Great one-hit wonders

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Who are sport's best one hit wonder stories? Golf's rife with them. Ben Curtis, for example, who got into the 2003 Open at the final qualifying event as a totally unknown 25 year old and won it, and has hardly been seen again. Or Craig Perks, the New Zealander who chipped in on two of the last three holes to win the Players Championship in 2002, his only ever win as a pro. Who are the equivalent stories in other sports? Would Leicester City's title count?

[Sits]

I thought of Chris Lewis of NZ who reached the Wimbledon final (was it '83?). Trouble is he then got his arse kicked by John McEnroe.

[Janik]

Leicester had finished runners-up previously and been to four FA Cup finals, albeit a long time ago for both. Much more recently they made three League Cup Finals in four years, winning two of them. They might not have anything that fully matches up to what happened last year but they do have other more minor triumphs.

Some other Tennis ones:
Martin Verkerk: French Open finalist in 2003, only one other Slam run to R3 and four match wins. In fact only nine Slam main draws featured in, total.
Vladimir Voltchkov: Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2000, 5 other match wins, only one R3 showing outside his miracle run and fifteen main draw appearances.
Clarisa Fernandez: French Open semi-finalist in 2002, only one other Slam run to R3, six other match wins and featured in sixteen main draws in total.

Very, very few of these one-off runs end in the title. Maybe Maggie Rybarikova (never previously beyond R3 of a Slam) will be different?

[Sean of the Shed]

Ian Baker-Finch is probably the Golfing one hit wonder I remember most, back when double-barrel names were still posh.
Joe Johnson in snooker.

[Janik]

Baker-Finch was a different sort of beast, I thought. He was a regular near the top of the game for a couple of years prior to his Open triumph, and had come close to winning it previously IIRC. However his game collapsed completely following his one major triumph.

A golfing one would be Jean Van de Velde.

[Patrick Thistle]

Greece winning Euro 2004.

Recently beaten twice in qualifying by the Faroe Islands.

[tee rex]

There have been quite a few in athletics, with the inevitable suspicions aroused. I won't list them all, OTF can't afford the lawyers.

I don't think there were any clouds hanging over the marathons of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Thompson_(runner). Though he was a two-hit wonder.

[Excitable_Boy]

Because the rain makes me think of Wimbledon how about the 96 Mens Final - Krajicek won in his only final appearance beating Washington who never got passed the QFs of a Slam in his 30 attempts.

[ursus arctos]

Romāns Vainšteins

2000 World Road Racing Champion, with very little else (one Giro stage,a couple of classics podiums) on his palmarès.

[Gangster Octopus]

Keith Deller in darts.

[Snake Plissken]

Bracknell Bees, Ice Hockey Superleague champions 1999-2000. Ice Hockey Superleague had a mix of high-budget, Arena based teams in Manchester, Belfast, Sheffield, Newcastle and Nottingham. In between you had smaller rink-based teams in Ayr, Cardiff, Basingstoke and Bracknell. The last two were pretty much supposed to be cannon fodder but somehow, in perhaps the most competitive season of ice hockey seen in the country, the Bees beat their much higher budgeted opposition to win the league.

Obviously this idea of parity couldn't be allowed to continue and Sheffield broke every fucking rule in existence the next year to buy the Grand Sham and set in train the implosion of the league before setting up their own league where only they and their mates can win each year. But that Bees side were pretty damned good to watch and thoroughly deserved to win.

[Wouter D]

England winning the 1966 World Cup.

Less flippantly: Steven Bradbury in short track speed skating. He had some success as part of a relay team, but only one real big hit individually. And what a race that was...

[Stumpy Pepys]

Joe Johnson

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Joe Johnson got to the final the following year as well, didn't he? Does that disqualify him from one hit wonder categorization?

[Excitable_Boy]

England winning the 1966 World Cup.

Less flippantly: Steven Bradbury in short track speed skating. He had some success as part of a relay team, but only one real big hit individually. And what a race that was...

That was George Cohen's only honour in senior football and he played his last game for England just over a year after the Final

[KGR]

Konrad Bartelski - 2nd in the downhill World Cup in 1981.

Wings of Eagles - won the Derby a few weeks ago - his only win apart from his maiden in an average event as a 2 year old. Third in his only run as Derby champion, after which he was retired with an injury.

To all extents and purposes, Australian bowler Bob Massie is cricket's one-hit wonder. SIXTEEN wickets on his test debut in June 1972 - the third best match figures of all time up to then, 16/137. He only played six tests, his last just seven months after his first.

[Diable Rouge]

Kerry hurlers won the All-Ireland in 1891, but haven't won even a provincial title since - indeed, they haven't reached the Munster final since 1908.

[Janik]

Less flippantly: Steven Bradbury in short track speed skating. He had some success as part of a relay team, but only one real big hit individually. And what a race that was...

At the Olympics. He was rated no.1 in the world much earlier in his career, before a previous Olympics, if I remember right. And that went badly when he was the victim of a crash. And then the same four years later, when he was again one of the stronger skaters in the world. The bizarre gold was more like a veteran who had suffered terrible luck suddenly finding it all paid back in one go.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Joe Johnson got to the final the following year as well, didn't he? Does that disqualify him from one hit wonder categorization?

Did he? Forgot about that. Then probably not.

[Hot Pepsi]

Not quite a "one-hit" wonder but Jim Carey won the Vezina before being traded to the Bruins and then turning into a pumpkin, but now he's the CEO of a medical billing company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carey_(ice_hockey)

[elguapo4]

Sporting Fingal, joined the league of Ireland in 2008, got promoted to the premier division in the first year, won the F.A.I cup in 2009, finished 4th in 2010, went bust and dropped out of the league before the start of the 2011 season

[Wouter D]

At the Olympics. He was rated no.1 in the world much earlier in his career, before a previous Olympics, if I remember right. And that went badly when he was the victim of a crash. And then the same four years later, when he was again one of the stronger skaters in the world. The bizarre gold was more like a veteran who had suffered terrible luck suddenly finding it all paid back in one go.

Tsja. If being rated no.1 in the world counts as a "hit", I'll nominate Belgium for topping the FIFA ranking that one time.

[Third rate Leszno]

Pastor Maldonado would be the most obvious of the one hit F1 winners (assuming we're not counting Indy 500 winners from the 1950s when it was a round of the World Championship). The Monza Gorilla, Vittorio Brambilla was another notable journeyman racer who notched up a sole victory, in the wet in Austria in 1975.

[longeared]

Olivier Panis, too, and his victory at Monaco in 1996 was fortunate in the sense that there were only three cars running at the end. Maldonado was at least fast and reliable throughout the meeting where he won - qualified third I think, then Hamilton got relegated for not having enough fuel in the car and he got past Alonso somehow, possibly at a pit stop.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mark Fidrych ("The Bird" 1976.) As a rookie with Detroit pitched only one inning until mid-May. By the end of the season he was 19-9. Won MLB's rookie of the year award and led the majors with a 2.34 average. His home starts at Tiger Stadium drew an average of 33,650 fans, 20,000 more than the team average.

In a pre-season warm-up the following year he tore the cartilage in his knee. Though he made several come-back attempts over the following three years he only pitched in twenty more games. He retired in 1980. Fidrych died in 2009 when his shirt got tangled in the drive shaft of his gravel truck.