It can be just a couple of days. It can last over a decade, but we all love a heroic comeback, however long they take. From Mike Hailwood, Barry Sheene, Mick Doohan, Jorge Lorenzo to the current comeback king Marc Marquez, they have all won a place in our hearts.
Bravery to fight back from injury to fulfil their ultimate dream, a World Championship crown. Lorenzo took just two days to commence his biggest comeback, while Marquez waited a very long 2184 days to finally achieve his. For Hailwood, it had nothing to do with injuries but sheer boredom, when most people see grandchildren and pension planning on the horizon. Sheene became an overnight national hero before that first World Championship or even MotoGP victory, following a television documentary on his 250 kph crash at Daytona. Doohan missed winning his first World Championship by just four points on his comeback. After his Assen crash, he had to wait over a year for his next win and two and a half years for the first of his five MotoGP crowns.
When Honda pulled out of Grand Prix racing at the end of the season in 1967, they paid the four times MotoGP World Champion Hailwood a considerable amount of money not to continue World Championship racing for another factory. They lent him a multi-cylinder machine to compete in a few non-championship lucrative meetings, but he concentrated his considerable talent into Formula One car racing. He achieved two podium finishes and in 1973 was awarded the George Medal for saving the life of Clay Regazzoni when he pulled him out of a burning car at Kyalami in South Africa. However, the two-wheel itch would just not go away for the seventy-six times Grand Prix winner. At the age of 38, Hailwood decided to return to mainstream racing. Not Grand Prix racing but where it all started in 1949. In 1978 he returned to the Isle of Man and legendary mountain circuit to ride a Ducati in the TT Formula One race. Of course, he won and repeated his victory a year later before finally retiring after breaking his collarbone on a short circuit race. Tragically, in 1981 he was killed in a road traffic accident together with his nine-year-old daughter Michelle.
We were all massive Barry Sheene fans in the mid-seventies and went on a trip of a lifetime. Flying to New York and then travelling all the way down the east coast of America by Greyhound bus to watch our hero compete in the Daytona 200 miler. By the time we arrived Barry was in hospital and well on his way to becoming a legend back home in Britain. Thames television had sent documentary film maker Frank Cvitanovich to follow Barry in action, but nobody could have forecast the outcome.
As Barry raced onto the 250 kph banking, his 750 Suzuki wrenched sideways throwing the stricken rider towards the Florida sky, culminating into a 300 metre slide along the tarmac. All was captured on camera, but two shots made Barry the hero of the nation; crumpled in a heap, he tried to undo his helmet strap with a broken right arm and then, while lying in the hospital accident department , he described his injuries to the camera. A broken right femur, a broken right arm, compression fractures to several vertebrae and the loss of skin from most of his back, he told the camera before, of course, asking for the customary cigarette. In just seven weeks he was in action at Cadwell Park and four months later won his first MotoGP Grand Prix after an epic duel with Giacomo Agostini in Assen.
Barry went on to win two MotoGP World Championships and 18 more grands prix. In 1982 while challenging for the world title with Kenny Roberts he crashed in practice for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Surely it was the end of his career when he suffered a snapped left wrist, broken knuckles, shattered knees and burnt eyebrows after the fireball crash. Seven months later he returned for the first Grand Prix of the 1983 season at Kyalami. He finished tenth and continued racing for another couple of years.
Mick Doohan arrived at Assen in buoyant mood and brilliant form in 1992. The Australian had won the opening four Grands Prix, was second in the next two and won the last to lead the Championship by 53 points. In a chaotic qualifying session Doohan crashed, breaking his right leg. He decided to have the operation on the leg at the local hospital.
All seemed to have gone well, when Mick became concerned. He was alerted as his leg was starting to turn black. The hospital ignored his concerns but when amputation was mentioned something or somebody had to step in. The legendary Grand Prix doctor, Dr Costa, kidnapped Doohan and the injured Kevin Schwantz out of the hospital and flew them to his clinic at Imola in Italy. Mick then transferred to a clinic in America where they fought to prevent his right leg being amputated. At one point he had both legs sewn together to keep the blood flowing as he watched Wayne Rainey slowly but surely whittle down that Championship lead. Doohan could just not let it happen and seven weeks after the crash arrived at Interlagos in Brazil for the penultimate round of the title chase.
He could barely walk, let alone ride a MotoGP bike round a very difficult and slippery track. Rainey was 22 points adrift but cut the advantage down to just two points after winning the race, with Doohan out of the points in 12th place per the old points system. It was down to the final round at Kyalami in South Africa. Rainey knew what he had to do – and did it. Somehow Mick fought through the pain barrier to finish sixth, but Rainey’s third place was enough for the title by just four points.
Mentally and physically, it took Doohan a long time to recover. He secured one win at Mugello in 1993 over a year after the Assen crash, but then the floodgates opened. Five successive MotoGP crowns followed that, before another crash at Jerez in 1999 brought an incredible career to an end.
Marc Marquez’s seventh MotoGP Championship win at Motegi broke all the longevity comeback records. It makes staggering reading and honestly cannot be matched by many or any in other sports. Just where do you start? One thousand and forty-three days between Grand Prix wins. Two thousand one hundred and eighty-four days between the last two World Championships. One hundred and eight crashes and five major operations in that time.
At the very opposite end of the time scale but showing the same bravery and sheer determination comes another Spanish MotoGP World Champion, Jorge Lorenzo.
Twelve years ago, at a wet Assen circuit, Lorenzo crashed in the Thursday second practice session. It was painfully obvious he’d broken his collarbone with the dreaded dropped left shoulder as he limped away. We wondered when the World Champion would return but just two days never came into our predictions. He flew back to Barcelona to have a titanium plate fitted with ten screws to mend the broken bone. Lorenzo flew back to Assen on the Friday evening and raced into an incredible fifth place after 26 laps of pain. Unfortunately, it was not a happy ending for the World Champion. Two weeks later he crashed at the Sachsenring in Germany and re-broke the collarbone. That crown went to then-rookie sensation Marc Marquez. But less than a year and a half later Lorenzo won his third MotoGP World Championship in 2015.
It really does not matter the length of time, whatever the circumstances and extent of injuries. Every one of those riders and plenty more are true heroes.