Schumacher just one in a long line of sporting comebacks (Feature)

By Peter Auf der Heyde Mar 3, 2010, 4:04 GMT

Berlin - Michael Schumacher's return to the sport he dominated for so long is arguably one of the biggest comebacks in sport, but it certainly is not the only one.

Niki Lauda, Zinedine Zidane, Michael Jordan, Mark Spitz, Kim Clijsters, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman...the list of athletes who came back after taking time out is huge.

Some of them achieved even more greatness after retiring from retirement, others achieved very little, while others still crashed out completely.

Even in Formula One, racing comebacks are not that unusual although the time span between Schumacher's last race (the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2006) and presumably his first after the comeback (Bahrain GP 2010) is by far the longest of any successful driver at 1,239 days.

There have been other remarkable comebacks in the world of Grand Prix racing.

Niki Lauda, who suffered life-threatening burns on the Nurburgring in 1976, famously told his then team boss Bernie Ecclestone in 1979 that he had lost interest in driving around in circles and retired.

After losing a small fortune with an airline he started, the Austrian returned to the sport in 1982 - some 867 days after his last race.

He won the first race in which he competed after coming back and went on to win the drivers' championship in 1984.

Another driver who won his 'second' debut race, so to say, was Frenchmen Alain Prost, who quit the sport for 511 days before coming back to win the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami.

Several footballers have also staged comebacks.

Former World Footballer of the Year Zinedine Zidane retired from international football in 2004 after the Les Bleus were knocked out of the Euro by Greece.

More than a year later, he changed his mind and was again made captain and inspired the French side to the 2006 World Cup final, where he headbutted Italian opponent Marco Materazzi. Zidane retired from all football thereafter.

Dutch international Marc Overmans, who played for several clubs including Ajax and Arsenal, finished his career in 2004 after playing just under 100 games for Spanish giants Barcelona.

He then returned to his first club, Go Ahead Eagles, where he worked as technical manager. In 2008, he played in a testimonial for Jaap Stam and his performance was so impressive that he decided to come out of retirement and start playing again.

He spent the season playing for Go Ahead Eagles, before finally hanging up his boots again at the end of the 2008/2009 season. 'I was very happy to have been able to help my club out,' he said.

'It was the team I started playing for and it was the team I stopped playing for. That was a great feeling.'

Two high-profile boxers have staged comebacks - with very different results.

George Foreman, who retired for the first time in 1974 after losing his world title to Muhammad Ali, came back two years later, but again retired in 1977.

In 1988, when he was 38, he returned to boxing and incredibly went on to reclaim the world title in 1994 - 20 years after having lost it to Ali. At the time he was 45 and he continued boxing for another four years.

Ali, on the other hand, lost badly against Larry Holmes after coming back in 1980 and Ali, who is widely considered the greatest boxer of all times, the Louisville Lip decided it really was time to retire.

Also failing with his comeback attempts was American swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics in 1972 - a record unequalled until 2008 when Michael Phelps broke it.

Spitz tried to compete again in 1991 as a 41-year-old. The attempt failed dismally.

NBA superstar Michael Jordan won three NBA titles after coming back to the sport following a two-year out-time, while Kim Clijsters returned to tennis last year after a lengthy period and won the US Open, for which she had been entered with a wild card entry.

Last month Chinese figure skating pair Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won the Olympic pairs event at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum.

Although the married couple had won the world championship title three times, they did not have an Olympic gold medal in their trophy cabinet and came out of retirement to do so.

Another skater who came out of retirement to compete in Vancouver was American speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez. She had already won two Olympic bronze medals and competed at three Olympics when she felt the urge to come back after having retired at the end of the Turin Olympics in 2006.

'I know I said I was retiring, and I meant it at the time. I had really no intention of coming back to speed skating. I was done. But as the time went on, I wasn't so sure anymore,' she said.

Although she failed to win a medal in Canada, she showed that she could compete with the best and took the US team to fourth place in the team event.

From March 14, when Schumacher is expected to race in his first Grand Prix since coming back, all eyes will be on the German seven- time world champion. Will he be like Lauda, Jordan, Clijsters or Foreman, who showed that it is possible to come back and be the best, or will he bomb out like Ali or Spitz?

Only time will tell.