The Miracle on Ice, dubbed after Al Michael’s famous commentary on the 1980 Winter Olympic Games Ice Hockey match between the United States and Soviet Union is one of the most famous sporting events in American history, and one of the biggest upsets worldwide.
The Soviet Union had won the Gold medal at six of the seven previous Winter Olympic Games and headed to the games in Salt Lake City as the clear favourites.
By contrast, Team USA consisted of amateur players. Soviet Union had thrashed USA 10-3 in a pre-tournament friendly between the two.
On 22 February 1980 USA would stun the world with a shock 4-3 victory in the medal-round group game on their way to a Gold medal. Al Michael’s commentary lives in history:
To give you some idea of how much of an upset it was, bookmakers gave Team USA odds of 1,000/1 at the start of the match! Rarely in sports history has such an upset happened.
The longest shot to win the Super Bowl were the 1999 St Louis Rams and even then they only rolled into the season as 300/1 outsiders.
Dick Vermeil’s side had finished 4-12 the previous season and had lost starting Quarterback Trent Green to injury heading into the 1999 season. It was decided that the undrafted Kurt Warner would be the starter for the campaign after a successful spell in NFL Europe.
The Rams made a surprise start to the season going 6-0 before losing to the Tennessee Titans in Nashville. It would prove to be just a small blip as Vermeil’s side would finish the regular season 13-3, which included losing their final game to the Philadelphia Eagles when they had nothing to play for.
St Louis started the playoffs with a 49-37 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, as they were dubbed the ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ with their high octane offence lead by the leading passer and MVP that season, Kurt Warner. Running back Marshall Faulk was elusive in the backfield whilst Isaac Bruce and rookie Torry Holt proved to be excellent targets downfield.
They defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11-6 in the NFC Championship before beating the Tennessee Titans 23-16 at Super Bowl XXXIV with Mike Jones stopping Kevin Dyson 1 yard from the goalline in the final play of the game.
Bigger odds than both the Rams and the USA Men’s Winter Olympic Ice Hockey team? Fast forward to the year 2000 and the Sydney Olympics.
In the 130kg wrestling category, Russia’s Aleksandr Karelin was heavily expected to win Gold. After all, he was undefeated in international competition, on a 13-year winning streak and hadn’t even given up a single point in 10 years! Up stepped American Rulan Gardner, a 2000/1 shot at the start of the competition, to upset Karelin 1-0 in the final.
Though the greatest upset in sporting history, according to the bookmakers, happened very recently. Over in Europe and the English Premier League, Leicester City became the soccer champions in 2015-16 after starting the season at a staggering 5,000/1!
Usually the league is decided between the biggest clubs – Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. But two seasons ago Leicester, who had only narrowly avoided relegation from the EPL the season before, pulled off a stunning campaign to upset the soccer world by becoming champions of England.
Leicester have inspired many punters in Europe to take a long shot bet on football in hope to win some serious money if any team can accomplish the heights the Foxes reached in 2016.
These four shock victories and six more are all included in the graphic below from Betfair which shows the biggest winning odds in sporting history:
