Earlier this week, Leicester City Football Club scripted the most memorable Premier League victory in the modern era.
Promoted from the Championship (2nd division) of English Football to play the 2014-15 season, the Foxes were on the verge of relegation until a last month surge rescued their cause last time around. The run not only kept them in the league for a second season running it gave them the momentum they carrried forward to this season which they’ve now taken home with two matchdays to spare, outperforming the likes of big-money giants Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea.
In a sporting world where ‘favourites’ dominate the scene and enforce predictable outcomes more often than not, Leicester's achievement is one of epic proportions, a rare gem in the rough.
Let us now take a look at 5 such fairytale triumphs that have taken place in this decade:
5) Boston Celtics: 2007-08 NBA season
Having last won the Championship way back in 1986, Boston Celtics were reduced to being deemed NBA giants of a bygone era after the onset of this century. As if to worsen things, they had a devastating 2006-07 season on the court.
Following the demise of club legend Red Auerbach in October 2006, the Celtics finished at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, with an all-time second-worst win-loss record of 24-58 which included their longest ever losing streak of 18 games.
The miraculous rise from the ashes that they pulled off in the next season remains, till date, the largest single-season turnaround in NBA history. A 42-game improvement from 2006-07, Boston Celtics finished the regular season with 66-16 at the top of the Atlantic Division as well as the Eastern Conference.
After edging past Atlanta, Cleveland and Detroit in the playoffs, the galloping Boston side thumped the mighty Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 NBA Finals to take home their 17th title, at the same time achieving some long-awaited Championship glory.
4) Kayla Harrison: 2012 London Olympics
The first woman to win Olympic gold in judo for the United States, Kayla Harrison is a resounding figure of inspiration.
At a tender age, this judoka had to live through sexual abuse at the hands of her judo coach for years. Shaken and traumatised after the disclosure, she was compelled to move to Boston from her home in Ohio.
That episode, however, couldn’t dampen her spirits or her passion for the sport. An indomitable Kayla returned from the doors of suicide and trained harder than ever to rise through the ranks and clinch gold in the 78kg category at the 2010 World Judo Championships in Tokyo.
In 2012, her Olympic aspirations looked in jeopardy with a medial collateral ligament tear, just months before the Games would kick off in London. Unstoppable as she is, Kayla Harrison defied all odds once again, to regain her fitness on time and subsequently win the coveted gold medal as the world cheered in admiration and amazement.
3) Oracle Team USA – America’s Cup 2013
The America’s Cup, the world’s oldest international sporting trophy, is a prestigious competition of sailing yachts. The incredible story of its 34th edition in 2013 is one that will remain etched in the memory of sports lovers for years to come.
Going into the regatta, Oracle Team USA were defending champions, having emerged victorious over their Swiss rivals in 2010. However, their 2013 campaign had gotten off to a poor start, with a 2-point penalty already imposed for an earlier cheating offence.
Thus, needing eleven victories to reach the winning mark of 9 points as opposed to challenger Team New Zealand’s nine, Oracle lost six races before they could open their account at the San Francisco Bay event.
Up 8-1 after the first eleven decisive races, the Kiwis had to win just one out of the remaining eight chances in hand. Led by James Spithill, Oracle Team USA clinched all eight of the remaining fixtures to reach the final tally of 9-8, thus successfully staging a fairytale comeback, one of the greatest in the history of sports.
2) Anna Meares – Beijing Olympics 2008
Australian cyclist Anna Meares was a champion already, having won golds at the Olympic, World and Commonwealth stages prior to her shattering start of the year 2008.
In January 2008, while competing at the time-trial event of the World Cup in Los Angeles, she suffered a life-threatening crash. At an extreme speed of 65 km/hr, she came down to hit the hard, wooden floor of the velodrome.
With seven months to go till Beijing Olympics, Anna had a fractured vertebra, a dislocated right shoulder, multiple torn ligaments and deep abrasions all over her body. Almost incredibly, she refused to accept defeat, and was back on the saddle on time to take part in her discipline on the track.
Winning a close contest with China’s Guo Shuang in the semi-finals, Anna Meares battled her way to capture the silver medal in the 2008 Olympic Sprint, an event she would then win four years later, against arch-rival Victoria Pendleton, in London.
1) Sourav Ganguly – 2006-07
Following a string of disappointing performances with the bat from 2004 to 2005, erstwhile skipper Sourav Ganguly was dropped unceremoniously, from the Indian cricket team.
Written off by numerous experts, he refused to bow out and continued to perform at the domestic level, thus paving the way for a call-up when the national side needed him again.
On December 2006, Ganguly returned to international cricket with a half-century in South Africa that helped India recover from a measly 37/4 to win the 1st Test. Though India lost the series, ‘Dada’ finished as the highest scorer for India with 214 runs from 3 matches.
On his ODI comeback in January 2007, against West Indies, Ganguly scored 98 runs which proved to be match-winning. Next, he was adjudged Man of the Series against Sri Lanka which made his selection for the Indian World Cup squad inevitable. In India’s forgettable 2007 World Cup show, the most number of runs had come off Ganguly’s bat.
Scoring 1106 runs at an average of 61.44, Sourav Ganguly was the second highest run-getter in Tests, in 2007, behind only to South Africa’s Jacques Kallis. The exemplary determination with which he resurfaced in world cricket and went on to rule the scorecards till his retirement in 2008 will not be forgotten by cricket-lovers anytime soon.
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