7 athletes who have enjoyed amazing late-career resurgences

For a driver like Lewis Hamilton – a seven-time World Champion who holds plenty of the sport's records – there admittedly aren’t many more firsts for the veteran to enjoy. But in Barcelona, Hamilton surged to his maiden Ferrari victory, and in doing so, extended his own record of the longest time between first and most recent wins to a staggering 19 years.

His first Ferrari win comes after something of a fallow spell for Hamilton, whose previous most recent victory came in 2024 in Belgium, and who suffered through a whole season without a podium finish last year. But Hamilton is not the only athlete who has returned to the top of their game as an older, more experienced competitor.

Here are eight world-beating athletes who have delighted fans – and perhaps answered a few critics – with late career resurgences...

Roger Federer

By 2012, fans could be forgiven for assuming that Roger Federer’s incredible era of dominance was over. He had won 17 Grand Slams at this point, but the titles had well and truly dried up.

To make matters tougher for the Swiss athlete, his fearsome rivalry with Rafa Nadal opened up further with the likes of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray also winning tournaments. Following his Wimbledon triumph in 2012, he went five years without a major, and with each season it seemed ever-more likely that we’d seen the last of Federer at the top...

But then came 2017. Returning from knee surgery and a six-month break, Federer went on to win the Australian Open without even dropping a set. That summer, he added another Wimbledon title for good measure – and became the oldest man in the Open Era to win at SW19.

The following year he defended his Australian Open title and even reclaimed the world number one spot – the oldest man to ever do it.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

By the time Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce had announced her pregnancy in 2017, the Jamaican superstar sprinter had already won three world 100m titles and three Olympic medals – two of them gold – so it would have been entirely understandable if she’d considered calling time on her career at that point. But instead, the ‘Pocket Rocket’ was back in training within just eleven weeks of giving birth to her son, even with the lasting pain from her emergency C-section.

But not only was Fraser-Pryce able to compete again, the now self-titled ‘Mummy Rocket’ was able to reach new heights entirely. By 2019, she was back at the top of the world as she went on to win her fourth world 100m title in a world-leading 10.71 seconds – not to mention her fastest time in years – and called the win “a victory for motherhood”.

She wasn’t done there, and went on to run 10.60 seconds in 2021 – the third fastest time in history, and claim a fifth world title in 2022 aged 35.

Does it still count as a late-career resurgence if the second peak was even higher than the first?!

Alain Prost

'The Professor' needs no introduction to F1 fans – the four-time World Champion is simply one of the greatest of all time – but even he had to overcome some sceptics to prove he still had the speed late in his career.

Prost was embroiled in many title fights for Renault, McLaren and Ferrari during his career, claiming three Championships and four runners-up spots between 1983 and 1990.

But after a tough season with the Scuderia in 1991, his very public criticism of the team got him fired before the year was out. A year on the sidelines followed as Prost enjoyed his sabbatical as a TV commentator. But he was still hungry to prove he had more race wins in him.

An opening at the competitive Williams team gave Prost the perfect opportunity to take title number four – and that's exactly what he did. The 1993 season was Prost's last, as he retired at the top of the sport with seven wins and 12 podiums on his way to one last title at 38 years of age before bowing out for good.

Tom Brady

No-one has won more Super Bowls than legendary quarterback Tom Brady – but the American's longevity in achieving his seven titles elevates him as one of the most remarkable athletes of all time.

Brady was a lowly sixth-round draft pick, but in just his second season, he'd taken over the starting job as quarterback for the New England Patriots, leading the franchise to their first NFL title in 2001. The rest of his two-decade career in Foxborough featured five more Super Bowls, three Most Valuable Player Awards, and 15 Pro Bowls.

At 42 years old, Brady was already regarded as one of the greats, but some had doubts as to whether whether a man of his age could still compete in the NFL. But after signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he silenced them all, winning the Super Bowl and Super Bowl MVP in his first year before going on to lead the league in passing yards and touchdowns at 43.

Brady finally retired for good in 2023 at age 45 while holding the accolades of oldest quarterback to start in the NFL, as well as having the most passing yards, touchdown passes, and games started – unmatched longevity from the American football icon.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods wasted no time at all reaching the very top of golf. Having turned professional in 1996 aged just 20, it took just a year for the American to reach world number one and to win his first major – a record-breaking 12-shot victory at the Masters, no less.

He went on to win 14 majors from 1997 to 2008, while also becoming one of the very few competitors to win every golf major, thus completing the career grand slam.

However, having suffered a series of back injuries and issues outside of golf, Woods dropped outside the world's top 1000 golfers, having only competed in one tournament in three years until January 2018.

Many thought his days of domination were over, but Woods had one more magical moment in him. At Augusta in 2019, he quietly put together some solid rounds, keeping his cool as others fell around him to win his fifth green jacket at 43 years of age. It had been 11 years between majors for Tiger – one of the great comeback stories and an incredible achievement after so long out of the winners' circle.

Kim Clijsters

Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters retired from the sport aged just 23, having already achieved what many in tennis work their entire lives for.

She had burst onto the scene by making the quarter-finals of Wimbledon at 16, before narrowly losing at the 2001 French Open as a teenager. Two Tour Championships, a period as world number one and a US Open in 2005 followed for the young star, but after suffering with injuries for a number of years, she retired in 2007.

During her two-year hiatus, Clijsters married and had a daughter before rediscovering her love of tennis. She came out of retirement in what she described as a 'second career', and any naysayers quickly had to keep quiet, as she shocked the world to win the US Open as a wildcard.

After becoming the first unseeded player to win the event, Clijsters went on to return to number one while winning two more Grand Slams.

Jack Brabham

They all said he was too old, but Jack Brabham spent his whole life proving people wrong. The former flight mechanic took up racing in 1948 in Australia before moving to Europe in 1955.

Armed with his impressive understanding of cars from his mechanic days, Brabham helped develop the Cooper team before winning back-to-back World Championships in 1959 and 1960 at 34 years of age.

The Australian left Cooper in 1962 to start his own team – Brabham Racing. It took a few years to get going, but in 1966, Brabham was back winning races – and claimed his third title.

Not only was he the first and only man to win the championship in a car of his own make, but he also won the Championship as a 40-year-old, becoming the third oldest man to do so. He even found time to poke fun at his critics who claimed he was too old – once theatrically hobbling to his car at Zandvoort with a cane and fake beard...

Meanwhile Allyson Felix was already the most-decorated female track and field Olympian in history when the sprinter announced her retirement in 2022, with 11 medals over an incredible five Olympic Games.

Earlier this year, Felix announced her intention to come out of retirement and has her sights firmly set on a sixth Olympics in front of a home crowd at the 2028 Games in LA. In interviews, she expressed this was fuelled by curiosity and a desire to challenge what can be possible for women in their 40s. Can she join our list of late-career winners? Time will tell.

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