 "Rewind 2024: From Rishabh Pant to Manu Bhaker, a look at biggest sporting comebacks")
Being a sportsperson or a sports team is not just about winning matches and tournaments. It’s also about how you deal with yourself in tough situations to script comebacks that so often end up inspiring millions, sometimes even generations. It can be a comeback from anything, ranging from injuries to poor form.
And 2024 has witnessed quite a few of those, with athletes and teams making awe-inspiring comebacks. India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was a perfect example of that, and so are Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who made it to the IPL 2024 playoffs in one of the most stunning ways.
With the year almost coming to an end, we take a quick look at athletes and teams who have had quite a year of comebacks.
Manu Bhaker
Manu Bhaker, a multiple Shooting World Cup gold medallist, finally added Olympic medals to her kitty this year in Paris. At the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, a pistol malfunction derailed Manu’s campaign. In Paris, however, she did the unthinkable, by winning bronze in the women’s individual 10m air pistol and the mixed team 10m air pistol competition.
Rishabh Pant
Rishabh Pant, the India wicketkeeper-batter, suffered multiple injuries in December 2022 during a car accident while driving from Delhi to Roorkee. While he spent all of 2023 undergoing surgeries and recovering from those injuries, 2024 was the year he would make a comeback to the cricket field.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsPant made his competitive return in IPL 2024 and led Delhi Capitals (DC). Although he endured a rather slow start to his IPL campaign, he gradually found his rhythm, going on to score 446 runs from 13 matches (Three fifties).
Pant carried forward his sensational comeback story to the Indian team, especially in Tests where he scored a century against Bangladesh during the Chennai Test. At the IPL 2025 auction in November, Pant became the most expensive IPL player ever after he was acquired by Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) for Rs 27 crore. Big things are in store for Pant in 2025.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)
One match changed it all for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in IPL 2024, and that was the league stage game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on 18 May. In fact, RCB had an underwhelming start to their campaign with just one win in their first eight games.
But Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis ensured that RCB didn’t slip up, with their team winning six matches in a row between 25 April and 18 May. After RCB batted first against CSK, they needed to win by 18 runs or more. Having been asked to bat first, RCB posted 218/5 on the board thanks to valuable contributions from the top-order, and defended that in style, winning by 27 runs. RCB, however, went down to Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator.
Matteo Berrettini
At the 2023 US Open, Italian tennis player Matteo Berrettini was ruled out of action for six months after sustaining an ankle injury. His ATP ranking had once dropped to 154, but the 28-year-old has made a remarkable turnaround after his competitive return in March. He won three ATP Tour titles in 2024 and also recently won the ATP Comeback Player of the Year. He is currently ranked 34th.
Mohammed Shami
Mohammed Shami sustained an ankle injury during the 2023 ODI World Cup final against Australia. His road to recovery has been far from easy, with the India pacer undergoing knee surgery in February that kept him out of the better part of 2024. Shami, however, made his competitive return for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy and picked seven wickets in the match against Madhya Pradesh, including a four-fer in the first innings . While it’s still not certain if Shami would fly to Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, one would assume an India return is not that far away.
Spain football team
The Spanish football team finally had their hands on a “major” trophy this year by winning the 2024 European Championships. Although Spain did win the UEFA Nations League in 2022-23, a Euro Cup or the FIFA World Cup had been eluding them for more than a decade.
And it was a perfect, 100 per cent campaign, for La Roja, who won all of their matches en route to title triumph, beating England 2-1 in the final. This tournament also produced a few young Spanish stars like Lamine Yamal, Dani Olmo, Nico Williams to name a few.
Vinesh Phogat
The 30-year-old didn’t win an Olympic medal in Paris 2024, but Vinesh Phogat missed out on silver only due to failing weight ahead of the final , as no one managed to defeat her on the mat. Despite spending months protesting on the streets against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and staying away from practice for an extended period, Vinesh stunned everyone by handing Japan’s Tokyo gold medallist Yui Susaki her first-ever defeat in her very first bout.
She later became the first female wrestler from India to reach the Olympic final, but a cruel twist of fate led to her disqualification. Since then, she has ventured into politics and won the Julana seat in the Haryana Assembly elections.
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