1. Russian invasion of women's tennis. For the first time Russian tennis ladies won three Grand Slam tournaments (Anastasia Myskina - French Open, Maria Sharapova - Wimbledon and Svetlana Kuznetsova - U.S. Open) and the Federation Cup.
2. A crushing 1-7 defeat of the Russian national football team from Portugal in a qualifier of the world football championship, one of the greatest failures in the history of the Russian football.
3. A conflict between head of the Russian federal agency for physical culture, sports and tourism Vyacheslav Fetisov and President of the Russian Football Union Vyacheslav Koloskov.
4. The sensational victory of the Greek national football team which was considered an outsider at EURO-2004.
5. The Summer Olympic Games in Athens. Russia took the third place but set a number of world records.
6. The lockout in the National Hockey League. As a result, over 70 NHL players including stars Jaromir Jagr, Ilya Kovalchuk, Alexei Kovalev and Vincent Lecavalier, played in the Russian championship-2004.
7. Ukrainian Andrei Shevchenko won the Golden Ball award as the FIFA player of the year. For the first time this prestigious football award was conferred on a CIS player.
8. Russian boxer Konstantin Tszyu reaffirmed his title of the professional superlight champion of the world. He has been holding this title since 1997.
9. Ukrainian boxer Vitaly Klichko became a WBC professional world champion in the heavy weight category.
10. Dmitry Alenichev (Porto, Portugal) became the most prominent Russian footballer having won the UEFA Champions League.
