Eoin Sheahan Picks His Top Three Greatest Sporting Comebacks
Highlights from The Pat Kenny Show- 1,112 views
- 9 Sep 2020
This week as part of our 'Greatest' series Eoin Sheahan picks his top 3 greatest sporting comebacks. Do you agree with his choices.
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You've hit that midday slump. I need a pick me up. Imagine if you worked 30 percent less, you'd be getting ready to come home now. I'm sorry we can't shorten your working day, but a couple dairy milk, 30 percent less sugar bar, and this upcoming podcast should help get you through it. Cadbury dairy milk, 30 percent less sugar just as irresistable. That Pat Kenny show on Newstalk. Yes, it's time for another installment of The Greatest with Off the Walls, Owen Sheen and with Stephen Hendry deciding to pick up the cue again at the age of 51.
We're looking back at some of the glorious comebacks in sporting history.
And first, a 45 year old Wonder George Foreman enjoying his best round of the fight here. Around 10, there's a round goes. He's flown in his back. He may not get off that maybe that lovin ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. I don't believe it's so important it is over now and it's kind of a miracle that no one thought possible. So, Owen Sheehan, tell me why you've selected that.
This is George Foreman and his incredible comeback, winning the world heavyweight title at the age of 45. The career path is incredible when it comes to George Foreman. You can't have a list of the greatest comebacks without him, really. His career spans from a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics until his retirement in 1997. So his initial retirement comes in 1997. It comes a couple of years, three years after the rumble in the jungle and at the feet of Muhammad Ali.
After the 1974 defeat, he struggled to get another shot at the world heavyweight title, and he retires after his defeat. To Jimmy Young, his comeback? There are a number of different things that he talks about here. He is, of course, a Christian minister, George Foreman. He talks about a religious epiphany about his decision to step away from the game of boxing and also to come back to the fight game as well. So 10 years after stepping away from the sport, he comes back in 1997.
And then, as I mentioned there, another seven years into his second career, after getting widely derided like back in the ring, a lot of people thought he was not up to it whatsoever. But he does indeed manage to win the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles on that November night in 94. Then three years later, at the age of 40, he returned. He retires for a final time. His final record past. Incredible when you think about how late he brought into his life.
Seventy six wins and five losses. Sixty eight of those 76 wins for knockouts. He is the oldest living world heavyweight boxing champion in history and the second oldest in any weight class after Bernard Hopkins. And of course, you've got to ask yourself, how was it such a successful comeback by George Foreman himself says it was down to healthy eating. And that is what sparked a George Foreman grill company, got in touch with him and said, you need to give us your name because you are the poster boy for healthy eating.
Well, now in golf, I mean, you lose most of the time. You play a lot of tournaments and you might do well and get a lot of prize money, but you don't come in at the head of the leaderboard. But one man has won more than most, had a lapse and then a return. Have a listen.
Many doubted we'd ever see it, but here it is, the return to glory. So on, who are we talking about and when we're talking about Tiger Woods, of course, and his great comeback over the last few years, I guess Tiger Woods, his comeback was a comeback from a multitude of different things. It was both his body breaking down and his personal life breaking down. 2008 is when we saw this all start to happen. His winning of the US Open in Torrey Pines that summer, he essentially did it on one leg.
He had to get an act of surgery later that year. People will remember Tiger plodding around the course that weekend, writhing in pain after every shot. It was an incredible win. Little did we know that it would be the beginning of the end of that section of his career in November 2009. Then we have the first story of an extramarital affair breaking out. We have the car crash where he crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree near his home in Florida.
And then by December, you have a multitude of different people coming out claiming to have had an affair with Tiger Woods. He subsequently takes an indefinite break from golf. His sponsors break away, although Nike stayed loyal. And in 2010, he holds that now very, very infamous press conference where he talks about the allure of money and fame and entitlements that he felt. And in August of that year, in 2010, his personal life probably reached his rock bottom.
When the divorce happens, then the comeback is a bit of a mixed bag, not too dissimilar to George Foreman. There were huge questions at the start of the comeback. Let us not forget that he actually got to world number one again in 2013. So it's not like the personal problems happened. And he took a decade away from the sport and he was back last year. He was pretty bloody good in the middle of the last decade as well.
But in twenty fourteen, this is when really the two pronged issue becomes a one pronged issue, and that is that the injury problems, his back starts to become a problem. This is a coach for the first time in twenty fourteen and right away through twenty fifteen and into not being able to play to twenty sixteen masters. There are serious questions that we will never see Tiger Woods ever make it back to that level again by April. Twenty seventeen. He's had four back surgeries.
And let's not forget that DUI that he was arrested for in May. Twenty seventeen. But as we heard there, twenty eighteen. An incredible final day at the tour championship in East Lake. We will all remember the scenes of the floods of people of the final fairway as he went in for that final shot to secure his first win since coming back. And then, of course, twenty nineteen and putting on that green jacket once again for his latest major injuries.
Quite the story to get back to the very top level. And this is what we're talking about today. These people just haven't come back to compete at the top. They come back to be the very best.
Well, now is the final one and it brings us to Formula One. Have a listen.
I came around the turn. He was sideways in the middle of the track. His car was on fire. There's the Ferrari, had different belts, different systems. Or it was very driven, a Ferrari, he was able to get in under the belts, I was on top of the car and I grabbed Nicky shoulders and pulled him out of the car.
And Nicky has to be Nicky louder. And does indeed this really there's no question when you come to one of the greatest comebacks ever. It's impossible to have this list without Nicky louder because the man literally went on fire. Nineteen seventy six to Nuremberg ring. Of course, this is an era when Formula One is one of the most dangerous sports on Earth. What is one of the facts that is sometimes forgotten about that day in Nuremberg is that three drivers who drove that day would later die as a result of injuries sustained while driving their car.
So, comparatively speaking, Nicholaus, that almost got off lightly with this post. He had urged his fellow drivers to boycott this specific race, which is a fact that many people will obviously remember from the time he did not feel the track was properly equipped to deal with safety hazards, including fire hazards. And on that very day, his concerns were unfortunately to come true. On the second lap, his Ferrari swerves off the track. He hits an embankment and it burst into flames.
And it's not just the fact that he sustained severe burns as a result of his helmet essentially falling off as a result of the foam dissolving. And he also inhaled toxic fumes and gases and was essentially given the last rites in hospital. But his comeback is not only extraordinary, it is swift. He missed only two races in that year's championship. He comes back and still has the lead in the driver's championship that year shows up at that press conference in Monza with fresh burns still bandaged and finishes fourth in that Italian Grand Prix on his comeback.
But the think that's Kopper's that entire season for him and to ensure that he doesn't win the driver's championship is in Japan. He essentially retires from the race and torrential rain and he gets beaten by Honda by a single point and is driver's championship. But in nineteen seventy seven, loudest champion again. And he does it again in nineteen eighty four. P.J. Allen, produced by the smallest margin ever in a driver's championship when in doubt one by half a point.
But the fact that the man was literally on fire and is back to races later in nineteen seventy six is probably the greatest mark of his comeback.
All right, Owen, thank you very much for reminding us of that. The late, great. And Nikki, louder.
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