From Agassi to Zidane - great athletes quit in 2006

By Ulrike John Dec 30, 2006, 17:41 GMT

Stuttgart, Germany - From Andre Agassi to Zinedine Zidane - rarely has a year seen so many prominent sportsmen and women retire as 2006.

Martina Navratilova finally called it quits, so did Michael Schumacher and Ian Thorpe. Floyd Landis, Justin Gatlin and Jan Ullrich may follow against their will over doping violations.

The most spectacular finale belonged to the French football star Zidane.

The 1998 World Cup winner and three-time World Footballer had announced early in the year that the World Cup in Germany would be his last showing because he wanted to have more time 'for my wife Veronique and my children.'

But his retirement came 10 minutes earlier than planned when he lost his temper in the July 9 World Cup final against Italy - sent off for infamously head-butting Marco Materazzi after being insulted by the Italian.

'I knew it was my last tournament and to reach the final - even though I would have liked it to end on a happier note - with everyone working together with such grit and determination was simply amazing,' Zidane recalled his last big event.

Agassi would have also preferred a better ending to his tennis career than a third-round defeat against German qualifier Benjamin Becker at the US Open - followed by his usual round of bows, although in tears on this final occasion, to the sellout New York crowd on September 3.

'The scoreboard said I lost, but it doesn't say what it is I've found over the last 21 years.

'I've found loyalty, you have pulled for me on court and in life. I've found inspiration. You've willed me to succeed, sometimes even at my low moments. I'll take you and my memory of you through the rest of my life,' he said.

Agassi turned from tennis punk to elder statesman of the game over the decades and quit with 60 career titles including a career Grand Slam (one of only five tennis players to achieve this).

At the same tournament, Navratilova also finally quit shortly ahead of her 50th birthday. The former icon had returned to the game a few years earlier to play doubles and then quit for good with a smile.

Navratilova had nothing more to prove, and neither did Thorpe and Schumacher.

The Australian icon Thorpe was not even half as old than Navratilova when he announced his retirement from swimming in November at age 24, feeling mentally empty after a career highlighted by five Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles.

'You can swim lap after lap, staring at a black line, and all of a sudden you look up and see what's around. That's what it feels like to me,' he said.

Schumacher stepped out of his Ferrari for the last time on October 22 as the most successful driver in Formula One history - with seven world titles and 91 race wins only his most prominent records in the sport.

'It has been difficult in a way but I simply knew that all the energy, all the effort, all the motivation to be competitive. I can't see I'm going to have that for further years,' he said.

Gatlin is the Olympic 100m champion and has a sprint double from the 2005 worlds, but a positive test for testosterone could end his career as a second time offender. Gatlin is allegedly pondering a career in American Football.

Compatriot Landis faces being stripped of the Tour de France title after testing positive for the same steroid. Landis is well aware that he is disgraced in the cycling world along with the German Ullrich, who was among those implicated over a Spanish doping probe.

'Even if I am not banned, who would step up and sign me?' Landis said.