Highlights to look forward to this year...

DINA Asher-Smith will have world gold within her grasp while a football World Cup throws up a domestic showdown to savour as women’s sport prepares to take centre stage in 2019.

Asher-Smith’s ascent into the top echelon of athletics was sealed by her record-breaking exploits in the 2018 European Championships and Paula Radcliffe has tipped her to make history at the World Championships in Doha in September.

And in a year freed from the overshadowing influence of an Olympics, women’s football ought also to be afforded the high profile it deserves when the world’s 24 best teams converge on France in June.

England’s Group D clash with Scotland in Nice will prove an undoubted highlight from a British perspective.

The following month, attention will shift to Liverpool where the latest chapter in the increasingly storied rivalry between England and Australia is set to be played out in the Women’s Netball World Cup.

England and Australia will also pit their wits on the cricket field as the Ashes return to England in August and September, Joe Root’s men seemingly well-placed for revenge after the misery of last year’s 4-0 defeat Down Under overshadowed by the ball-tampering scandal.

And success in the inaugural Nations League, with England set for a semi-final against Holland in June, would provide another positive boost for Gareth Southgate’s men in the wake of their World Cup exploits.

Japan will host the Rugby World Cup for the first time with the host nation no doubt hopeful of a repeat of their famous win over South Africa in Brighton in 2015.

A host of other high-profile British stars will continue limbering up for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with the likes of Adam Peaty and Max Whitlock intending to cement their positions at their respective swimming and gymnastics World Championships.

A likely rematch between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder will light up the boxing world, while Andy Murray’s bid to return to the top of the tennis world will be complicated by the continued emergence of a new generation of talent, headed by the newly-crowned ATP Finals winner Alexander Zverev.

And Tiger Woods limbers up to seriously challenge again in the major golf championships, while Justin Rose looks best-placed of the home players to wrest the important world number one slot.