All Hail! Champions are back…….

For the past few days I am excited by the news of Michael Schumacher back in a F1 cockpit. In midst of this excitement, I asked myself this question, “what is it that makes heroes who leave the field, come back?” History has been filled with such examples:

- Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda raced in F1 from 1971 to 1979, retired and came back in 1982 and went on to win the championship in 1984 and then retire again in 1985.

- Lance Amstrong, raced till he was diagnosed of Cancer in 1996, makes a comes back in 1998 fully conquering the cancer and retires in 2005. He comes back from retirement in 2009 and wins.

- Closer home, Souvrav Ganguly, dropped in 1992 due to attitude problems, comes back with a maiden century on debut at Lords, goes on to lead the Indian cricket team. Dropped due to rift with coach in 2005, makes a comeback in 2006 and retiring in 2008.

- Monica Seles dominated tennis till 1993 when she was stabbed, then she comes back in 1995 to take part in pro tennis and wins many afterwards.

- Jennifer Capriati, "the poster child for burned-out sports prodigies," to quote the Chicago Sun-Times, comes back in 1996 after her battle with personal problems.

There are many more, I just picked up what I remembered, not to forget Amitabh Bachchan for his innumerable comebacks or Diego Maradona or Andre Agassi or Stephen Hawking or Sergei Bubka or Goran Ivanišević et. al.

What do these people have to prove to anybody for that matter? What is it that drives them?? They have been there and done that, is it the lure of money, fame or power that draws them back? Money for some yes, but that is not a convincing argument. Fame and power, maybe!

What I felt is that these people are champions in their own right and there is a burning frenzy that always drove them. They had the desire to excel and that is what drives them.

Whatever it takes, I am just happy and inspired to watch these heroes of mine… win or fail, they still will be my heroes...

So….

All Hail! Champions are back…….