From Long Shots to Legends: 5 Most Unlikely Sports Champions

There's nothing quite like rooting for the underdog and seeing them actually pull off a victory. Sometimes it's an upset in a tournament to move on to the next round or a real David vs. Goliath moment, with the unlikely winner slaying a big name.

Those wins, however, are usually just a Cinderella team picking up a victory in the early rounds of a tournament without getting much further in later rounds. It's fun to watch while they last, but it was never likely they'd go all the way.

But what about those athletes who use their time in the spotlight to actually win it all? It's a rare occurrence, but these champions proved it could be done.

1. U.S. Olympic Hockey Team (1980)
2. Villanova Basketball (1985)
3. Buster Douglas (1990)
4. Indiana University Football (2026)
5. Leicester City (2016)

U.S. Olympic Hockey Team (1980)

The 1980 Olympics were held in Lake Placid, New York, but home country advantage was not expected to be much help for the U.S. Olympic hockey team. The team was made up of young college players who faced their toughest game during the Winter Games against a strong Soviet team, with most of the players also part of the Soviet Union's Red Army.

So it was a real shock when the ragtag U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet machine in a game that has been called the Miracle on Ice. And while the game is considered one of the biggest upsets in sports, it wasn't a gold-medal-winning game for the team, as they had to beat Finland in the final game of the tournament to secure their unlikely gold medal.

Villanova Basketball (1985)

College basketball's annual March Madness tournament has produced plenty of Cinderella stories and unlikely upsets over the years, but those Cinderellas usually have their carriages turn back into pumpkins before a more likely champion is crowned.

That wasn't the case, however, in 1985 when Villanova faced Georgetown in the tournament's final game. Villanova was only an eight-seed team against the No. 1-seeded Hoyas, led by future NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing. But the Wildcats prevailed, winning by only two points to secure the championship. The team is still the lowest seed to ever win that title.

Buster Douglas (1990)

Buster Douglas was facing a daunting fight in 1990 against heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. It was so bad that some casinos in Las Vegas decided not to take bets on the fight, assuming that it would be an easy win for Tyson, who had a 37-0 record.

Instead, Douglas took 10 rounds to knock out Tyson, stunning the boxing world. It also shocked Tyson, who was rumored to have been partying instead of training in the days leading up to the match, assuming it would be an easy win for him.

Indiana University Football (2026)

Indiana University's football team had been lovable losers for decades, with one of the worst winning percentages of any football team in the football bowl era. Then the team hired coach Curt Cignetti, who quickly turned the team into a winning powerhouse.

The Hoosiers went from perennial losers to a winning record and, in 2026, won the college football championship with an unbeaten 16-0 record. That's a pretty amazing turnaround for a team that was 3-9 three years earlier and hadn't made a bowl game in years.

Leicester City (2016)

Just how unlikely was Leicester City's Premier League championship in 2016? The team had 5000-to-1 odds that they could win the title in one of soccer's most important leagues.

But that's exactly what the team did, picking up the championship despite having one of the lowest-paid rosters in a league that favored highly financed teams with big names. The last time the team had seen any success close to that was a second-place finish in the Premier League, and that was in 1929.