I don’t think you’ll have to wait very long. Plenty of analysts have already been listing it as the greatest Super Bowl ever, and for good reason. A flawless performance by the Giants defensive line, and one of the greatest catches in NFL history.
Oh, and I second (or third?) Kerri Strug. That last vault performance is still stuck in my head, and I was only 11 at the time and cared very little for gymnastics.
Two examples of guys really pulling it out and playing the game of their lives are John Daly winning the 1991 PGA golf and Buster Douglas knocking out Tyson in 1990.
Daly was the 9th alternate for the PGA - last on the list. Nick Price dropped out and no one else could make it, so Daly drove through the night to Indiana, no practice round on the course and posted a first round 69. 67-69-71 followed and he won by 3 strokes.
Daly’s win was an amazing come from nowhere affair, but he is, or was, clearly world class at his sport and has gone on to win another major. Buster Douglas, OTOH, was a journeyman fighter who fought the fight of his life on one night to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Now, IME people who don’t follow boxing think Tyson is the greatest, baddest fighter who ever laced them up. People who do follow boxing, OTOH, think he is the most over-rated fighter of the modern era who wouldn’t crack a top 20 all-time heavyweight list. The truth lies somewhere in between, but there is no doubt that he was absolutely feared at the time and had a lot of his fights won before he even stepped into the ring.
Douglas’s mother had died just before the fight, and he fought like a man with an epic point to prove. He completely dominated Tyson with his jab from the opening bell, high quality boxing with no fear. Tyson’s corner weren’t even prepared properly for the fight, they thought it would be such a stroll in the park they didn’t have the tools with them to deal with swelling - One of Tyson’s eyes was a ruin late on in the fight.
Iron Mike nearly swung it round in the 8th round, putting Buster down for a long count. He got back on his feet and won it in the 10th with a severe uppercut - put Mike on queer street and he couldn’t beat the count. Buster Douglas was the heavyweight champion of the world.
And that was it! The stars had aligned and then drifted apart. Douglas showed up for his next fight against Evander Holyfield looking like the Michellin man and was outclassed in 3 rounds. He never fought at the top level again.
Here is a record that is probably never going to be beaten and no-one has yet come close to.
Jim Laker’s Test: The Fourth Ashes test at Old Trafford in 1956, with his bowling analysis of 19 for 90.
No other bowler has taken more than seventeen wickets in a first-class match, let alone in a Test match.
I actually came in here to post about Kerri Strug. You look up “clutch” in the dictionary and you see that final vault.
If Kerri Strug hadn’t vaulted the US still would have won the gold. I can’t say an irrelevant vault was the biggest accomplishment in sports.
Adrian Peterson rushed for over 250 yards in a half last year.
I don’t think this is especially close. It’s Cal Ripkin Jr’s 2632 game record for consecutive games played over 16 years.
I would second the vote for Bob Beamon.
Second choice would be Don Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series.
Allie Reynolds and Virgil Trucks also pitched two no-hitters in the same season.
I believe Allie Reynolds threw two no hitters in a season for the yankees back in the 50s (1957? I’m not sure off the top of my head.)
I’m astounded by the lack of props to Joe D and the 56 game hitting streak. What’s more amazing that the game after the streak ended, he reeled off a 17 game streak as well. So he hit in 73 out of 74 games. Now THAT is something we’ll not live long enough to see again.
No way. Gehrig’s streak is in the ballpark and I think both Favre and Walter Payton had more impressive runs in a far more physically demanding sport. Payton missed 1 game in 13 years as a running bacl that wouldn’t run out of bounds and looked for contact on every play.
Payton’s 275 yard rushing game with the flu is probably up there too.
Here is another someone who is never going to be matched again.
Alexander Karelin: A 13 year winning streak at the heaviest weight category in Wrestling of which in the final six of those years he never dropped a point in competition.
Babe Ruth’s 54 home runs in a single season has to be one of the greatest, because it had such a great effect on the sport itself. Following Ruth’s accomplishments (and his 27 the year prior), the strategy of pitching and defense had to change to guard against the home run. I’d also put Jackie Robinson’s inaugural season with the Brooklyn Dodgers up there, for performing as such a high level despite the constant threats and criticism and racism he faced.
Other events are notable on an individual scale (such as minor-leaguer Ron Neccai pitching 27 strikeouts in a 9-inning game, or Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak) but they didn’t influence the sport itself.
I don’t follow other sports well enough to make a similar comparison.
I wouldn’t rank it as greatest, but I don’t think that takes away from the accomplishment in any way.
I feel bad about Shun Fujimoto, though. I saw an interview with him in which he said that no, it was not worth the damage he did to his leg.
Things like those, or Cal Ripken’s streka, don’t really count as a single accomplishment, though, do they?
By that logic, neither would a 20-strikeout game, or a triple-double, or a 100-point effort in basketball, or a lifetime .374 batting average.
And when he finally did get beat, it took Superman to do it.
*Rulon Gardner has had an amazing streak of luck with survival. While in grammar school, Rulon was impaled by an arrow in a show-and-tell incident. In 2002, Gardner was stranded on a wilderness snowmobile trip and had to have a toe amputated after suffering frostbite. In 2004, he was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle. In February 2007, Gardner and two others crashed a Cirrus SR-22 airplane into Lake Powell. After surviving the impact, he was forced to swim in 44 degree Fahrenheit (7 °C) water for over an hour. He survived overnight with two others without shelter or fire in 28 degree Fahrenheit (−2 °C) air temperature. His amazing luck streak continued when a fisherman, out of his usual route, found and picked them up in the morning. *
Typical Yankee fan, overstating his teams importance in the grand pantheon of sports. The Red Sox beat the Yanks in the ALCS, not the World Series. 
I don’t know if it’s the “single greatest accomplishment” but I will agree that was some of the most exciting baseball I’ve ever seen.
I’m not sure I follow. A 20-strikeout game is a single accomplishment, as is a (not rare) triple-double, and (done only once) 100-point game. The lifetime BA I understand, though.
The OP might want to specify some parameters, or else this just becomes, “name everything great that ever happened in sports.” Individual accomplishment or team accomplishment? Over what time span – a play, a match, a series, a season, a career? And how are you judging “greatest”? The OP seems to put the emphasis on overcoming a personal limitation (there have been 256 no hitters in MLB history so Abbot isn’t peerless merely by throwing one). Others have focused on those who broke previous records, changed the nature of or expectations in their sport, or whose performance was particularly crucial to winning a championship.
I already posted in this thread but I thought of another that fits the intent of the OP better. At the 2005 Ironman race in Hawaii, Jon Blais, afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(Lou Gherig’s Disease), finished the race even though his hands were so weak he almost could not hold his bicycle’s handlebars. He watched the 2006 race from a wheelchair and died in 2007.
Bill Mosienko’s natural hat trick- in 21 seconds
Beat those. Not only will you not be able to do it, nobody will, except maybe on a Nintendo.