LeBron James joins list of sports legends defying age at 40

LeBron James turned 40 on December 30. Photo / Getty Images

When LeBron James, who turned 40 on Monday, takes to the court for the Los Angeles Lakers against his former team the Cleveland Cavaliers tomorrow, he will join a long line of sporting legends who have defied time.

AFP lists some of the most successful fortysomethings from the history of sport.

TOM BRADY

When he retired in 2023, at the age of 45, the quarterback had set the record for most Super Bowl wins. The first six came with the New England Patriots. The last, aged 43, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021 made him the oldest player to win the Super Bowl. He was also named the game’s MVP for good measure.

ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC

AC Milan brought back the serial medal collector in 2019, when he seemed destined to quietly ending his career with Los Angeles Galaxy. The striker repaid them in 2021-2. Despite the injuries that forced him to retire after the next season, he scored eight goals in 23 league appearances to win the last of his 12 league crowns aged 40.

FORMIGA

Miraildes Maciel Mota, known as Formiga (the ant) owing to her hard-working style, made her Brazil debut at 17 in 1995 and accumulated 234 caps before retiring in November 2021 aged 43. The midfielder appeared in seven Olympic football tournaments and seven World Cups, both records. She played for 15 clubs, winning the French league with Paris Saint-Germain in her final season.

MERLENE OTTEY

The Jamaican was 40 when she won 100m bronze and sprint relay silver in 2000 in Sydney, for her eighth and ninth Olympic medals, 20 years after the bronze she won in the 200m in Moscow. Ottey went on to win two more bronze medals: at the 2001 World Championships (4x100m) for Jamaica, and at the 2003 World Indoor Championships (60m) for Slovenia. She reached the semi-finals of the 100m in Athens in 2004 aged 44.

DIANA TAURASI

The veteran guard only played 56 minutes in the Paris Olympic tournament and did not impress as the American women edged France in the basketball final, but she still collected a record sixth straight basketball gold aged 42.

MIJAIN LOPEZ

After the Cuban won the super-heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling in Paris in August to become, at 41, the first athlete to win five consecutive Olympic gold medals in the same individual event he left his shoes in the middle of the ring - a tradition for retiring wrestlers.

GEORGE FOREMAN

“Big George” won the world heavyweight boxing title for the first time in 1973 aged 24 before losing it 20 months later to Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle. He finally regained one of the significant titles aged 45 in 1994, to become the oldest heavyweight world champion. When he hung up his gloves three years later, his record read 76 victories, including 68 by KO, to 5 defeats.

STANLEY MATTHEWS

The Wizard of the Dribble won only one trophy in a top-flight career that began in 1933 and ended just after he turned 50 in 1965. He famously inspired Blackpool to victory in the 1953 FA Cup Final aged 38, but perhaps his most remarkable honour came in 1956, when he was voted the best player in Europe and awarded the Ballon D’Or aged 41 - five years older than the next oldest winner, Lionel Messi in 2023.

LINDSEY VONN

Since returning to the skiing World Cup circuit in December, following a six-year break, the American ski legend has not yet had time to add to her 82 victories, but her explanation for her comeback could be a rallying call for all those who keep competing after 40: “Life is short,” she said.