Michael Schumacher calling it a day
This is truly the end of an era, in the likes of Jordan, Sampras or Muhammed Ali hangin em up. Tiger Woods even calls him the greatest athlete of today.
When I first began watching him, he already had 20 or so Grand Prix wins and 2 World Championships. However, the record of 51 wins(at the time) of Alain Prost and 5 World Championships of Juan Manuel Fangio seemed so totally unattainable, no one even spoke of them.
But Schumacher was a force of nature and transformed Ferrari into a dominating force and totally smashed those records with 7 World Titles and now a breathtaking 90 Grand Prix victories.
Ironically, my favourite Schumacher memories were when his most human and flawed side could be seen. Jerez '97, Spa '98 and Suzuka '99. Even in defeat(racing and otherwise) he stood tall and no one could doubt for an instant that he was still easily the best driver on Earth.
posted by ds @ 2:05 PM
I could never understand my father and his uncle's fascination with F-1 and Schumacher all those years. Only in the past few months when I accidentally cought a race on TV one Sunday morning, have I become interested in it, and watched it weekly since. Although I know little about the history of F-1, Schumacher's name transcends the sport, and I don't care how many new hotshots like Alonso are on the track...you just know they'll be eating Schu's dust sooner or later.