Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2022 June 6

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June 6

Athletes and sportspeople who retired immediately or shortly after their first championship or significant victory

Apart from Nico Rosberg, who are examples of athletes and sportspeople who retired either immediately or shortly after winning their first championship or significant victory? By significant victory, I imagine things like a Grand Slam in tennis (or really, any tournament win for that matter), a gold medal finish at an event, a tournament win, etc. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon, retired 40 days later. Tarik Glenn won the Super Bowl and immediately retired. Nanonic (talk) 08:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Ted Hopkins had a short career in the top tier of Australian Rules Football. He was brought on to the ground at half time in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. He kicked four goals (24 points) to help his team, Carlton, overcome a 44 point deficit and win the match. In his entire 29 game career, he kicked ten goals. He retired after one more game the following season. And for anyone thinking I'm talking about a minor sport here, that 1970 VFL Grand Final attracted a crowd of 121,696. (Plus me walking in for free at three quarter time.) HiLo48 (talk) 09:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

In ice hockey, Ray Bourque retired after winning the 2001 Stanley Cup, the first of his career, in his 21st season. I'm sure there were others who did something similar. Xuxl (talk) 13:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

And it is quite common for athletes to retire right after winning an Olympic gold medal - even a first one. Knowing it's four full years until the next Olympics makes the decision easier. Xuxl (talk) 17:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Andrew Whitworth just retired after winning the Super Bowl and the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award this past February. Pinguinn 🐧 20:32, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

One could argue that Jochen Rindt 'retired' before winning the 1970 Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship, in that he was killed during practice for the 10th race of the 13-race season but had already scored enough points that no-one else was able to reach his total in races 10–13, so he was posthumously awarded the title. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.171.123 (talk) 07:15, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Flavia Pennetta announced her retirement in her acceptance speech upon winning the 2015 US Open although later clarified she would play out the rest of the season. Australian Ashleigh Barty's retirement came not that long after her 2022 Australian Open victory which wasn't that long after her 2021 Wimbledon Championships, and she was also the top ranked WTA singles tennis player at the time. Nil Einne (talk) 03:16, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

After the US team won at the Ice hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics tournament Mike Eruzione did not play any high-level ice hockey after the games, as he felt that he had accomplished all of his hockey goals with the gold medal win. MarnetteD|Talk 04:25, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

References

If we're including team sports, since in many of these either some sort of World Cup/World Championship or the Olympics is most prestigious achievement (with some obvious exceptions where some domestic league or match is more important like basketball, baseball, American football, Aussie rules, arguably rugby league) and these tend to be every 4 years, I don't think it's particularly uncommon that a player retires from the international game after such a major victory.

Sometimes the retirement may be already announced, Zinedine Zidane is one who nearly made that group but not only did France not win the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he had a rather egregious exit in the final. Richie McCaw is one who announced his retirement after, in his case captaining his team to victory in the 2015 Rugby World Cup Final.

A complicating issue is that some may retire from the international sport but still play professional in some other way. For example Dan Carter also effectively retired from the international game after the aforementioned 2015 Rugby World Cup Final, although I can't remember if he specifically said he was retiring and my quick searches didn't find anything useful in part since he has now fully retired from professional rugby (after about 5 more years playing). While the situation is a little different there from many other sports since it's hard to continue to play for NZ if you want to play professional outside NZ especially continually, I don't think it's that uncommon that someone may announce they're not to play any more for their national team when they're nearing the end of their career and just achieved a major victory, especially when they don't expect to still be there when the next major tournament comes around, but may still play professionally for some domestic league or similar. (Of course in all cases a player may simply not be selected for their national team because they aren't see as good enough or there's a perceived need for younger players etc, but I'm restricting it to cases where it's basically the player's decision.)

You can get even more complicated cases like cricket, where someone may chose to retire from one day cricket and/or first class matches while still playing T20s. (Or other combinations, but the money in T20s means that nowadays it's what players tend to stick around for, especially the Indian Premier League.)

Nil Einne (talk) 10:55, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

See [1] which also mentions Li Na's retirement not that long after winning the 2014 Australian Open. Nil Einne (talk) 04:43, 9 June 2022 (UTC)