Sporting highlights to look forward to in 2023

The best 32 men's handball national teams gather in Poland and Sweden on January 11 for the world championship. The defending champions are Denmark who beat fellow Scandinavians Sweden 26-24 in the 2021 final. The 2023 final is scheduled for January 29 in Stockholm.

The 47th FIS Alpine World Ski Championships are to be held from 6 to 19 February 202 in Courchevel and Meribel in the French Alps. These are the same two towns that hosted the alpine skiing events at the 1992 Winter Olympic Games in Albertville. Downhill and Super-G racer Thomas Dressen (photo) is among Germany's best hopes for a medal, along with slalom specialist Lena Dürr.

The National Football League's (NFL) championship game, the Super Bowl is to be held in Glendale, Arizona on February 12. As usual, millions all over the world are expected to tune into the event, many who don't even understand the rules of the game, but instead are drawn by the hype of the halftime show.

The 2023 IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championship is to be cohosted by Tampere, Finland, and Riga, Latvia from May 12-28. Saint Petersburg, which was the original host, had its right to do so revoked after Russia invaded Ukraine last February. Russia and Belarus remain banned from taking part in the tournament for a second year running.

The 2023 Special Olympics World Summer Games are to be hosted by Berlin from June 17 to June 25. This is the first time that Germany is to host a Special Olympics World Games. The events are to take place at 15 different venues in the German capital. The Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities.

The 110th edition of the world's most prestigious cycling event starts with the Grand Depart hitting the road on July 1 in Bilbao, northern Spain and ending with the usual ride up the Champs-Elysees in Paris on July 23. The 2023 Tour is to be a real mountain spectacle: On the 3,404-kilometer (2,115 mile) route, the riders will have to master 30 climbs in the highest categories – a new Tour record.

The 2023 World Cup is set to be the biggest ever: from July 20 to August 20, 32 teams compete for football supremacy in Australia and New Zealand. Among the favorites are European champions England as well as France, Brazil, the United States and Olympic gold medalists Canada. Germany have something to prove after falling to England in the final of the 2021 European Championship.

The Hungarian capital, Budapest, is set to host the world's best track-and-field athletes from August 19 to 27. A new athletics center built especially for these World Championships will seat around 37,000 spectators. The athletes will be throwing, running and jumping for gold in a total of 49 events.

The 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup will be held from August 25 to September 10 in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. The tournament will serve as qualification for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Spain are the defending champions, having beaten Argentina 95-75 in the 2019 final. Among the NBA stars expected to take part are Germany's Dennis Schröder (photo).

The 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup is to be hosted by India in October and November. The One Day International (ODI) tournament had originally been scheduled for February and March but was postponed to the disruption of the qualifying schedule caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. England are the defending champions, having won the 2019 edition of the event.

This sports event for war-disabled servicemen and women was established in 2014, and the sixth edition is to be held in Düsseldorf from September 9 to 16. Athletes will be going for gold in partly mixed teams, the disciplines of athletics, archery, indoor rowing, weightlifting, road cycling, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby.

Originally, the tournament was to be held in China in June and July, but China surrendered its hosting rights due the COVID-19 pandemic. Defending Asian Cup champions Qatar are now set to host the event, however a date has not been set. It's widely expected that due to the summer heat in Qatar, it, like the World Cup, will be moved to the cooler winter months – possibly as late as January 2024.