Joel Selwood retired from AFL in 2022 after winning that season’s premiership.
Played 355 (club record) games in 16 seasons.
Four premierships (‘07, ‘09, ‘11 & ‘22)
Won 259 games 73% (92% of his first 50 games)
He is the 3rd consecutive Geelong captain to retire after winning the premiership. Tom Harley and Cameron Ling being his predecessors.
A couple I don’t think have been mentioned:
Ash Barty Retired after winning the Austrailian Open (her home grand slam)
Bobby Fischer’s last game was winning the 1972 World Championship unless you include a rematch (which he also won) 20 years later.
I’ve been thinking about these statements, and I guess a title fight (champion vs challenger) can be looked at in two ways:
One is that the champion already has the crown, and thus is defending his/her title.
The other is that the winner of the match wins the title.
I lean toward the second explanation, but obviously YMMV.
If the Chiefs win the Super Bowl next January, will they win the NFL Championship? Or will they just be defending their title?
The SuperBowl is an annual title. Boxing titles are continuous. I don’t want to diminish Marciano’s achievement, it’s just the qualification for the thread. Frankly, I think boxing championships shouldn’t be continuous, it’s part of what makes the boxing title system a mess, but that is the way it works.
I don’t know if any pro boxer has ever retired right after winning their first title. That might not be very impressive at all compared to a champion retiring after a long reign, but still meeting the qualifying conditions of the thread. I’m sure a large number of amateur athletes have retired after winning Olympic medals, but many of them are not very impressive because their post Olympics opportunities are so limited.
Dick Vermeil retired from coaching after winning Super Bowl XXXIV with the Rams, but then unretired after a year, so you can’t really count him.
Lots of other Celtics, too. Frank Ramsey and Tommy Heinsohn retired as world’s champs, and Cousy almost did it, coming back for a few games as a showoff 40 year old.
Hakuho did the same thing but better - 15-0 in last tournament competed, sat out the next tournament, then retired.
Otto Graham is an interesting case. In 1945 he played for the Rochester Royals in the National Basketball League. They won the championship and Graham retired from pro basketball to play football. He joined the Cleveland Browns in the AAFC and led the Browns to championships in ll 4 years. The Browns moved to the NFL and from 1950-55 played in the championship game every year. In 1954 he won his second NFL Championship and announced his retirement.
During training camp for the 1955 season, Graham was lured back and led the Browns to another championship and he retired for good this time.
So Graham retired three times after winning championships, but only twice permanently.
Oh wow, I haven’t been following sumo for a while so I completely missed that!
I read somewhere that he intended to retire after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics; apparently he decided to hang on after that got pushed back. He was definitely in decline, but it was a very slow one, and there was always the chance that he’d go out on top. But zensho…wow. Hail to the emperor.
I have the feeling that Terunofuji could do the same, although that’s obviously much more of a longshot.
Juan Manuel Fangio, widely considered the greatest Formula One driver of all time, won four F1 championships in a row: 1954-57, and retired the next year after running in only three races of the 1958 season. So not quite what the OP asked for, but close.
On an F1 theme, Jochen Rindt won the last Grand Prix he finished but tragically was killed at Monza two races later. He had however won enough points to be the only posthumous F1 champion. Very sad.
On a brighter note, Stuart Broad, England fast bowler, retired from cricket during the final Ashes Test match. On the final day of that game he hit a six off the final ball he faced and took the final two wickets of the match to give England a win and tie the five match series 2-2.
So not quite the complete fairytale ending there but a hell of a way to go out.
Henry Burris was the quarterback for our local CFL team the RedBlacks for their first three years. His first year was a mess, with a 2-16 record. Second season, the team was on fire most of the year, but then lost in the final game for the Grey Cup. His final year was a crazy quilt, but against all odds he got back to the Grey Cup, and won it, despite playing the entire game with what ultimately turned out to be a career-ending knee injury. So he retired on top.
Daryl Strawberry’s last appearance was in the fourth and final game of the 1999 World Series.