loughborough announced the signing of 21-year-old Ugandan goal shooter Mary Cholhok. “I want to inspire more girls who have not yet discovered who they are and how far their talents can take them,” Cholhok said. “I hope to inspire them like I was inspired by Peace.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Peace Proscovia of Uganda competes against Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Photograph: Albert Perez/Getty Images

4) Mikey Doyle

The Queen of the South defender was with a friend on holiday in Magaluf when he heard a commotion. “We were just sitting on the balcony having a few drinks and a girl started shouting, ‘There’s a fire, there’s a fire,’” he recalled. “So we’ve sprinted down and kicked in their door.” He and his friend dragged one person clear of danger, before his friend collapsed and Doyle dragged him to safety as well. Video taken from a nearby apartment shows Doyle launching himself into a smoke-billowing, blazing inferno. “It’s not that big a deal,” Doyle said. “As soon as you see something like that you just sober up.” It turned out the fire had been caused by a drunken holidaymaker waking up a sleeping friend by using a lighter and an aerosol to blow-torch his feet, and accidentally setting fire to his mattress. Four people were arrested with the damage estimated at £175,000, while Doyle’s reputation was the only thing to emerge enhanced.

Jimmy Mick Doyle (@jmdoyley) Me In the blue top getting people and all his stuff out ! Real hero’s are the fireman and the people who work at the hotel putting the fire out but 👏🏻👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/oULNS7RfE5

5) Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal was at his training centre in Mallorca when freakishly heavy rainfall floods hit the nearby town of Sant Llorenç des Cardassar in October, killing 13 people. “It was terrible,” he said. “Scary, and very sad. I really lived that tragedy from very close.” Given his proximity to the floods, and connection with the town – much of his mother’s family are from Sant Llorenç – a response was inevitable. But Nadal’s was above expectations as he headed to Sant Llorenç himself to assist with the clear-up operation, opening the doors of his training centre as a shelter, and donating £900,000 to victims of the flooding. Mateu Puigròs, the town’s mayor, described the donation as “help from a special person for all of us, who shows his love for our land and his neighbours every day because he is one of us”.

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6) Pita Taufatofua

'A slow pace but it's a pace': Tongan skier surpasses goals in Pyeongchang Read more

“I want to show the world to dream without limits, to be fearless in the eyes of criticism, to aim higher than they thought possible and in doing so to explore their true potential,” said Pita Taufatofua before he became the first person to represent Tonga in both the summer and winter Olympics. In 2016 he spent a few minutes in the taekwondo competition, losing his only fight 16-1 but insisting that “there is more to sport than just winning”, and in South Korea he followed a bare-chested, baby-oiled flag-bearing appearance at the opening ceremony with an unlikely tilt at 15km cross-country glory. It is a heartwarming message, and so were the pictures of Taufatofua, having finished 114th, waiting at the finish line with a few other stragglers to cheer home the last finisher of all, Mexico’s Germán Madrazo. The fact is Taufatofua, Madrazo and the other athletes involved in that Korean snowy scene – Ecuador’s Klaus Jungbluth, Portugal’s Kequyen Lam and Colombia’s Sebastián Uprimny – had bent all available rules in qualifying for Pyeongchang, and had secured crucial points in four reduced-length races held in Bogotá in December 2017 simply to assist their Olympian ambitions. The five duly became the last finishers in Pyeongchang. This infuriated some rivals for qualification, but Taufatofua had highlighted the faults in the International Ski Federation’s qualifying procedures (currently under review), showed the world to dream without limits and captured some Olympic values. For all of that, and despite the baby oil business, he deserves admiration.